3 Michael Stapelberg <michael+i3@stapelberg.de>
6 This document contains all the information you need to configure and use the i3
7 window manager. If it does not, please contact us on IRC (preferred) or post your
8 question(s) on the mailing list.
10 == Default keybindings
12 For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here is an overview of the default
13 keybindings (click to see the full size image):
15 *Keys to use with mod (alt):*
17 image:keyboard-layer1.png["Keys to use with mod (alt)",width=600,link="keyboard-layer1.png"]
19 *Keys to use with Shift+mod:*
21 image:keyboard-layer2.png["Keys to use with Shift+mod",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]
23 The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
28 Throughout this guide, the keyword +mod+ will be used to refer to the
29 configured modifier. This is the alt key (Mod1) by default, with windows (Mod4)
30 being a popular alternative.
32 === Opening terminals and moving around
34 One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
35 for this is mod+Enter, that is Alt+Enter in the default configuration. By
36 pressing mod+Enter, a new terminal will be opened. It will fill the whole
37 space available on your screen.
39 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
41 If you now open another terminal, i3 will place it next to the current one,
42 splitting the screen size in half. Depending on your monitor, i3 will put the
43 created window beside the existing window (on wide displays) or below the
44 existing window (rotated displays).
46 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
48 To move the focus between the two terminals, you can use the direction keys
49 which you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used
50 for these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for
51 compatibility with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +mod+J+ is left, +mod+K+
52 is down, +mod+L+ is up and `mod+;` is right. So, to switch between the
53 terminals, use +mod+K+ or +mod+L+. Of course, you can also use the arrow keys.
55 At the moment, your workspace is split (it contains two terminals) in a
56 specific direction (horizontal by default). Every window can be split
57 horizontally or vertically again, just like the workspace. The terminology is
58 "window" for a container that actually contains an X11 window (like a terminal
59 or browser) and "split container" for containers that consist of one or more
62 TODO: picture of the tree
64 To split a window vertically, press +mod+v+. To split it horizontally, press
67 === Changing the container layout
69 A split container can have one of the following layouts:
72 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
75 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
76 windows at the top of the container.
78 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
79 a single line which is vertically split.
81 To switch modes, press +mod+e+ for default, +mod+s+ for stacking and
84 image:modes.png[Container modes]
86 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
88 To display a window in fullscreen mode or to go out of fullscreen mode again,
91 There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will span all
94 === Opening other applications
96 Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
97 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +mod+d+ by default. Just type the name
98 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The corresponding
99 application has to be in your +$PATH+ for this to work.
101 Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
102 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
103 <<configuring>> for details.
107 If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
108 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
109 can press +mod+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
110 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
111 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
112 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
113 depends on the application.
117 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
118 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
119 another workspace, press +mod+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
120 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
122 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
123 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one, and the ones with which you
124 work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
126 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
127 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
128 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
129 focus to that screen.
131 === Moving windows to workspaces
133 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +mod+Shift+num+ where
134 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
135 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
136 it does not yet exist.
140 The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
141 and move it to the wanted size.
143 See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
144 columns/rows with your keyboard.
146 === Restarting i3 inplace
148 To restart i3 inplace (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
149 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +mod+Shift+r+.
153 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +mod+Shift+e+.
157 Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of a window
158 are not managed by i3, but by you. Using this mode violates the tiling
159 paradigm but can be useful for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog
160 windows, or toolbar windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the
161 appropriate hint and are opened in floating mode by default.
163 You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing +mod+Shift+Space+. By
164 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
165 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
166 can also do that by using the <<floating_modifier>>.
168 For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see <<resizingconfig>>.
170 Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.
174 i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
175 windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
176 the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
177 finally the windows themselve. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
178 (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
179 out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.
