Gfilui

Is there any way to open a new workspace whenever I open a new app?

For example, I have a terminal on workspace 1 and I want to open spotify but on workspace 2, and also when I open spotify I want to automatically move to workspace 2.

Is this possible?

I haven't implemented this particular application, but it looks like xdotool will do what you want.

Try launching your application with a wrapper script something like:

desktops=$(xdotool get_num_desktops)
desktops="$desktops"+1
xdotool set_num_desktops "$desktops"
xdotool set_desktop "$desktops"
run-my-application

I left out some details which are needed to make this more robust as they will vary a bit depending on what you are doing and would obscure the main idea:

Each xdotool command returns a status which you should check. If a step fails, you don't want to proceed blindly.

You may want to set a maximum number of desktops which your script can create.

xdotool can see if a window already exists and what desktop it is currently on. It can also move a window to another desktop. It can also activate a window, bringing it to the foreground and into focus.

You may need to add sleep commands after certain operations to give the desktop and especially applications time to do their thing before you run the next step.

Since your script may be run from the desktop (and not just from a terminal), you may also want to log some messages to a file telling you what the script did to make debugging it easier.

The part where it gets a bit tricky is when an application has more than one window open. Then, you have to deal with a stack of instances and somehow find the right one or work on all of them. For instance, my Thunderbird asks for a master password when it starts, so it has two windows open.

xdotool also offers command chaining where you can run multiple actions from one xdotool command. The results of the current action get pushed onto a stack read by the next action in the command. I have found this difficult to visualize and debug, but it's quite powerful if you can get it to work.

While xdotool is the best fit for this particular issue, you may also want to take a look at AutoKey which can help you automate all sorts of desktop/GUI actions by issuing keypresses and mouse events that look just like you were doing them manually so they will work on most application and desktop features.