How can I disable workspaces?

[truh]

I never intentionally use workspaces but from time to time some windows end up on a different workspace for reasons I don't understands and it's just a bit irritating.

[vshulcz]

There's no switch for it. Workspaces are structural in cosmic-comp, and the whole workspace config surface is this:

pub struct WorkspaceConfig {
    pub workspace_mode: WorkspaceMode,       // OutputBound | Global
    pub workspace_layout: WorkspaceLayout,   // Vertical | Horizontal
    pub action_on_typing: Action,
    pub workspace_wraparound: bool,
}

Nothing there disables them or pins you to one. What you can do is close off the ways you leave workspace 1 by accident, and there are two of them.

Keyboard. The defaults that move things are in data/keybindings.ron:

(modifiers: [Super], key: "1"): Workspace(1),          // just switches
(modifiers: [Super, Shift], key: "1"): MoveToWorkspace(1),  // moves the focused window
(modifiers: [Super, Shift], key: "0"): MoveToLastWorkspace,

Super+Shift+number is the one that takes a window with it, and it's one slip away from Super+number. You can neutralise any default binding by mapping it to Disable in your custom shortcuts, which cosmic-comp skips outright:

for (binding, action) in self.common.config.shortcuts.iter() {
    if *action == shortcuts::Action::Disable {
        continue;
    }

Do it in Settings under keyboard shortcuts, or directly in ~/.config/cosmic/com.system76.CosmicSettings.Shortcuts/v1/custom:

{
    (modifiers: [Super, Shift], key: "1"): Disable,
    (modifiers: [Super, Shift], key: "2"): Disable,
    // ... through 9, plus "0" for MoveToLastWorkspace
}

Touchpad. This is the likelier answer to "for reasons I don't understand". A four finger swipe switches workspaces, and it isn't configurable at all, the handler only looks at the finger count and your workspace layout:

activate_action = match gesture_state.fingers {
    3 => None, // TODO: 3 finger gestures
    4 => { ...  Some(SwipeAction::NextWorkspace) / Some(SwipeAction::PrevWorkspace) }

There's no entry for it in InputConfig either, so short of not making that gesture there's nothing to turn off today. If you're on a laptop and windows keep "ending up" elsewhere, this is almost certainly it: the swipe moved you, not them.

One related default worth knowing: workspace_wraparound is true, so going past the last workspace lands you back on the first, which makes an accidental swipe harder to notice.