181 === The tree consists of Containers
183 The building blocks of our tree are so called +Containers+. A +Container+ can
184 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
185 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more +Containers+. A
186 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
187 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
190 image::tree-layout2.png["layout2",float="right"]
191 image::tree-shot4.png["shot4",title="Two terminals on standard workspace"]
193 === Orientation and Split Containers
197 It is only natural to use so-called +Split Containers+ in order to build a
198 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every +Container+ has an
199 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified). So, in our example with the
200 workspace, the default orientation of the workspace +Container+ is horizontal
201 (most monitors are widescreen nowadays). If you change the orientation to
202 vertical (+mod+v+ in the default config) and *then* open two terminals, i3 will
203 configure your windows like this:
205 image::tree-shot2.png["shot2",title="Vertical Workspace Orientation"]
207 An interesting new feature of the tree branch is the ability to split anything:
208 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with horizontal
209 orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open another
210 terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new terminal
211 window, it would show up to the right due to the horizontal workspace
212 orientation. Instead, press +mod+v+ to create a +Vertical Split Container+ (to
213 open a +Horizontal Split Container+, use +mod+h+). Now you can open a new
214 terminal and it will open below the current one:
216 image::tree-layout1.png["Layout",float="right"]
217 image::tree-shot1.png["shot",title="Vertical Split Container"]
221 You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
226 Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
227 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
228 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.
230 So, how can you open a new terminal window to the *right* of the current one?
231 The solution is to use +focus parent+, which will focus the +Parent Container+ of
232 the current +Container+. In this case, you would focus the +Vertical Split
233 Container+ which is *inside* the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
234 windows will be opened to the right of the +Vertical Split Container+:
236 image::tree-shot3.png["shot3",title="Focus parent, then open new terminal"]
241 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependant on your
242 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
244 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
245 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
248 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
249 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
250 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
251 can bind your keys to do useful things.
253 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
254 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
257 On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
258 file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
259 wizard to use either Alt (Mod1) or Windows (Mod4) as modifier in the config
260 file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
261 keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command +i3-config-wizard+.
262 Please note that you must not have +~/.i3/config+, otherwise the wizard will
267 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
268 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
269 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:
278 i3 uses X core fonts (not Xft) for rendering window titles. You can use
279 +xfontsel(1)+ to generate such a font description. To see special characters
280 (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the ISO-10646 encoding.
282 If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
283 and fall back to a working font.
286 ------------------------------
287 font <X core font description>
288 ------------------------------
291 --------------------------------------------------------------
292 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
293 --------------------------------------------------------------
297 === Keyboard bindings
299 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
300 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
301 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
303 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
304 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
305 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
306 mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+.
308 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
309 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
310 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
312 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
313 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
314 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
318 ----------------------------------
319 bindsym [Modifiers+]keysym command
320 bindcode [Modifiers+]keycode command
321 ----------------------------------
324 --------------------------------
329 bindsym mod+Shift+r restart
331 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
332 bindcode 214 exec /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
333 --------------------------------
337 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
338 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
341 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
342 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
343 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
344 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
345 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
347 [[floating_modifier]]
349 === The floating modifier
351 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
352 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
353 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
354 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
355 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
356 it to the position you want.
358 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
359 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
360 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional.
363 --------------------------------
364 floating_modifier <Modifiers>
365 --------------------------------
368 --------------------------------
369 floating_modifier Mod1
370 --------------------------------
372 === Orientation for new workspaces
374 New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
375 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
376 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.
378 With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
382 ----------------------------------------------
383 default_orientation <horizontal|vertical|auto>
384 ----------------------------------------------
387 ----------------------------
388 default_orientation vertical
389 ----------------------------
391 === Layout mode for new containers
393 This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
395 ///////////////////////////////
396 See also <<stack-limit>>.
397 //////////////////////////////
400 ---------------------------------------------
401 workspace_layout <default|stacking|tabbed>
402 ---------------------------------------------
403 /////////////////////////////////////////////
404 new_container stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
405 /////////////////////////////////////////////
408 ---------------------
409 workspace_layout tabbed
410 ---------------------
412 === Border style for new windows
414 This option determines which border style new windows will have.
417 ---------------------------------------------
418 new_window <normal|1pixel|none>
419 ---------------------------------------------
422 ---------------------
424 ---------------------
426 === Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)
428 With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
429 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
430 change their border style, for example.
433 -----------------------------
434 for_window <criteria> command
435 -----------------------------
438 ------------------------------------------------
439 # enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
440 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
442 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
443 for_window [class="urxvt"] border 1pixel
445 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
446 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
447 # directory to ~/work
448 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
449 ------------------------------------------------
451 The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.
455 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
456 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
457 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
458 variables can be handy.
