Swap i3 displays / workspaces between displays

i3_screen_swap.sh

#!/bin/sh
# requires jq

stick_to="name" && cmd="workspace"      	# stick to the workspace
# stick_to="output" && cmd="focus output" 	# stick to the screen

initial=$(
	i3-msg -t get_workspaces |
	jq -r ".[] | select(.focused == true) | .$stick_to"
)

py_script=$(cat <<EOF
import sys
from numpy import roll

s, w = [], []
for l in sys.stdin.readlines():
	screen, workspace =  l.strip().split(':', 1)
	s.append(screen)
	w.append(workspace)

for line in zip(s, roll(s,1), w, roll(w, -1)):
	print(' '.join(line))
EOF
)

i3-msg -t get_outputs |
jq -r '.[] | select(.active == true) | "\(.name):\(.current_workspace)"' |
python3 -c "$py_script" |
while read -r screen_src screen_dst workspace_tgt workspace_final
do
	i3-msg -- workspace --no-auto-back-and-forth "$workspace_tgt"
	i3-msg move workspace to output "$screen_dst"
	i3-msg focus output "$screen_src"
	i3-msg -- workspace --no-auto-back-and-forth "$workspace_final"
	echo "moved $workspace_tgt to $screen_dst"
	echo "and restored focus to $workspace_final"
done

i3-msg $cmd $initial

I got

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 5, in
ValueError: too many values to unpack (expected 2)

I have tried calling it both inside and outside i3 config
the latter:
bindsym $mod+m exec --no-startup-id /home/zack/Downloads/test.sh 2> /home/zack/Downloads/error.txt&

My output of l.strip().split(':'):

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 7, in
ValueError: too many values to unpack (expected 2)
ERROR: Your command: workspace --no-auto-back-and-forth
ERROR:
ERROR: Expected one of these tokens: '--no-auto-back-and-forth', 'next_on_output', 'prev_on_output', 'next', 'prev', 'back_and_forth', 'number',
[{"success":false,"parse_error":true,"error":"Expected one of these tokens: '--no-auto-back-and-forth', 'next_on_output', 'prev_on_output', 'next', 'prev', 'back_and_forth', 'number', ","input":"workspace --no-auto-back-and-forth ","errorposition":" "}]
ERROR: Your command: move workspace to output
ERROR:
ERROR: Expected one of these tokens: 'output',
[{"success":false,"parse_error":true,"error":"Expected one of these tokens: 'output', ","input":"move workspace to output ","errorposition":" "}]
ERROR: Output ['DP-2' not found.
ERROR: Your command: focus output ['DP-2', '1', '1', '\uf268']
ERROR: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ERROR: Expected one of these tokens: , '[', 'move', 'exec', 'exit', 'restart', 'reload', 'shmlog', 'debuglog', 'border', 'layout', 'append_layout', 'workspace', 'focus', 'kill', 'open', 'fullscreen', 'sticky', 'split', 'floating', 'mark', 'unmark', 'resize', 'rename', 'nop', 'scratchpad', 'swap', 'title_format', 'mode', 'bar', 'gaps'
[{"success":false,"error":"Output ['DP-2' not found."},{"success":false,"parse_error":true,"error":"Expected one of these tokens: , '[', 'move', 'exec', 'exit', 'restart', 'reload', 'shmlog', 'debuglog', 'border', 'layout', 'append_layout', 'workspace', 'focus', 'kill', 'open', 'fullscreen', 'sticky', 'split', 'floating', 'mark', 'unmark', 'resize', 'rename', 'nop', 'scratchpad', 'swap', 'title_format', 'mode', 'bar', 'gaps'","input":"focus output ['DP-2', '1', '1', '\uf268']","errorposition":" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^"}]
ERROR: Your command: workspace --no-auto-back-and-forth
ERROR:
ERROR: Expected one of these tokens: '--no-auto-back-and-forth', 'next_on_output', 'prev_on_output', 'next', 'prev', 'back_and_forth', 'number',
[{"success":false,"parse_error":true,"error":"Expected one of these tokens: '--no-auto-back-and-forth', 'next_on_output', 'prev_on_output', 'next', 'prev', 'back_and_forth', 'number', ","input":"workspace --no-auto-back-and-forth ","errorposition":" "}]
moved to
and restored focus to
[{"success":true}]

Thanks!

mmmh it looks like it's an issue with IFS=:
Now that I think about it, it's not even needed to set it to : since it was for the final read and since I use a python script I can just use a space as separator.
I don't understand why it's not working for you though, what shell do you use ? I have tried with both dash and bash.

Incase that's not it, give me the output of

i3-msg -t get_outputs |
jq -r '.[] | select(.active == true) | "\(.name):\(.current_workspace)"' 

I normally use zsh but I tried it both for zsh and bash and got the same error...

The output I got:

DP-2:1:1:
DP-4:3:3:

I used icons in my ws names, which is not displaying on GitHub, bu shows like this for me.

Maybe that's the issue? Also somehow my only two monitors are named DP-2 and DP-4...

I meant what shell /bin/sh points to you can see which it is with realpath /bin/sh

yeah thats the issue

Can you reference them by there number, for example does this put focus on your chrome workspace ?
i3-msg -- workspace --no-auto-back-and-forth "1"

If yes then just change screen, workspace = l.strip().split(':') to screen, workspace = l.strip().split(':')[:2]

If it works then I will add it to the gist.

Let me see. The original script this is forked from did not give me that error.

@Zackhardtoname it should work now ! thanks for your feedback, I keep my workspaces named with numbers so I never ran into this issue.
The problem here was that you have : in your workspace name and that's the symbol I use to split.

That wouldn't and didn't work because somehow i3 treats ws "3" and "3:" differently.
This works: screen, workspace = l.strip().split(':', maxsplit=1)

Thank you so much! I should have dug this more myself

Hi
I grabbed your script thinking that it would manage my special naming convention

set $workspace1 "1 "
set $workspace2 "2 "
set $workspace3 "3 "
set $workspace4 "4 "
set $workspace5 "5 "
set $workspace6 "6 "
set $workspace7 "7 "
set $workspace8 "8 "
set $workspace9 "9 "
set $workspace10 "10 "

Unfortunately, it doesn't, because of the spaces. Had to change the names changing spaces with underscores.
Not as pretty but it works.

Do you think there's a way to handle spaces in workspaces names ?

Regards

I just wanted to say thank you: I can't imagine how long it would have taken me to figure this out.