3 Michael Stapelberg <michael@i3wm.org>
6 This document contains all the information you need to configure and use the i3
7 window manager. If it does not, please check https://www.reddit.com/r/i3wm/
8 first, then contact us on IRC (preferred) or post your question(s) on the
11 == Default keybindings
13 For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here is an overview of the default
14 keybindings (click to see the full size image):
16 *Keys to use with $mod (Alt):*
18 image:keyboard-layer1.png["Keys to use with $mod (Alt)",width=600,link="keyboard-layer1.png"]
20 *Keys to use with Shift+$mod:*
22 image:keyboard-layer2.png["Keys to use with Shift+$mod",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]
24 The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
27 Note that when starting i3 without a config file, i3-config-wizard will offer
28 you to create a config file in which the key positions (!) match what you see
29 in the image above, regardless of the keyboard layout you are using. If you
30 prefer to use a config file where the key letters match what you are seeing
31 above, just decline i3-config-wizard’s offer and base your config on
36 Throughout this guide, the keyword +$mod+ will be used to refer to the
37 configured modifier. This is the Alt key (+Mod1+) by default, with the Windows
38 key (+Mod4+) being a popular alternative.
40 === Opening terminals and moving around
42 One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
43 for this is +$mod+Enter+, that is Alt+Enter (+Mod1+Enter+) in the default
44 configuration. By pressing +$mod+Enter+, a new terminal will be opened. It
45 will fill the whole space available on your screen.
47 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
49 If you now open another terminal, i3 will place it next to the current one,
50 splitting the screen size in half. Depending on your monitor, i3 will put the
51 created window beside the existing window (on wide displays) or below the
52 existing window (rotated displays).
54 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
56 To move the focus between the two terminals, you can use the direction keys
57 which you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used
58 for these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for
59 compatibility with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +$mod+j+ is left, +$mod+k+
60 is down, +$mod+l+ is up and `$mod+;` is right. So, to switch between the
61 terminals, use +$mod+k+ or +$mod+l+. Of course, you can also use the arrow keys.
63 At the moment, your workspace is split (it contains two terminals) in a
64 specific direction (horizontal by default). Every window can be split
65 horizontally or vertically again, just like the workspace. The terminology is
66 "window" for a container that actually contains an X11 window (like a terminal
67 or browser) and "split container" for containers that consist of one or more
70 TODO: picture of the tree
72 To split a window vertically, press +$mod+v+ before you create the new window.
73 To split it horizontally, press +$mod+h+.
75 === Changing the container layout
77 A split container can have one of the following layouts:
80 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
81 container. splith distributes the windows horizontally (windows are right next
82 to each other), splitv distributes them vertically (windows are on top of each
85 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
86 windows at the top of the container.
88 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
89 a single line which is vertically split.
91 To switch modes, press +$mod+e+ for splith/splitv (it toggles), +$mod+s+ for
92 stacking and +$mod+w+ for tabbed.
94 image:modes.png[Container modes]
96 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
98 To display a window in fullscreen mode or to go out of fullscreen mode again,
101 There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will span all
102 available outputs (the command is +fullscreen toggle global+).
104 === Opening other applications
106 Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
107 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +$mod+d+ by default. Just type the name
108 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The corresponding
109 application has to be in your +$PATH+ for this to work.
111 Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
112 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
113 <<configuring>> for details.
117 If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
118 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+w+ to close), you
119 can press +$mod+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
120 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
121 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
122 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
123 depends on the application.
127 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
128 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
129 another workspace, press +$mod+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
130 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
132 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
133 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one, and the ones with which you
134 work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
136 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
137 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
138 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
139 focus to that screen.
141 === Moving windows to workspaces
143 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +$mod+Shift+num+ where
144 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
145 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
146 it does not yet exist.
150 The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
151 and move it to the wanted size.
153 You can also use <<binding_modes>> to define a mode for resizing via the
154 keyboard. To see an example for this, look at the
155 https://github.com/i3/i3/blob/next/etc/config.keycodes[default config] provided
158 === Restarting i3 inplace
160 To restart i3 in place (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
161 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +$mod+Shift+r+.
165 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +$mod+Shift+e+.
166 By default, a dialog will ask you to confirm if you really want to quit.
170 Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of
171 a window are not managed automatically by i3, but manually by
172 you. Using this mode violates the tiling paradigm but can be useful
173 for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog windows, or toolbar
174 windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the appropriate
175 hint and are opened in floating mode by default.
177 You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing +$mod+Shift+Space+. By
178 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
179 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
180 can also do that by using the <<floating_modifier>>. Another way to resize
181 floating windows using the mouse is to right-click on the titlebar and drag.
183 For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see the resizing binding mode
184 provided by the i3 https://github.com/i3/i3/blob/next/etc/config.keycodes[default config].
186 Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.
190 i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
191 windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
192 the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
193 finally the windows themselves. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
194 (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
195 out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.
197 === The tree consists of Containers
199 The building blocks of our tree are so called +Containers+. A +Container+ can
200 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
201 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more +Containers+. A
202 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
203 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
206 image::tree-layout2.png["layout2",float="right"]
207 image::tree-shot4.png["shot4",title="Two terminals on standard workspace"]
210 === Orientation and Split Containers
212 It is only natural to use so-called +Split Containers+ in order to build a
213 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every +Container+ has an
214 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified) and the orientation depends
215 on the layout the container is in (vertical for splitv and stacking, horizontal
216 for splith and tabbed). So, in our example with the workspace, the default
217 layout of the workspace +Container+ is splith (most monitors are widescreen
218 nowadays). If you change the layout to splitv (+$mod+v+ in the default config)
219 and *then* open two terminals, i3 will configure your windows like this:
221 image::tree-shot2.png["shot2",title="Vertical Workspace Orientation"]
223 An interesting new feature of i3 since version 4 is the ability to split anything:
224 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with splith layout, that is
225 horizontal orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open
226 another terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new
227 terminal window, it would show up to the right due to the splith layout.
228 Instead, press +$mod+v+ to split the container with the splitv layout (to
229 open a +Horizontal Split Container+, use +$mod+h+). Now you can open a new
230 terminal and it will open below the current one:
232 image::tree-layout1.png["Layout",float="right"]
233 image::tree-shot1.png["shot",title="Vertical Split Container"]
237 You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
242 Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
243 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
244 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.
246 So, how can you open a new terminal window to the *right* of the current one?
247 The solution is to use +focus parent+, which will focus the +Parent Container+ of
248 the current +Container+. In this case, you would focus the +Vertical Split
249 Container+ which is *inside* the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
250 windows will be opened to the right of the +Vertical Split Container+:
252 image::tree-shot3.png["shot3",title="Focus parent, then open new terminal"]
254 === Implicit containers
256 In some cases, i3 needs to implicitly create a container to fulfill your
259 One example is the following scenario: You start i3 with a single monitor and a
260 single workspace on which you open three terminal windows. All these terminal
261 windows are directly attached to one node inside i3’s layout tree, the
262 workspace node. By default, the workspace node’s orientation is +horizontal+.
264 Now you move one of these terminals down (+$mod+Shift+k+ by default). The
265 workspace node’s orientation will be changed to +vertical+. The terminal window
266 you moved down is directly attached to the workspace and appears on the bottom
267 of the screen. A new (horizontal) container was created to accommodate the
268 other two terminal windows. You will notice this when switching to tabbed mode
269 (for example). You would end up having one tab with a representation of the split
270 container (e.g., "H[urxvt firefox]") and the other one being the terminal window
276 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependent on your
277 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
279 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
280 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
283 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
284 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
285 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
286 can bind your keys to do useful things.