466 ------------------------
468 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
469 ------------------------
471 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. There is no fancy
472 handling and there are absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more
473 dynamic configuration you should create a little script which generates a
474 configuration file and run it before starting i3 (for example in your
477 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
481 To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
482 can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
483 see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
484 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
485 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
486 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
487 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
488 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
489 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
490 to match on 'Firefox' in this case.
493 ------------------------------------------------------------
494 assign <criteria> [→] workspace
495 ------------------------------------------------------------
498 ----------------------
499 # Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
500 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
502 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
503 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
505 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
506 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
508 # Assignment to a named workspace
509 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
511 # Start urxvt -name irssi
512 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
513 ----------------------
515 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
516 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
518 To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
519 window, you will see the following output:
522 -----------------------------------
523 WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
524 -----------------------------------
526 The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
527 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).
529 Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
530 logfile first (see http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
531 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
532 title when starting up.
534 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
536 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
537 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
538 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
539 also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
540 keyword. These commands will be run in order.
549 --------------------------------
550 exec i3status | i3bar -d
551 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
552 --------------------------------
556 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
558 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
559 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
560 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
561 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
562 the second screen and so on).
565 ----------------------------------
566 workspace <number> output <output>
567 ----------------------------------
569 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
570 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
571 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
574 ---------------------------
575 workspace 1 output LVDS1
576 workspace 5 output VGA1
577 ---------------------------
581 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.
584 --------------------------------------------
585 colorclass border background text
586 --------------------------------------------
588 Where colorclass can be one of:
591 A client which currently has the focus.
592 client.focused_inactive::
593 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
594 the focus at the moment.
596 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
598 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
600 You can also specify the color to be used to paint the background of the client
601 windows. This color will be used to paint the window on top of which the client
605 -----------------------
606 client.background color
607 -----------------------
609 Only clients that do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color
610 used to paint it. If you use a color other than black for your terminals, you
611 most likely want to set the client background color to the same color as your
612 terminal program's background color to avoid black gaps between the rendered
613 area of the termianal and the i3 border.
615 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
617 *Examples (default colors)*:
618 -----------------------------------------------
619 # class border backgr. text
620 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
621 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
622 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888
623 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
624 -----------------------------------------------
626 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
627 background color, and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
630 === Interprocess communication
632 i3 uses unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
633 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
634 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
636 The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
637 +/tmp/i3-%u/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username and +%p+ is the PID
640 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
641 by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
642 does the right thing by default.
645 ----------------------------
646 ipc-socket /tmp/i3-ipc.sock
647 ----------------------------
649 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
652 === Focus follows mouse
654 If you have a setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad
655 on your laptop which you do not want to disable completely), you might want
656 to disable 'focus follows mouse' and control focus only by using your keyboard.
657 The mouse will still be useful inside the currently active window (for example
658 to click on links in your browser window).
661 ----------------------------
662 focus_follows_mouse <yes|no>
663 ----------------------------
666 ----------------------
667 focus_follows_mouse no
668 ----------------------
670 === Popups during fullscreen mode
672 When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
673 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
674 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
675 There are two things which are possible to do in this situation:
677 1. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
678 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
679 you go out of fullscreen).
680 2. Leave fullscreen mode. This is the default.
683 -------------------------------------------------
684 popup_during_fullscreen <ignore|leave_fullscreen>
685 -------------------------------------------------
688 ------------------------------
689 popup_during_fullscreen ignore
690 ------------------------------
694 When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
695 focused when you use +focus down+ on the last container -- the focus wraps. If
696 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
697 be set on that container. This is the default behaviour so you can navigate to
698 all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.
700 If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
701 parent+ to switch to different containers, you can use the
702 +force_focus_wrapping+ configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
706 -----------------------------
707 force_focus_wrapping <yes|no>
708 -----------------------------
711 ------------------------
712 force_focus_wrapping yes
713 ------------------------
717 Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
718 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
719 do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:
722 --------------------------
723 # execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
725 --------------------------
727 Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
728 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
729 the following keybinding:
732 -------------------------------------------
733 bindsym mod+x move workspace 3; workspace 3
734 -------------------------------------------
738 Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command, that is, which containers
739 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. These are
740 prefixed in square brackets to every command. If you want to kill all windows
741 which have the class Firefox, use:
744 ------------------------------------
745 bindsym mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
747 # same thing, but case-insensitive
748 bindsym mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
749 ------------------------------------
751 The criteria which are currently implemented are:
754 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS)
756 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS)
758 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
760 Compares the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
762 Compares the mark set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>.
764 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
765 interface. Handy for scripting.
