How to manualy spawn a client in a specific tag in Awesome?

Question

I already have automatic tag assignation for clients using rules, but sometimes I need to spawn a client in a specific tag.

For example, I usualy want my browser (dwb) in tag 2 using the following rule:

awful.rules.rules = {
    [...]
    { rule = { class = "Dwb" }, properties = { tag = tags[1][2] } },
}

But when spawning a browser for a debug session, I want it to spawn in another tag (along with my IDE) let's say tag 3.

How can I launch a program from the command line so that its client(s) will spawn in a tag specified as a parameter ?

Answer 1

You can create a function and use it through the awesome client tool.

First, create a function and add it to your rc.lua file :

function spawn(command, class, tag, test)
local test = test or "class"
local callback
callback = function(c)
    if test == "class" then
        if c.class == class then
            awful.client.movetotag(tag, c)
            client.disconnect_signal("manage", callback)
        end
    elseif test == "instance" then
        if c.instance == class then
            awful.client.movetotag(tag, c)
            client.disconnect_signal("manage", callback)
        end
    elseif test == "name" then
           if string.match(c.name, class) then
               awful.client.movetotag(tag, c)
            client.disconnect_signal("manage", callback)
        end
    end
end
client.connect_signal("manage", callback)
awful.util.spawn_with_shell(command)
end

Then, restart your awesome session (generally through Ctrl+Super+r).

Then, as if you were writing a rule, choose the way to identify the client (window) to move. You can do it by class, by instance or by name. Use xprop to get informations on windows, also see this FAQ.

Finally, create a simple bash script :

#!/usr/bin/env bash
cat <<EOF | awesome-client
spawn("/usr/bin/firefox", "Firefox", tags[1][1], "class")
EOF

You can add as many spawn action you want. I have wrotten multiple startup scripts that launch all programs I need depending on the task I intend to work on.

Hope this helps.