288 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
289 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
292 On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
293 file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
294 wizard to use either Alt (+Mod1+) or Windows (+Mod4+) as modifier in the config
295 file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
296 keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command +i3-config-wizard+.
297 Please note that you must not have +~/.i3/config+, otherwise the wizard will
300 Since i3 4.0, a new configuration format is used. i3 will try to automatically
301 detect the format version of a config file based on a few different keywords,
302 but if you want to make sure that your config is read with the new format,
303 include the following line in your config file:
305 ---------------------
306 # i3 config file (v4)
307 ---------------------
311 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
312 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
313 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:
323 i3 has support for both X core fonts and FreeType fonts (through Pango) to
324 render window titles.
326 To generate an X core font description, you can use +xfontsel(1)+. To see
327 special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the
330 A FreeType font description is composed by a font family, a style, a weight,
331 a variant, a stretch and a size.
332 FreeType fonts support right-to-left rendering and contain often more
333 Unicode glyphs than X core fonts.
335 If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
336 and fall back to a working font.
339 ------------------------------
340 font <X core font description>
341 font pango:<family list> [<style options>] <size>
342 ------------------------------
345 --------------------------------------------------------------
346 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
347 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
348 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono, Terminus Bold Semi-Condensed 11
349 font pango:Terminus 11px
350 --------------------------------------------------------------
353 === Keyboard bindings
355 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
356 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
357 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
359 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
360 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
361 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
362 mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+. To interactively enter a key and
363 see what keysym it is configured to, use +xev+.
365 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
366 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
367 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
369 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
370 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
371 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
374 Some tools (such as +import+ or +xdotool+) might be unable to run upon a
375 KeyPress event, because the keyboard/pointer is still grabbed. For these
376 situations, the +--release+ flag can be used, which will execute the command
377 after the keys have been released.
380 ----------------------------------
381 bindsym [--release] [<Group>+][<Modifiers>+]<keysym> command
382 bindcode [--release] [<Group>+][<Modifiers>+]<keycode> command
383 ----------------------------------
386 --------------------------------
388 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
391 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
393 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
394 bindcode 214 exec --no-startup-id /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
396 # Simulate ctrl+v upon pressing $mod+x
397 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v
399 # Take a screenshot upon pressing $mod+x (select an area)
400 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id import /tmp/latest-screenshot.png
401 --------------------------------
405 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
406 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
408 Group1, Group2, Group3, Group4::
409 When using multiple keyboard layouts (e.g. with `setxkbmap -layout us,ru`), you
410 can specify in which XKB group (also called “layout”) a keybinding should be
411 active. By default, keybindings are translated in Group1 and are active in all
412 groups. If you want to override keybindings in one of your layouts, specify the
413 corresponding group. For backwards compatibility, the group “Mode_switch” is an
419 A mouse binding makes i3 execute a command upon pressing a specific mouse
420 button in the scope of the clicked container (see <<command_criteria>>). You
421 can configure mouse bindings in a similar way to key bindings.
424 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
425 bindsym [--release] [--border] [--whole-window] [--exclude-titlebar] [<Modifiers>+]button<n> command
426 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
428 By default, the binding will only run when you click on the titlebar of the
429 window. If the +--release+ flag is given, it will run when the mouse button
432 If the +--whole-window+ flag is given, the binding will also run when any part
433 of the window is clicked, with the exception of the border. To have a bind run
434 when the border is clicked, specify the +--border+ flag.
436 If the +--exclude-titlebar+ flag is given, the titlebar will not be considered
440 --------------------------------
441 # The middle button over a titlebar kills the window
442 bindsym --release button2 kill
444 # The middle button and a modifer over any part of the window kills the window
445 bindsym --whole-window $mod+button2 kill
447 # The right button toggles floating
448 bindsym button3 floating toggle
449 bindsym $mod+button3 floating toggle
451 # The side buttons move the window around
452 bindsym button9 move left
453 bindsym button8 move right
454 --------------------------------
459 You can have multiple sets of bindings by using different binding modes. When
460 you switch to another binding mode, all bindings from the current mode are
461 released and only the bindings defined in the new mode are valid for as long as
462 you stay in that binding mode. The only predefined binding mode is +default+,
463 which is the mode i3 starts out with and to which all bindings not defined in a
464 specific binding mode belong.
466 Working with binding modes consists of two parts: defining a binding mode and
467 switching to it. For these purposes, there are one config directive and one
468 command, both of which are called +mode+. The directive is used to define the
469 bindings belonging to a certain binding mode, while the command will switch to
472 It is recommended to use binding modes in combination with <<variables>> in
473 order to make maintenance easier. Below is an example of how to use a binding
476 Note that it is advisable to define bindings for switching back to the default
479 Note that it is possible to use <<pango_markup>> for binding modes, but you
480 need to enable it explicitly by passing the +--pango_markup+ flag to the mode
484 ----------------------------
486 mode [--pango_markup] <name>
490 ----------------------------
493 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
494 # Press $mod+o followed by either f, t, Escape or Return to launch firefox,
495 # thunderbird or return to the default mode, respectively.
496 set $mode_launcher Launch: [f]irefox [t]hunderbird
497 bindsym $mod+o mode "$mode_launcher"
499 mode "$mode_launcher" {
500 bindsym f exec firefox
501 bindsym t exec thunderbird
503 bindsym Escape mode "default"
504 bindsym Return mode "default"
506 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
508 [[floating_modifier]]
509 === The floating modifier
511 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
512 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
513 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
514 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
515 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
516 it to the position you want.
518 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
519 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
520 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
521 ratio will be preserved).
524 --------------------------------
525 floating_modifier <Modifier>
526 --------------------------------
529 --------------------------------
530 floating_modifier Mod1
531 --------------------------------
533 === Constraining floating window size
535 The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
536 either dimension of +floating_maximum_size+ is specified as -1, that dimension
537 will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
538 +floating_maximum_size+ is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
539 value to constrain the maximum size. +floating_minimum_size+ is treated in a
540 manner analogous to +floating_maximum_size+.
543 ----------------------------------------
544 floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
545 floating_maximum_size <width> x <height>
546 ----------------------------------------
549 --------------------------------------
550 floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
551 floating_maximum_size -1 x -1
552 --------------------------------------
554 === Orientation for new workspaces
556 New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
557 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
558 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.
560 With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
564 --------------------------------------------
565 default_orientation horizontal|vertical|auto
566 --------------------------------------------
569 ----------------------------
570 default_orientation vertical
571 ----------------------------
573 === Layout mode for new containers
575 This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
579 ---------------------------------------------
580 workspace_layout default|stacking|tabbed
581 ---------------------------------------------
584 ---------------------
585 workspace_layout tabbed
586 ---------------------
588 === Border style for new windows
590 This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
591 +normal+. Note that new_float applies only to windows which are starting out as
592 floating windows, e.g., dialog windows, but not windows that are floated later on.
595 ---------------------------------------------
596 new_window normal|none|pixel
597 new_window normal|pixel <px>
598 new_float normal|none|pixel
599 new_float normal|pixel <px>
600 ---------------------------------------------
603 ---------------------
605 ---------------------
607 The "normal" and "pixel" border styles support an optional border width in
611 ---------------------
612 # The same as new_window none
617 ---------------------
620 [[_hiding_vertical_borders]]
621 === Hiding borders adjacent to the screen edges
623 You can hide container borders adjacent to the screen edges using
624 +hide_edge_borders+. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
625 to waste even two pixels in displayspace. The "smart" setting hides borders on
626 workspaces with only one window visible, but keeps them on workspaces with
627 multiple windows visible. Default is none.