767 The criteria +class+, +instance+, +title+ and +mark+ are actually regular
768 expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for information on
771 === Splitting containers
773 The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
774 can contain multiple windows. Every split container has an orientation, it is
775 either split horizontally (a new window gets placed to the right of the current
776 one) or vertically (a new window gets placed below the current one).
778 If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
779 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
780 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window).
783 ---------------------------
784 split <vertical|horizontal>
785 ---------------------------
788 ------------------------------
789 bindsym mod+v split vertical
790 bindsym mod+h split horizontal
791 ------------------------------
793 === Manipulating layout
795 Use +layout default+, +layout stacking+ or +layout tabbed+ to change the
796 current container layout to default, stacking or tabbed layout, respectively.
798 To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen+, to make
799 it floating (or tiling again) use +floating enable+ respectively +floating disable+
800 (or +floating toggle+):
804 bindsym mod+s layout stacking
805 bindsym mod+l layout default
806 bindsym mod+w layout tabbed
809 bindsym mod+f fullscreen
811 # Toggle floating/tiling
812 bindsym mod+t floating toggle
815 === Focusing/Moving containers
817 To change the focus, use the focus command: +focus left+, +focus right+, +focus down+ and +focus up+.
819 There are a few special parameters you can use for the focus command:
822 Sets focus to the +Parent Container+ of the current +Container+.
824 The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
827 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
829 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
831 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
833 For moving, use +move left+, +move right+, +move down+ and +move up+.
836 ----------------------
837 # Focus clients on the left, bottom, top, right:
838 bindsym mod+j focus left
839 bindsym mod+k focus down
840 bindsym mod+l focus up
841 bindsym mod+semicolon focus right
843 # Focus parent container
844 bindsym mod+u focus parent
846 # Focus last floating/tiling container
847 bindsym mod+g focus mode_toggle
849 # Move client to the left, bottom, top, right:
850 bindsym mod+j move left
851 bindsym mod+k move down
852 bindsym mod+l move up
853 bindsym mod+semicolon move right
854 ----------------------
856 === Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces
858 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
859 number or name of the workspace. To move containers to specific workspaces, use
862 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
863 +workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
864 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
867 To move a container to another xrandr output such as +LVDS1+ or +VGA1+, you can
868 use the +move output+ command followed by the name of the target output. You
869 may also use +left+, +right+, +up+, +down+ instead of the xrandr output name to
870 move to the the next output in the specified direction.
873 -------------------------
874 bindsym mod+1 workspace 1
875 bindsym mod+2 workspace 2
878 bindsym mod+Shift+1 move workspace 1
879 bindsym mod+Shift+2 move workspace 2
881 -------------------------
883 ==== Named workspaces
885 Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
886 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:
889 -------------------------
890 bindsym mod+1 workspace mail
892 -------------------------
894 If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
898 -------------------------
899 bindsym mod+1 workspace 1: mail
900 bindsym mod+2 workspace 2: www
902 -------------------------
904 Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
905 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
906 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
907 will order them numerically.
911 === Resizing containers/windows
913 If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
917 ---------------------------------------------------------
918 resize <grow|shrink> <direction> [<px> px] [or <ppt> ppt]
919 ---------------------------------------------------------
921 Direction can be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. The optional pixel
922 argument specifies by how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or
923 shrinked (the default is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points
924 and specifies by how many percentage points a *tiling container* should be
925 grown or shrinked (the default is 10 percentage points).
927 I recommend using the resize command inside a so called +mode+:
929 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
930 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
932 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
934 # They resize the border in the direction you pressed, e.g.
935 # when pressing left, the window is resized so that it has
936 # more space on its left
938 bindsym j resize shrink left
939 bindsym Shift+j resize grow left
941 bindsym k resize grow down
942 bindsym Shift+k resize shrink down
944 bindsym l resize shrink up
945 bindsym Shift+l resize grow up
947 bindsym semicolon resize grow right
948 bindsym Shift+semicolon resize shrink right
950 # back to normal: Enter or Escape
951 bindsym Return mode "default"
952 bindsym Escape mode "default"
956 bindsym mod+r mode "resize"
957 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
959 === Jumping to specific windows
961 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
962 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
963 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
964 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mailclient,
965 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
966 with criteria for that.
