How to start up xmonad with apps on other workspaces - haskell

Question

I'm trying to write an xmonad.hs which, at startup, launches some apps on some workspaces. Several of these apps (e.g., atop) will run within a terminal (urxvt being my preference).
This has been asked a few times before, e.g, here, here, and is obliquely touched on on the XMonad FAQ.
However, these rely on:
using spawnOn from XMonad.Actions.SpawnOn, which flat doesn't work (testing with urxvt, and also xclock as a simple example); it gets sent to the current workspace.
using spawn prog >> windows $ greedyView <workspace>, which kinda works, but has major timing issues - e.g., if you run two in succession, with different workspaces, both progs end up on the latter workspace. FWIW, I experimented with using threaddelay to assist; it didn't make any discernable difference, even with a 10s delay between spawns (I remembered that threadDelay is in microseconds, and so used 10000000).
rely on using general hooks for programs - meaning that whenever I start them up, they'll get sent to the given workspace. That's not what I want; I just want them placed there at startup.
Relatedly, it surprises me that the API doesn't let me start up an app and then give me a reference to that app/window (potentially with a timeout); so that I can confidently send that app/window to a workspace.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Install wmctrl
sudo apt install wmctrl
And create a script (in this example thunderbird on the second workspace (-t 1)):
#!/bin/sh
(thunderbird &) & sleep 5 &&
sh -c "wmctrl -i -r `wmctrl -l | grep Thunderbird` -t 1"
To know your application name on wmctrl you can view it by taping on your terminal :
wmctrl -l
And replace it with the correct name in the script.
Be carrefull with the capital letter ("Thunderbird" not "thunderbird") !!
Other example with firefox on the 3d workspace (-t 2):
#!/bin/sh
(firefox &) & sleep 5 &&
sh -c "wmctrl -i -r `wmctrl -l | grep Firefox` -t 2"
Bonus :
Here is the command to execute at start-up :
sh -c "thunderbird & sleep 5 && wmctrl -i -r `wmctrl -l | grep Thunderbird` -t 1"
Work on Debain 10 with Cinnamon. But should work for all

Answer 2

You can spawn the app via startupHook and then use a manageHook to handle window placement.
manageHook such as:
, className =? "deluge" --> doShift ( myWorkspaces !! 3 )
The above will actually spawn deluge on Workspace 4. In my startupHook I have
spawnOnce "deluge-gtk" to launch the app on start-up.
You would want to import XMonad.Util.SpawnOnce. doShift comes from the default XMonad.ManageHooks You could also take a look at XMonad.Actions.SpawnOn but I only use manageSpawn from that module.