630 -----------------------------------------------
631 hide_edge_borders none|vertical|horizontal|both|smart
632 -----------------------------------------------
635 ----------------------
636 hide_edge_borders vertical
637 ----------------------
640 === Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)
642 With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
643 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
644 change their border style, for example.
647 -------------------------------
648 for_window <criteria> <command>
649 -------------------------------
652 ------------------------------------------------
653 # enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
654 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
656 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
657 for_window [class="urxvt"] border pixel 1
659 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
660 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
661 # directory to ~/work
662 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
663 ------------------------------------------------
665 The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.
668 === Don't focus window upon opening
670 When a new window appears, it will be focused. The +no_focus+ directive allows preventing
671 this from happening and must be used in combination with <<command_criteria>>.
673 Note that this does not apply to all cases, e.g., when feeding data into a running application
674 causing it to request being focused. To configure the behavior in such cases, refer to
675 <<focus_on_window_activation>>.
677 +no_focus+ will also be ignored for the first window on a workspace as there shouldn't be
678 a reason to not focus the window in this case. This allows for better usability in
679 combination with +workspace_layout+.
687 -------------------------------
688 no_focus [window_role="pop-up"]
689 -------------------------------
694 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
695 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
696 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
697 variables can be handy.
705 ------------------------
707 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
708 ------------------------
710 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. Variables expansion
711 is not recursive so it is not possible to define a variable with a value
712 containing another variable. There is no fancy handling and there are
713 absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more dynamic configuration
714 you should create a little script which generates a configuration file and run
715 it before starting i3 (for example in your +~/.xsession+ file).
717 Also see <<xresources>> to learn how to create variables based on resources
718 loaded from the X resource database.
723 <<variables>> can also be created using a value configured in the X resource
724 database. This is useful, for example, to avoid configuring color values within
725 the i3 configuration. Instead, the values can be configured, once, in the X
726 resource database to achieve an easily maintainable, consistent color theme
727 across many X applications.
729 Defining a resource will load this resource from the resource database and
730 assign its value to the specified variable. A fallback must be specified in
731 case the resource cannot be loaded from the database.
734 ----------------------------------------------------
735 set_from_resource $<name> <resource_name> <fallback>
736 ----------------------------------------------------
739 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
740 # The ~/.Xresources should contain a line such as
742 # and must be loaded properly, e.g., by using
744 # This value is picked up on by other applications (e.g., the URxvt terminal
745 # emulator) and can be used in i3 like this:
746 set_from_resource $black i3wm.color0 #000000
747 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
750 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
752 To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
753 can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
754 see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
755 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
756 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
757 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
758 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
759 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
760 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
761 to match on 'Firefox' in this case.
763 Assignments are processed by i3 in the order in which they appear in the config
764 file. The first one which matches the window wins and later assignments are not
768 ------------------------------------------------------------
769 assign <criteria> [→] [workspace] <workspace>
770 ------------------------------------------------------------
773 ----------------------
774 # Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
775 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
777 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
778 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
780 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
781 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
783 # Assignment to a named workspace
784 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
786 # Start urxvt -name irssi
787 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
788 ----------------------
790 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
791 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
793 To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
794 window, you will see the following output:
797 -----------------------------------
798 WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
799 -----------------------------------
801 The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
802 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).
804 Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
805 logfile first (see http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
806 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
807 title when starting up.
809 Note that if you want to start an application just once on a specific
810 workspace, but you don’t want to assign all instances of it permanently, you
811 can make use of i3’s startup-notification support (see <<exec>>) in your config
812 file in the following way:
814 *Start iceweasel on workspace 3 (once)*:
815 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
816 # Start iceweasel on workspace 3, then switch back to workspace 1
817 # (Being a command-line utility, i3-msg does not support startup notifications,
818 # hence the exec --no-startup-id.)
819 # (Starting iceweasel with i3’s exec command is important in order to make i3
820 # create a startup notification context, without which the iceweasel window(s)
821 # cannot be matched onto the workspace on which the command was started.)
822 exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 3; exec iceweasel; workspace 1'
823 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
825 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
827 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
828 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
829 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
830 also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
831 keyword. These commands will be run in order.
833 See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
834 and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
835 strings (as shown in <<exec_quoting>>) if they appear in your command.
838 ---------------------------------------
839 exec [--no-startup-id] <command>
840 exec_always [--no-startup-id] <command>
841 ---------------------------------------
844 --------------------------------
846 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
848 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
849 exec --no-startup-id urxvt
850 --------------------------------
852 The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <<exec>>.
855 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
857 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
858 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
859 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
860 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
861 the second screen and so on).
864 -------------------------------------
865 workspace <workspace> output <output>
866 -------------------------------------
868 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
869 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
870 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
872 If your X server supports RandR 1.5 or newer, i3 will use RandR monitor objects
873 instead of output objects. Run +xrandr --listmonitors+ to see a list. Usually,
874 a monitor object contains exactly one output, and has the same name as the
875 output; but should that not be the case, you may specify the name of either the
876 monitor or the output in i3's configuration. For example, the Dell UP2414Q uses
877 two scalers internally, so its output names might be “DP1” and “DP2”, but the
878 monitor name is “Dell UP2414Q”.
880 (Note that even if you specify the name of an output which doesn't span the
881 entire monitor, i3 will still use the entire area of the containing monitor
882 rather than that of just the output's.)
884 If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:
887 ---------------------------
888 workspace 1 output LVDS1
889 workspace 5 output VGA1
890 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1
891 ---------------------------
895 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.
898 --------------------------------------------------------------------
899 <colorclass> <border> <background> <text> <indicator> <child_border>
900 --------------------------------------------------------------------
902 Where colorclass can be one of:
905 A client which currently has the focus.
906 client.focused_inactive::
907 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
908 the focus at the moment.
910 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
912 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
914 Background and text color are used to draw placeholder window contents
915 (when restoring layouts). Border and indicator are ignored.
917 Background color which will be used to paint the background of the
918 client window on top of which the client will be rendered. Only clients
919 which do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color. Note
920 that this colorclass only takes a single color.
922 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
924 *Examples (default colors)*:
925 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
926 # class border backgr. text indicator child_border
927 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff #2e9ef4 #285577
928 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff #484e50 #5f676a
929 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888 #292d2e #222222
930 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff #900000 #900000
931 client.placeholder #000000 #0c0c0c #ffffff #000000 #0c0c0c
933 client.background #ffffff
934 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
936 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
937 "child_border", and "border" color is only the two thin lines around the
940 The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
941 For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
942 color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
943 single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
944 from single windows outside of a split container.
946 === Interprocess communication
948 i3 uses Unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
949 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
950 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
952 The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
953 +/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username, +%p+ is
954 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
955 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).
957 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
958 by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
959 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
960 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
961 user can create that directory.
964 ----------------------------
965 ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock
966 ----------------------------
968 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
971 === Focus follows mouse
973 By default, window focus follows your mouse movements as the mouse crosses
974 window borders. However, if you have a setup where your mouse usually is in your
975 way (like a touchpad on your laptop which you do not want to disable
976 completely), you might want to disable 'focus follows mouse' and control focus
977 only by using your keyboard. The mouse will still be useful inside the
978 currently active window (for example to click on links in your browser window).