969 ----------------------------------------------------
970 [class="class"] focus
971 [title="title"] focus
972 ----------------------------------------------------
975 ------------------------------------------------
976 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
977 bindsym mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
978 ------------------------------------------------
980 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
984 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
985 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
986 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
987 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You do not need to ensure that your
988 windows have unique classes or titles, and you do not need to change your
991 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
992 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
993 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
994 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
997 ------------------------------
999 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
1000 ------------------------------
1002 *Example (in a terminal)*:
1003 ------------------------------
1005 $ i3-msg '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
1006 ------------------------------
1008 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1009 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
1011 ---------------------------------------
1012 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
1013 bindsym mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
1015 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
1016 bindsym mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
1017 ---------------------------------------
1019 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
1020 seperate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
1021 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1023 === Changing border style
1025 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
1026 border (including window title), +border 1pixel+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
1027 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
1029 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
1032 ----------------------------
1033 bindsym mod+t border normal
1034 bindsym mod+y border 1pixel
1035 bindsym mod+u border none
1036 ----------------------------
1040 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1041 TODO: not yet implemented
1042 === Changing the stack-limit of a container
1044 If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside it (say, more than
1045 10), the default layout of a stacking container can get a little unhandy.
1046 Depending on your screen’s size, you might end up with only half of the title
1047 lines being actually used, wasting a lot of screen space.
1049 Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the number of rows or columns
1050 in a stacking container. i3 will create columns or rows (depending on what
1051 you limited) automatically as needed.
1054 --------------------------------
1055 stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
1056 --------------------------------
1060 # I always want to have two window titles in one line
1063 # Not more than 5 rows in this stacking container
1067 image:stacklimit.png[Container limited to two columns]
1068 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1070 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
1072 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
1073 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
1074 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
1075 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
1076 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
1079 ----------------------------
1080 bindsym mod+Shift+r restart
1081 bindsym mod+Shift+w reload
1082 bindsym mod+Shift+e exit
1083 ----------------------------
1087 == Multiple monitors
1089 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
1090 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
1091 handle multiple monitors.
1093 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
1094 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
1096 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
1097 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
1098 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
1099 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
1100 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
1101 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
1102 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
1104 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
1105 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
1106 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
1107 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
1108 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
1109 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
1110 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
1111 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
1113 === Configuring your monitors
1115 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
1116 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
1117 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
1118 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
1119 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1121 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
1122 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
1123 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
1124 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
1125 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
1127 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1128 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
1132 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1134 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
1135 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
1136 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
1137 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
1139 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
1140 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
1141 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
1143 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
1144 -------------------------------------------
1145 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
1146 -------------------------------------------
1147 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
1148 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
1149 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
1150 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1152 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
1153 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
1154 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
1157 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
1159 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1160 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
1162 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
1163 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
1164 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
1166 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1167 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
1171 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1172 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
1173 only what you can see in xrandr.
1175 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
1177 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
1179 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
1180 have more than one monitor:
1182 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
1183 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
1184 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
1185 <<workspace_screen>>.
1186 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
1187 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
1188 <<assign_workspace>>.
1189 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
1190 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
1191 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
1193 == i3 and the rest of your software world
1195 === Displaying a status line
1197 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
1198 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
1199 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
1201 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
1202 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
1203 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
1204 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
1205 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
1206 i3bar. Use a pipe to connect them: +i3status | i3bar -d+.
1208 Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
1209 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
1210 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
1211 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can use +-d+ or +-dbottom+
1212 for positioning it at the bottom and +-dtop+ to position it at the top of the
1215 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
1217 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
1218 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
1219 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
1220 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
1224 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
1225 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
1226 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
1227 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
1228 -----------------------------------------------------
1229 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
1230 -----------------------------------------------------
1231 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
1232 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
1233 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
1235 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
1236 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
1237 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
1238 -----------------------------------------------------
1239 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
1240 -----------------------------------------------------
1241 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
1242 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
1244 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
1245 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
1246 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).