Conditional move that tries --boundaries-action create-implicit-container before crossing monitors

[andrewswait]

Summary

I'd like to have a single keybinding that first tries to create a container in the current workspace (using --boundaries-action create-implicit-container), but if there's no space left in that direction, it then moves the window to the adjacent monitor (as if using --boundaries all-monitors-outer-frame).

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Example use case

Imagine I have a horizontal stack (“accordion”) of windows. When I press alt-shift-h (move left):

1. If there's room in the current workspace, I want AeroSpace to create a new container to the left in the current workspace (--boundaries workspace --boundaries-action create-implicit-container).
2. If that move fails because we’ve hit the outer frame of the current monitor, then I want it to move the window to the monitor on the left (--boundaries all-monitors-outer-frame).

What I've tried

alt-shift-h = 'exec-and-forget aerospace move left --boundaries-action create-implicit-container || aerospace move left --boundaries all-monitors-outer-frame'

…but this doesn’t work because move --boundaries-action create-implicit-container doesn’t expose a non-zero exit code or failure signal when nothing happened (e.g. when already at the edge), so the || fallback never triggers, even though the first move didn’t actually move anything.

Potential solution

To preserve the existing paradigm of separate --boundaries and --boundaries-action flags, perhaps something like a --fail-if-noop flag so that || knows when create-implicit-container hasn't done anything.

alt-shift-h = 'exec-and-forget aerospace move left --fail-if-noop --boundaries-action create-implicit-container || aerospace move left --boundaries all-monitors-outer-frame'

[nikitabobko]

but if there's no space left in that direction

If that move fails because we’ve hit the outer frame of the current monitor

doesn’t expose a non-zero exit code or failure signal when nothing happened

Our mental models are different. In my mental model, creating an implicit container always succeeds. One can observe it by disabling normalizations or by having windows of different sizes. Please read this thread #183

[andrewswait]

I've had another read through of that thread 👍🏻 so to extend the example given here and your own here, you're saying the current model doesn't allow the following (Example 1 below) to be achieved?

(in the below examples enable-normalization-opposite-orientation-for-nested-containers is enabled)

Example 1

MONITOR LEFT:

MONITOR RIGHT:
h_tiles
  window 1 (focused)
  window 2
  window 3

move left

MONITOR LEFT:

MONITOR RIGHT:
h_tiles (implicitly created container)
  window 1 (focused)
  v_tiles (this h_tiles is from the previous state. It just got normalized and changed its orientation)
    window 2
    window 3

move left

MONITOR LEFT:
window 1 (focused)

MONITOR RIGHT:
v_tiles
  window 2
  window 3

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am I right in thinking the only thing possible right now (if you want move left to be able to act across monitors) is this:

Example 2

MONITOR LEFT:

MONITOR RIGHT:
h_tiles
  window 1 (focused)
  window 2
  window 3

move left

MONITOR LEFT:
window 1 (focused)

MONITOR RIGHT:
h_tiles
  window 2
  window 3

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Apologies if I'm being dense. I'm used to the workflow described in 'Example 1' from https://github.com/pop-os/shell.

An example use case would be that I'm working on my laptop (where screen space is more limited) with all windows in a workspace tiled in an accordion. Then I plug it into a monitor which gives me much more horizontal space to work with so I want to split one of say 4 open windows to the left of the monitor (an IDE perhaps), leaving the other tiled windows to the right. If I then want to have three different windows visible at once I would flick the left one across to the laptop and split another one from the monitor stack to the left side of the monitor.

If that's not possible I'll look at some kind of alternative, maybe removing --boundaries all-monitors-outer-frame from my default move left hotkey and only adding that via a separate binding mode that another hotkey triggers.

[andrewswait]

Documenting my current workaround for this: If I've got a monitor to my left and a horizontally arranged accordion on the monitor to the right, where I want to split one window out to the left of that accordion (but still within the right monitor), I'll split it upwards and then hit alt + / to flip the layout.