981 --------------------------
982 focus_follows_mouse yes|no
983 --------------------------
986 ----------------------
987 focus_follows_mouse no
988 ----------------------
992 By default, when switching focus to a window on a different output (e.g.
993 focusing a window on workspace 3 on output VGA-1, coming from workspace 2 on
994 LVDS-1), the mouse cursor is warped to the center of that window.
996 With the +mouse_warping+ option, you can control when the mouse cursor should
997 be warped. +none+ disables warping entirely, whereas +output+ is the default
998 behavior described above.
1001 -------------------------
1002 mouse_warping output|none
1003 -------------------------
1010 === Popups during fullscreen mode
1012 When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
1013 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
1014 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
1015 There are three things which are possible to do in this situation:
1017 1. Display the popup if it belongs to the fullscreen application only. This is
1018 the default and should be reasonable behavior for most users.
1019 2. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
1020 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
1021 you go out of fullscreen).
1022 3. Leave fullscreen mode.
1025 -----------------------------------------------------
1026 popup_during_fullscreen smart|ignore|leave_fullscreen
1027 -----------------------------------------------------
1030 ------------------------------
1031 popup_during_fullscreen smart
1032 ------------------------------
1036 When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
1037 focused when you use +focus down+ on the last container -- the focus wraps. If
1038 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
1039 be set on that container. This is the default behavior so you can navigate to
1040 all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.
1042 If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
1043 parent+ to switch to different containers, you can use the
1044 +force_focus_wrapping+ configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
1048 ---------------------------
1049 force_focus_wrapping yes|no
1050 ---------------------------
1053 ------------------------
1054 force_focus_wrapping yes
1055 ------------------------
1057 === Forcing Xinerama
1059 As explained in-depth in <http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html>, some X11
1060 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
1061 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
1062 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
1063 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
1066 For people who cannot modify their +~/.xsession+ to add the
1067 +--force-xinerama+ commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:
1070 ---------------------
1071 force_xinerama yes|no
1072 ---------------------
1079 Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like +HDMI1+) when using
1080 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: +xinerama-0+, +xinerama-1+, …
1082 === Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace
1084 This configuration directive enables automatic +workspace back_and_forth+ (see
1085 <<back_and_forth>>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.
1087 For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
1088 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
1089 came from now, you can just press $mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".
1092 ------------------------------------
1093 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes|no
1094 ------------------------------------
1097 ---------------------------------
1098 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes
1099 ---------------------------------
1101 === Delaying urgency hint reset on workspace change
1103 If an application on another workspace sets an urgency hint, switching to this
1104 workspace may lead to immediate focus of the application, which also means the
1105 window decoration color would be immediately reset to +client.focused+. This
1106 may make it unnecessarily hard to tell which window originally raised the
1109 In order to prevent this, you can tell i3 to delay resetting the urgency state
1110 by a certain time using the +force_display_urgency_hint+ directive. Setting the
1111 value to 0 disables this feature.
1113 The default is 500ms.
1116 ---------------------------------------
1117 force_display_urgency_hint <timeout> ms
1118 ---------------------------------------
1121 ---------------------------------
1122 force_display_urgency_hint 500 ms
1123 ---------------------------------
1125 [[focus_on_window_activation]]
1126 === Focus on window activation
1128 If a window is activated, e.g., via +google-chrome www.google.com+, it may request
1129 to take focus. Since this may not preferable, different reactions can be configured.
1131 Note that this may not affect windows that are being opened. To prevent new windows
1132 from being focused, see <<no_focus>>.
1135 --------------------------------------------------
1136 focus_on_window_activation smart|urgent|focus|none
1137 --------------------------------------------------
1139 The different modes will act as follows:
1142 This is the default behavior. If the window requesting focus is on an active
1143 workspace, it will receive the focus. Otherwise, the urgency hint will be set.
1145 The window will always be marked urgent, but the focus will not be stolen.
1147 The window will always be focused and not be marked urgent.
1149 The window will neither be focused, nor be marked urgent.
1152 === Drawing marks on window decoration
1154 If activated, marks (see <<vim_like_marks>>) on windows are drawn in their window
1155 decoration. However, any mark starting with an underscore in its name (+_+) will
1156 not be drawn even if this option is activated.
1158 The default for this option is +yes+.
1170 [[line_continuation]]
1171 === Line continuation
1173 Config files support line continuation, meaning when you end a line in a
1174 backslash character (`\`), the line-break will be ignored by the parser. This
1175 feature can be used to create more readable configuration files.
1176 Commented lines are not continued.
1183 # this line is not continued \
1184 bindsym Mod1+F fullscreen toggle
1187 == Configuring i3bar
1189 The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
1190 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
1193 1. It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
1194 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
1195 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
1196 2. It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
1197 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
1198 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
1199 3. It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
1200 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
1202 That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
1203 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
1204 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
1205 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
1206 configuration infrastructure in place.
1208 Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a +bar+ block. You can have
1209 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):
1212 ---------------------------
1214 status_command i3status
1216 ---------------------------
1220 By default i3 will just pass +i3bar+ and let your shell handle the execution,
1221 searching your +$PATH+ for a correct version.
1222 If you have a different +i3bar+ somewhere or the binary is not in your +$PATH+ you can
1223 tell i3 what to execute.
1225 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1226 have to have correct quoting etc.
1229 -----------------------
1230 i3bar_command <command>
1231 -----------------------
1234 -------------------------------------------------
1236 i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
1238 -------------------------------------------------
1241 === Statusline command
1243 i3bar can run a program and display every line of its +stdout+ output on the
1244 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
1245 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.
1247 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1248 have to have correct quoting etc. Note that for signal handling, depending on
1249 your shell (users of dash(1) are known to be affected), you have to use the
1250 shell’s exec command so that signals are passed to your program, not to the
1254 ------------------------
1255 status_command <command>
1256 ------------------------
1259 -------------------------------------------------
1261 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
1263 # For dash(1) users who want signal handling to work:
1264 status_command exec ~/.bin/my_status_command
1266 -------------------------------------------------
1270 You can either have i3bar be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
1271 (+dock+ mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (+hide+ mode).
1272 It is also possible to force i3bar to always stay hidden (+invisible+
1273 mode). The modifier key can be configured using the +modifier+ option.
1275 The mode option can be changed during runtime through the +bar mode+ command.
1276 On reload the mode will be reverted to its configured value.
1278 The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
1279 i3bar sends the +SIGSTOP+ and +SIGCONT+ signals to the statusline process to
1282 Invisible mode allows to permanently maximize screen space, as the bar is never
1283 shown. Thus, you can configure i3bar to not disturb you by popping up because
1284 of an urgency hint or because the modifier key is pressed.
1286 In order to control whether i3bar is hidden or shown in hide mode, there exists
1287 the hidden_state option, which has no effect in dock mode or invisible mode. It
1288 indicates the current hidden_state of the bar: (1) The bar acts like in normal
1289 hide mode, it is hidden and is only unhidden in case of urgency hints or by
1290 pressing the modifier key (+hide+ state), or (2) it is drawn on top of the
1291 currently visible workspace (+show+ state).
1293 Like the mode, the hidden_state can also be controlled through i3, this can be
1294 done by using the +bar hidden_state+ command.
1296 The default mode is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
1297 the windows key). The default value for the hidden_state is hide.
1300 -------------------------
1301 mode dock|hide|invisible
1302 hidden_state hide|show
1303 modifier <Modifier>|none
1304 ------------------------
1315 Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see +xmodmap(1)+). You can
1316 also use "none" if you don't want any modifier to trigger this behavior.
1318 === Mouse button commands
1320 Specifies a command to run when a button was pressed on i3bar to override the
1321 default behavior. This is useful, e.g., for disabling the scroll wheel action
1322 or running scripts that implement custom behavior for these buttons.
