move-column-to-workspace without automatic focus-workspace

[tv42]

Right now, if you move a column/window to a different workspace, your focus will also be switched there.

I would like a move that doesn't change focused workspace. In fact, I would have assumed that that's what "move" means -- what is there now is "move-column-and-self".

I often send a group of related windows to a new workspace (to start a new "topic"), and if my focus changes after every window, that requires much more user input and carefulness, going back after every move.

You can hack around this with niri msg action move-column-to-workspace 9 && niri msg action focus-workspace-previous but that's not an easy way set up bindings and it's wasteful with subprocesses and doing extra work.

Related but not really the same thing: with the automatic focus switch, sometimes I have trouble telling whether moving a full-width column to a new workspace did anything -- nothing on the screen changes!

[YaLTeR]

It works this way because most of the time you're only moving one column, so switching focus there is also what you want. For a group of windows I guess what you could also do is consume them all into one column, then move that at once.

sometimes I have trouble telling whether moving a full-width column to a new workspace did anything

Yeah, this problem comes up in a few places. Haven't decided yet what's the best way to deal with it.

[thairanaru]

Yeah, I also have it hacked like that.
Another use case I have is that I somtimes want to kick out a column just out of my workspace so I can return to it later.

[itshog]

Personally I think that this option would be extremely useful, as I often open mutiple files and application on the workspace I'm in and I want to arrange some of these apps in other workspaces, without necessarily focusing these other workspace every time I move an app