No Mark for Urgent Workspaces!

[shans10]

OS: Arch Linux Spectrwm Version: 3..3.0/3.4.0

What is meant by an urgent workspace in spectrwm? In other window managers and in polybar if a window opens in another workspace than the current one then it is treated as urgent and that workspace is highlighted in red color. But I don't see a similar behaviour in spectrwm. I have enabled markcurrent in workspace_indicator as well as I have urgent_enabled = 1 in my spectrwm config but still I never get any mark for urgent workspaces. markcurrent never displays a question mark for urgent workspace and urgent_enabled = 1 only displays 9 dashes for my 9 workspaces.

[LordReg]

UrgencyHint is a flag that an application may set on its window when it deems its window contents to be urgent. When workspace_indicator has markurgent and listurgent enabled, the workspace indicator will show which workspace have at least one urgent window. Alternatively, the urgency hint indicator (bar_format +U) can be used to indicate any workspaces with urgent window(s). urgent_enabled is an option that adds +U to the default bar_format

[shans10]

UrgencyHint is a flag that an application may set on its window when it deems its window contents to be urgent. When workspace_indicator has markurgent and listurgent enabled, the workspace indicator will show which workspace have at least one urgent window. Alternatively, the urgency hint indicator (bar_format +U) can be used to indicate any workspaces with urgent window(s). urgent_enabled is an option that adds +U to the default bar_format

Thank you for explaining it to me! So I am facing an issue with urgency, I have urgent_enabled = 1 with +U and markurgent and listurgent in workspace_indicator along with +L option in bar_format but still I don't get any indicator for urgent workspace. For example, if I have a browser opened in workspace 1 and I am working on workspace 3 on telegram and I get a link in the message, when I open it nothing seems to happen but actually the link opens in browser in workspace 1 but I don't get any urgent mark for urgent window in the bar and because of this behaviour sometimes I keep on opening the link believing that it is not opening however it opens in another workspace. This is not just with Firefox and Telegram but also with other applications like Thunar where it is set to open a new window as tabs, if I have Thunar opened in for instance say workspace 1 and then I try to open another instance on workspace 2 it opens as a new tab in workspace 1 itself but I don't get any urgency hint signalling that it opened on some other workspace.

[LordReg]

I tested Firefox 77.0.1 and it does not actually set its window urgent when a new tab opens. I believe spectrwm needs to support EWMH _NET_WM_STATE_DEMANDS_ATTENTION to get the behavior you are looking for.

[fcomoreira1]

Is there any update on solving this issue? As someone that uses more than one workspace for browsing sometimes, I find myself going in two or three workspaces before figuring out where it opens links I click on discord or whatever other app

[croyleje]

Just wanted to add myself to the list of people what would love to see this implemented. This is one of the features I find myself missing almost everyday.

[croyleje]

I decided to start working on this issue myself and have made some progress I originally had some issues enabling your debug function but was able to work that out but it appears I am missing something. I believe I either have the wrong build flags but it could be anything else but if you have any information how how the debug functions work especially the dumpwins function it would be greatly appreciated. I believe I can have this working but would like see if I can get some useful information from the debug options available. In particular the dumpwins looks like it could provide some very useful information. Also if you have any information on debug flags that would also be extremely useful.

Jason