1324 A button is always named +button<n>+, where 1 to 5 are default buttons as follows and higher
1325 numbers can be special buttons on devices offering more buttons:
1330 Middle mouse button.
1338 Please note that the old +wheel_up_cmd+ and +wheel_down_cmd+ commands are deprecated
1339 and will be removed in a future release. We strongly recommend using the more general
1340 +bindsym+ with +button4+ and +button5+ instead.
1343 ----------------------------
1344 bindsym button<n> <command>
1345 ----------------------------
1348 ---------------------------------------------------------
1350 # disable clicking on workspace buttons
1352 # execute custom script when scrolling downwards
1353 bindsym button5 exec ~/.i3/scripts/custom_wheel_down
1355 ---------------------------------------------------------
1359 Specifies the bar ID for the configured bar instance. If this option is missing,
1360 the ID is set to 'bar-x', where x corresponds to the position of the embedding
1361 bar block in the config file ('bar-0', 'bar-1', ...).
1364 ---------------------
1366 ---------------------
1369 ---------------------
1373 ---------------------
1378 This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.
1380 The default is bottom.
1388 ---------------------
1392 ---------------------
1396 You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
1397 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
1398 options for different outputs by using multiple 'bar' blocks.
1400 To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
1401 directive multiple times.
1405 output primary|<output>
1409 -------------------------------
1410 # big monitor: everything
1412 # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
1415 status_command i3status
1418 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
1421 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
1428 # show bar on the primary monitor and on HDMI2
1432 status_command i3status
1435 -------------------------------
1436 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1437 -------------------------
1438 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1439 -------------------------
1443 i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
1444 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.
1446 You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
1447 you can turn off the functionality entirely.
1449 You can use multiple +tray_output+ directives in your config to specify a list
1450 of outputs on which you want the tray to appear. The first available output in
1451 that list as defined by the order of the directives will be used for the tray
1455 ---------------------------------
1456 tray_output none|primary|<output>
1457 ---------------------------------
1460 -------------------------
1461 # disable system tray
1466 # show tray icons on the primary monitor
1471 # show tray icons on the big monitor
1475 -------------------------
1477 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1478 -------------------------
1479 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1480 -------------------------
1482 Note that when you use multiple bar configuration blocks, either specify
1483 `tray_output primary` in all of them or explicitly specify `tray_output none`
1484 in bars which should not display the tray, otherwise the different instances
1485 might race each other in trying to display tray icons.
1489 The tray is shown on the right-hand side of the bar. By default, a padding of 2
1490 pixels is used for the upper, lower and right-hand side of the tray area and
1491 between the individual icons.
1494 -------------------------
1495 tray_padding <px> [px]
1496 -------------------------
1499 -------------------------
1502 -------------------------
1506 Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <<fonts>>.
1509 ---------------------
1511 ---------------------
1514 --------------------------------------------------------------
1516 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
1517 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
1519 --------------------------------------------------------------
1521 === Custom separator symbol
1523 Specifies a custom symbol to be used for the separator as opposed to the vertical,
1524 one pixel thick separator.
1527 -------------------------
1528 separator_symbol <symbol>
1529 -------------------------
1532 ------------------------
1534 separator_symbol ":|:"
1536 ------------------------
1538 === Workspace buttons
1540 Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
1541 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.
1543 The default is to show workspace buttons.
1546 ------------------------
1547 workspace_buttons yes|no
1548 ------------------------
1551 ------------------------
1553 workspace_buttons no
1555 ------------------------
1557 === Strip workspace numbers
1559 Specifies whether workspace numbers should be displayed within the workspace
1560 buttons. This is useful if you want to have a named workspace that stays in
1561 order on the bar according to its number without displaying the number prefix.
1563 When +strip_workspace_numbers+ is set to +yes+, any workspace that has a name of
1564 the form "[n]:[NAME]" will display only the name. You could use this, for
1565 instance, to display Roman numerals rather than digits by naming your
1566 workspaces to "1:I", "2:II", "3:III", "4:IV", ...
1568 The default is to display the full name within the workspace button.
1571 ------------------------------
1572 strip_workspace_numbers yes|no
1573 ------------------------------
1576 ----------------------------
1578 strip_workspace_numbers yes
1580 ----------------------------
1582 === Binding Mode indicator
1584 Specifies whether the current binding mode indicator should be shown or not.
1585 This is useful if you want to hide the workspace buttons but still be able
1586 to see the current binding mode indicator. See <<binding_modes>> to learn what
1587 modes are and how to use them.
1589 The default is to show the mode indicator.
1592 -----------------------------
1593 binding_mode_indicator yes|no
1594 -----------------------------
1597 -----------------------------
1599 binding_mode_indicator no
1601 -----------------------------
1605 As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
1606 be configured at the moment:
1609 Background color of the bar.
1611 Text color to be used for the statusline.
1613 Text color to be used for the separator.
1614 focused_background::
1615 Background color of the bar on the currently focused monitor output. If
1616 not used, the color will be taken from +background+.
1617 focused_statusline::
1618 Text color to be used for the statusline on the currently focused
1619 monitor output. If not used, the color will be taken from +statusline+.
1621 Text color to be used for the separator on the currently focused
1622 monitor output. If not used, the color will be taken from +separator+.
1624 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1627 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1628 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
1629 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
1630 using multiple monitors.
1631 inactive_workspace::
1632 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1633 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
1634 will be the case for most workspaces.
1636 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1637 contains a window with the urgency hint set.
1639 Border, background and text color for the binding mode indicator. If not used,
1640 the colors will be taken from +urgent_workspace+.
1643 ----------------------------------------
1649 <colorclass> <border> <background> <text>
1651 ----------------------------------------
1653 *Example (default colors)*:
1654 --------------------------------------
1661 focused_workspace #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
1662 active_workspace #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
1663 inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
1664 urgent_workspace #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1665 binding_mode #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1668 --------------------------------------
1672 Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
1673 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
1674 do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:
1677 --------------------------
1678 # execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
1680 --------------------------
1682 [[command_chaining]]
1684 Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
1685 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
1686 the following keybinding:
1689 --------------------------------------------------------
1690 bindsym $mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3
1691 --------------------------------------------------------
1693 [[command_criteria]]
1695 Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command - that is, which containers
1696 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. The criteria
1697 are specified before any command in a pair of square brackets and are separated
1700 When using multiple commands, separate them by using a +,+ (a comma) instead of
1701 a semicolon. Criteria apply only until the next semicolon, so if you use a
1702 semicolon to separate commands, only the first one will be executed for the
1706 ------------------------------------
1707 # if you want to kill all windows which have the class Firefox, use:
1708 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
1710 # same thing, but case-insensitive
1711 bindsym $mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
1713 # kill only the About dialog from Firefox
1714 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox" window_role="About"] kill
1716 # enable floating mode and move container to workspace 4
1717 for_window [class="^evil-app$"] floating enable, move container to workspace 4
1719 # move all floating windows to the scratchpad
1720 bindsym $mod+x [floating] move scratchpad
1721 ------------------------------------
1723 The criteria which are currently implemented are:
1726 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS). Use the
1727 special value +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows having the same window
1728 class as the currently focused window.
1730 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS). Use the
1731 special value +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows having the same window
1732 instance as the currently focused window.
1734 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE). Use the special value
1735 +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows having the same window role as the
1736 currently focused window.
