Killing whole workspaces (which is what’s focused when you focus parent in that situation) is currently not implemented. We could make that kill all windows on that workspace .

[Original comment by layus]

It does not work because it is hard-coded in src/tree.c

 /*
  * Closes the current container using tree_close().
  *
  */
 void tree_close_con(kill_window_t kill_window) {
     assert(focused != NULL);
     if (focused->type == CT_WORKSPACE) {
         LOG("Cannot close workspace\n");
         return;
     }

     /* There *should* be no possibility to focus outputs / root container */
     assert(focused->type != CT_OUTPUT);
     assert(focused->type != CT_ROOT);

     /* Kill con */
     tree_close(focused, kill_window, false, false);
 }

So one solution would be to simply drop the if block (solution1.diff), which seems to work according to my tests.

Another one consists in

     if (focused->type == CT_WORKSPACE) {
-        LOG("Cannot close workspace\n");
+        tree_close(focused, kill_window, true, false);
         return
     }

where we set the third argument of tree_close to true, to prevent it from killing the parent container (solution2.diff).
This also works according to my tests.

So, what is the best solution, and is a patch needed ?
(too trivial to require one I think)

And also, would some tests in the test-suite be appropriate here ?

Layus.

I think removing the check is the way to go. Please add a test to the testsuite. Once you are done, please submit your patch at http://cr.i3wm.org/. Thanks!

[Original comment by jj]

This ticket was fixed in commit http://c.i3wm.org/97b086ef:

Close all children when closing a workspace

fixes #591