1738 Compare the window type (_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE). Possible values are
1739 +normal+, +dialog+, +utility+, +toolbar+, +splash+, +menu+, +dropdown_menu+,
1740 +popup_menu+, +tooltip+ and +notification+.
1742 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
1744 Compares the X11 window title (\_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
1745 Use the special value +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows having the
1746 same window title as the currently focused window.
1748 Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
1749 Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
1750 (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
1752 Compares the workspace name of the workspace the window belongs to. Use
1753 the special value +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows in the currently
1756 Compares the marks set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>. A
1757 match is made if any of the container's marks matches the specified
1760 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
1761 interface. Handy for scripting. Use the special value +\_\_focused__+
1762 to match only the currently focused window.
1764 Only matches floating windows. This criterion requires no value.
1766 Only matches tiling windows. This criterion requires no value.
1768 The criteria +class+, +instance+, +role+, +title+, +workspace+ and +mark+ are
1769 actually regular expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for
1770 information on how to use them.
1773 === Executing applications (exec)
1775 What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
1776 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
1777 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
1778 searched in your +$PATH+.
1780 See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
1781 and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
1782 strings (as shown in <<exec_quoting>>) if they appear in your command.
1785 --------------------------------
1786 exec [--no-startup-id] <command>
1787 --------------------------------
1790 ------------------------------
1792 bindsym $mod+g exec gimp
1794 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
1795 bindsym $mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt
1796 ------------------------------
1798 The +--no-startup-id+ parameter disables startup-notification support for this
1799 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
1800 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
1801 will change the X11 cursor to +watch+ (a clock) while the application is
1802 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
1803 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
1804 cursor for 60 seconds.
1807 If the command to be executed contains a +;+ (semicolon) and/or a +,+ (comma),
1808 the entire command must be quoted. For example, to have a keybinding for the
1809 shell command +notify-send Hello, i3+, you would add an entry to your
1810 configuration file like this:
1813 ------------------------------
1814 # Execute a command with a comma in it
1815 bindsym $mod+p exec "notify-send Hello, i3"
1816 ------------------------------
1818 If however a command with a comma and/or semicolon itself requires quotes, you
1819 must escape the internal quotation marks with double backslashes, like this:
1822 ------------------------------
1823 # Execute a command with a comma, semicolon and internal quotes
1824 bindsym $mod+p exec "notify-send \\"Hello, i3; from $USER\\""
1825 ------------------------------
1827 === Splitting containers
1829 The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
1830 can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
1831 new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
1832 get placed below the current one (splitv).
1834 If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
1835 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
1836 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window).
1837 The +toggle+ option will toggle the orientation of the split container if it
1838 contains a single window. Otherwise it makes the current window a split
1839 container with opposite orientation compared to the parent container.
1840 Use +layout toggle split+ to change the layout of any split container from
1841 splitv to splith or vice-versa. You can also define a custom sequence of layouts
1842 to cycle through with +layout toggle+, see <<manipulating_layout>>.
1845 --------------------------------
1846 split vertical|horizontal|toggle
1847 --------------------------------
1850 -------------------------------
1851 bindsym $mod+v split vertical
1852 bindsym $mod+h split horizontal
1853 bindsym $mod+t split toggle
1854 -------------------------------
1856 === Manipulating layout
1858 Use +layout toggle split+, +layout stacking+, +layout tabbed+, +layout splitv+
1859 or +layout splith+ to change the current container layout to splith/splitv,
1860 stacking, tabbed layout, splitv or splith, respectively.
1862 Specify up to four layouts after +layout toggle+ to cycle through them. Every
1863 time the command is executed, the layout specified after the currently active
1864 one will be applied. If the currently active layout is not in the list, the
1865 first layout in the list will be activated.
1867 To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen enable+ (or
1868 +fullscreen enable global+ for the global mode), to leave either fullscreen
1869 mode use +fullscreen disable+, and to toggle between these two states use
1870 +fullscreen toggle+ (or +fullscreen toggle global+).
1872 Likewise, to make the current window floating (or tiling again) use +floating
1873 enable+ respectively +floating disable+ (or +floating toggle+):
1876 --------------------------------------------
1877 layout default|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith
1878 layout toggle [split|all]
1879 layout toggle [split|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith] [split|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith]…
1880 --------------------------------------------
1884 bindsym $mod+s layout stacking
1885 bindsym $mod+l layout toggle split
1886 bindsym $mod+w layout tabbed
1888 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
1889 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle
1891 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
1892 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle all
1894 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith:
1895 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle stacking tabbed splith
1897 # Toggle between splitv/tabbed
1898 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle splitv tabbed
1900 # Toggle between last split layout/tabbed/stacking
1901 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle split tabbed stacking
1904 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
1906 # Toggle floating/tiling
1907 bindsym $mod+t floating toggle
1910 [[_focusing_moving_containers]]
1911 === Focusing containers
1913 To change focus, you can use the +focus+ command. The following options are
1916 left|right|up|down::
1917 Sets focus to the nearest container in the given direction.
1919 Sets focus to the parent container of the current container.
1921 The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
1924 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
1926 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
1928 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
1930 Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
1931 corresponding output.
1934 ----------------------------------------------
1935 focus left|right|down|up
1936 focus parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle
1937 focus output left|right|up|down|primary|<output>
1938 ----------------------------------------------
1941 -------------------------------------------------
1942 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right
1943 bindsym $mod+j focus left
1944 bindsym $mod+k focus down
1945 bindsym $mod+l focus up
1946 bindsym $mod+semicolon focus right
1948 # Focus parent container
1949 bindsym $mod+u focus parent
1951 # Focus last floating/tiling container
1952 bindsym $mod+g focus mode_toggle
1954 # Focus the output right to the current one
1955 bindsym $mod+x focus output right
1957 # Focus the big output
1958 bindsym $mod+x focus output HDMI-2
1960 # Focus the primary output
1961 bindsym $mod+x focus output primary
1962 -------------------------------------------------
1964 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1965 -------------------------
1966 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1967 -------------------------
1969 === Moving containers
1971 Use the +move+ command to move a container.
1974 -----------------------------------------------------
1975 # Moves the container into the given direction.
1976 # The optional pixel argument specifies how far the
1977 # container should be moved if it is floating and
1978 # defaults to 10 pixels.
1979 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
1981 # Moves the container either to a specific location
1982 # or to the center of the screen. If 'absolute' is
1983 # used, it is moved to the center of all outputs.
1984 move [absolute] position <pos_x> [px] <pos_y> [px]
1985 move [absolute] position center
1987 # Moves the container to the current position of the
1988 # mouse cursor. Only affects floating containers.
1990 -----------------------------------------------------
1993 -------------------------------------------------------
1994 # Move container to the left, bottom, top, right
1995 bindsym $mod+j move left
1996 bindsym $mod+k move down
1997 bindsym $mod+l move up
1998 bindsym $mod+semicolon move right
2000 # Move container, but make floating containers
2001 # move more than the default
2002 bindsym $mod+j move left 20 px
2004 # Move floating container to the center of all outputs
2005 bindsym $mod+c move absolute position center
2007 # Move container to the current position of the cursor
2008 bindsym $mod+m move position mouse
2009 -------------------------------------------------------
2011 === Swapping containers
2013 Two containers can be swapped (i.e., move to each other's position) by using
2014 the +swap+ command. They will assume the position and geometry of the container
2015 they are swapped with.
2017 The first container to participate in the swapping can be selected through the
2018 normal command criteria process with the focused window being the usual
2019 fallback if no criteria are specified. The second container can be selected
2020 using one of the following methods:
2022 +id+:: The X11 window ID of a client window.
2023 +con_id+:: The i3 container ID of a container.
2024 +mark+:: A container with the specified mark, see <<vim_like_marks>>.
2026 Note that swapping does not work with all containers. Most notably, swapping
2027 floating containers or containers that have a parent-child relationship to one
2028 another does not work.
2031 ----------------------------------------
2032 swap container with id|con_id|mark <arg>
2033 ----------------------------------------
2036 -----------------------------------------------------------------
2037 # Swaps the focused container with the container marked »swapee«.
2038 swap container with mark swapee
2040 # Swaps container marked »A« and »B«
2041 [con_mark="^A$"] swap container with mark B
2042 -----------------------------------------------------------------
2044 === Sticky floating windows
2046 If you want a window to stick to the glass, i.e., have it stay on screen even
2047 if you switch to another workspace, you can use the +sticky+ command. For
2048 example, this can be useful for notepads, a media player or a video chat
2051 Note that while any window can be made sticky through this command, it will
2052 only take effect if the window is floating.
2055 ----------------------------
2056 sticky enable|disable|toggle
2057 ----------------------------
2060 ------------------------------------------------------
2061 # make a terminal sticky that was started as a notepad
2062 for_window [instance=notepad] sticky enable
2063 ------------------------------------------------------
2065 === Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces
2067 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
2068 number or name of the workspace. Pass the optional flag
2069 +--no-auto-back-and-forth+ to disable <<back_and_forth>> for this specific call
2072 To move containers to specific workspaces, use +move container to workspace+.
2074 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
2075 +workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
2076 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
2077 combination. To restrict those to the current output, use +workspace
2078 next_on_output+ and +workspace prev_on_output+. Similarly, you can use +move
2079 container to workspace next+, +move container to workspace prev+ to move a
2080 container to the next/previous workspace and +move container to workspace current+
2081 (the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).
2083 +workspace next+ cycles through either numbered or named workspaces. But when it
2084 reaches the last numbered/named workspace, it looks for named workspaces after
2085 exhausting numbered ones and looks for numbered ones after exhausting named ones.
2087 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
2090 Workspace names are parsed as
2091 https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
2095 To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use +workspace
2096 back_and_forth+; likewise, you can move containers to the previously focused
2097 workspace using +move container to workspace back_and_forth+.
2100 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2101 workspace next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output
2102 workspace back_and_forth
2103 workspace [--no-auto-back-and-forth] <name>
2104 workspace [--no-auto-back-and-forth] number <name>
2106 move [--no-auto-back-and-forth] [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
2107 move [--no-auto-back-and-forth] [window|container] [to] workspace number <name>
2108 move [window|container] [to] workspace prev|next|current
2109 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2112 -------------------------
2113 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1
2114 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2
2115 bindsym $mod+3 workspace 3:<span foreground="red">vim</span>
2118 bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
2119 bindsym $mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
2122 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
2123 bindsym $mod+b workspace back_and_forth
2124 bindsym $mod+Shift+b move container to workspace back_and_forth
2126 # move the whole workspace to the next output
2127 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
2129 # move firefox to current workspace
2130 bindsym $mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current
2131 -------------------------
2133 ==== Named workspaces
2135 Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
2136 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:
2139 -------------------------
2140 bindsym $mod+1 workspace mail
2142 -------------------------
2144 If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
2148 -------------------------
2149 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1: mail
2150 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2: www
2152 -------------------------
2154 Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
2155 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
2156 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
2157 will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use +workspace number 1+
2158 to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
2159 it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
2160 dynamically. To combine both commands you can use +workspace number 1: mail+ to
2161 specify a default name if there's currently no workspace starting with a "1".
2163 ==== Renaming workspaces
2165 You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
2166 numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
2167 reflect what’s actually on them. You can also omit the old name to rename
2168 the currently focused workspace. This is handy if you want to use the
2169 rename command with +i3-input+.
2172 ----------------------------------------------------
2173 rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
2174 rename workspace to <new_name>
2175 ----------------------------------------------------
2178 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
2179 i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
2180 i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
2181 i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
2182 i3-msg 'rename workspace to "2: mail"'
2183 bindsym $mod+r exec i3-input -F 'rename workspace to "%s"' -P 'New name: '
2184 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
2186 If you want to rename workspaces on demand while keeping the navigation stable,
2187 you can use a setup like this:
2190 -------------------------
2191 bindsym $mod+1 workspace number "1: www"
2192 bindsym $mod+2 workspace number "2: mail"
2194 -------------------------
2196 If a workspace does not exist, the command +workspace number "1: mail"+ will
2197 create workspace "1: mail".
2199 If a workspace with number 1 does already exist, the command will switch to this
2200 workspace and ignore the text part. So even when the workspace has been renamed
2201 to "1: web", the above command will still switch to it.
2203 === Moving workspaces to a different screen
2205 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
2209 [[_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs]]
2210 === Moving containers/workspaces to RandR outputs
2212 To move a container to another RandR output (addressed by names like +LVDS1+ or
2213 +VGA1+) or to a RandR output identified by a specific direction (like +left+,
2214 +right+, +up+ or +down+), there are two commands:
2217 ------------------------------------------------------------
2218 move container to output left|right|down|up|current|primary|<output>
2219 move workspace to output left|right|down|up|current|primary|<output>
2220 ------------------------------------------------------------
2223 --------------------------------------------------------
2224 # Move the current workspace to the next output
2225 # (effectively toggles when you only have two outputs)
2226 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
2228 # Put this window on the presentation output.
2229 bindsym $mod+x move container to output VGA1
2231 # Put this window on the primary output.
2232 bindsym $mod+x move container to output primary
2233 --------------------------------------------------------
2235 -------------------------------
2236 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
2237 -------------------------
2238 xrandr --output <output> --primary
2239 -------------------------
2241 === Moving containers/windows to marks
2243 To move a container to another container with a specific mark (see <<vim_like_marks>>),
2244 you can use the following command.
2246 The window will be moved right after the marked container in the tree, i.e., it ends up
2247 in the same position as if you had opened a new window when the marked container was
2248 focused. If the mark is on a split container, the window will appear as a new child
2249 after the currently focused child within that container.
2252 ------------------------------------
2253 move window|container to mark <mark>
2254 ------------------------------------
2257 --------------------------------------------------------
2258 for_window [instance="tabme"] move window to mark target
2259 --------------------------------------------------------
2262 === Resizing containers/windows
2264 If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
2268 -------------------------------------------------------
2269 resize grow|shrink <direction> [<px> px [or <ppt> ppt]]
2270 resize set <width> [px] <height> [px]
2271 -------------------------------------------------------
2273 Direction can either be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. Or you can be
2274 less specific and use +width+ or +height+, in which case i3 will take/give
2275 space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
2276 how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or shrunk (the default
2277 is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
2278 many percentage points a *tiling container* should be grown or shrunk (the
2279 default is 10 percentage points). Note that +resize set+ will only work for
2280 floating containers.
2282 It is recommended to define bindings for resizing in a dedicated binding mode.
2283 See <<binding_modes>> and the example in the i3
2284 https://github.com/i3/i3/blob/next/etc/config.keycodes[default config] for more
2288 ------------------------------------------------
2289 for_window [class="urxvt"] resize set 640 480
2290 ------------------------------------------------
2292 === Jumping to specific windows
2294 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
2295 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
2296 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
2297 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mail client,
2298 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
2299 with criteria for that.
2302 ----------------------------------------------------
2303 [class="class"] focus
2304 [title="title"] focus
2305 ----------------------------------------------------
2308 ------------------------------------------------
2309 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
2310 bindsym $mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
2311 ------------------------------------------------
2314 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
2316 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
2317 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
2318 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
2319 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You can unmark the label in the same
2320 way, using the unmark command. If you don't specify a label, unmark removes all
2321 marks. You do not need to ensure that your windows have unique classes or
2322 titles, and you do not need to change your configuration file.
2324 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
2325 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
2326 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
2327 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
2329 The additional +--toggle+ option will remove the mark if the window already has
2330 this mark or add it otherwise. Note that you may need to use this in
2331 combination with +--add+ (see below) as any other marks will otherwise be
2334 By default, a window can only have one mark. You can use the +--add+ flag to
2335 put more than one mark on a window.
2337 Refer to <<show_marks>> if you don't want marks to be shown in the window decoration.
2340 ----------------------------------------------
2341 mark [--add|--replace] [--toggle] <identifier>
2342 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
2344 ----------------------------------------------
2346 *Example (in a terminal)*:
2347 ---------------------------------------------------------
2348 # marks the focused container
2351 # focus the container with the mark "irssi"
2352 '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
2354 # remove the mark "irssi" from whichever container has it
2357 # remove all marks on all firefox windows
2358 [class="(?i)firefox"] unmark
2359 ---------------------------------------------------------
2361 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2362 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
2364 ---------------------------------------
2365 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
2366 bindsym $mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
2368 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
2369 bindsym $mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
2370 ---------------------------------------
2372 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
2373 separate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
2374 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2377 === Window title format
2379 By default, i3 will simply print the X11 window title. Using +title_format+,
2380 this can be customized by setting the format to the desired output. This
2382 https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
2383 and the following placeholders which will be replaced:
2386 For normal windows, this is the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME
2387 as fallback). When used on containers without a window (e.g., a split
2388 container inside a tabbed/stacked layout), this will be the tree
2389 representation of the container (e.g., "H[xterm xterm]").
2391 The X11 window class (second part of WM_CLASS). This corresponds to the
2392 +class+ criterion, see <<command_criteria>>.
2394 The X11 window instance (first part of WM_CLASS). This corresponds to the
2395 +instance+ criterion, see <<command_criteria>>.
2397 Using the <<for_window>> directive, you can set the title format for any window
2398 based on <<command_criteria>>.
2401 ---------------------
2402 title_format <format>
2403 ---------------------
2406 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2407 # give the focused window a prefix
2408 bindsym $mod+p title_format "Important | %title"
2410 # print all window titles bold
2411 for_window [class=".*"] title_format "<b>%title</b>"
2413 # print window titles of firefox windows red
2414 for_window [class="(?i)firefox"] title_format "<span foreground='red'>%title</span>"
2415 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2417 === Changing border style
2419 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
2420 border (including window title), +border pixel 1+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
2421 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
2423 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
2425 Note that "pixel" refers to logical pixel. On HiDPI displays, a logical pixel
2426 may be represented by multiple physical pixels, so +pixel 1+ might not
2427 necessarily translate into a single pixel row wide border.
2430 -----------------------------------------------
2431 border normal|pixel [<n>]
2434 # legacy syntax, equivalent to "border pixel 1"
2436 -----------------------------------------------
2439 ----------------------------------------------
2440 # use window title, but no border
2441 bindsym $mod+t border normal 0
2442 # use no window title and a thick border
2443 bindsym $mod+y border pixel 3
2444 # use neither window title nor border
2445 bindsym $mod+u border none
2446 ----------------------------------------------
2449 === Enabling shared memory logging
2451 As described in http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html, i3 can log to a shared
2452 memory buffer, which you can dump using +i3-dump-log+. The +shmlog+ command
2453 allows you to enable or disable the shared memory logging at runtime.
2455 Note that when using +shmlog <size_in_bytes>+, the current log will be
2456 discarded and a new one will be started.
2459 ------------------------------
2460 shmlog <size_in_bytes>
2461 shmlog on|off|toggle
2462 ------------------------------
2466 # Enable/disable logging
2467 bindsym $mod+x shmlog toggle
2469 # or, from a terminal:
2470 # increase the shared memory log buffer to 50 MiB
2471 i3-msg shmlog $((50*1024*1024))
2474 === Enabling debug logging
2476 The +debuglog+ command allows you to enable or disable debug logging at
2477 runtime. Debug logging is much more verbose than non-debug logging. This
2478 command does not activate shared memory logging (shmlog), and as such is most
2479 likely useful in combination with the above-described <<shmlog>> command.
2482 ----------------------
2483 debuglog on|off|toggle
2484 ----------------------
2487 ------------------------
2488 # Enable/disable logging
2489 bindsym $mod+x debuglog toggle
2490 ------------------------
2492 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
2494 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
2495 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
2496 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
2497 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
2498 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
2501 ----------------------------
2502 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
2503 bindsym $mod+Shift+w reload
2504 bindsym $mod+Shift+e exit
2505 ----------------------------
2509 There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. +move
2510 scratchpad+ will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
2511 invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
2512 Instead, when using +scratchpad show+, the window will be shown again, as a
2513 floating window, centered on your current workspace (using +scratchpad show+ on
2514 a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
2515 keybinding to toggle). Note that this is just a normal floating window, so if
2516 you want to "remove it from scratchpad", you can simple make it tiling again
2517 (+floating toggle+).
2519 As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
2520 editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
2521 running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
2522 player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?
2532 ------------------------------------------------
2533 # Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
2534 bindsym $mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad
2536 # Show the first scratchpad window
2537 bindsym $mod+minus scratchpad show
2539 # Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
2540 bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show
2541 ------------------------------------------------
2545 There is a no operation command +nop+ which allows you to override default
2546 behavior. This can be useful for, e.g., disabling a focus change on clicks with
2547 the middle mouse button.
2549 The optional +comment+ argument is ignored, but will be printed to the log file
2550 for debugging purposes.
2558 ----------------------------------------------
2559 # Disable focus change for clicks on titlebars
2560 # with the middle mouse button
2562 ----------------------------------------------
2566 There are two options in the configuration of each i3bar instance that can be
2567 changed during runtime by invoking a command through i3. The commands +bar
2568 hidden_state+ and +bar mode+ allow setting the current hidden_state
2569 respectively mode option of each bar. It is also possible to toggle between
2570 hide state and show state as well as between dock mode and hide mode. Each
2571 i3bar instance can be controlled individually by specifying a bar_id, if none
2572 is given, the command is executed for all bar instances.
2576 bar hidden_state hide|show|toggle [<bar_id>]
2578 bar mode dock|hide|invisible|toggle [<bar_id>]
2582 ------------------------------------------------
2583 # Toggle between hide state and show state
2584 bindsym $mod+m bar hidden_state toggle
2586 # Toggle between dock mode and hide mode
2587 bindsym $mod+n bar mode toggle
2589 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to switch to hide mode
2590 bindsym $mod+b bar mode hide bar-1
2592 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to always stay hidden
2593 bindsym $mod+Shift+b bar mode invisible bar-1
2594 ------------------------------------------------
2597 == Multiple monitors
2599 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
2600 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
2601 handle multiple monitors.
2603 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
2604 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
2606 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
2607 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
2608 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
2609 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
2610 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
2611 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
2612 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
2614 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
2615 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
2616 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
2617 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
2618 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
2619 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
2620 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
2621 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
2623 === Configuring your monitors
2625 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
2626 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
2627 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
2628 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
2629 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2631 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
2632 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
2633 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2634 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2635 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2637 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2638 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2642 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2644 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
2645 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
2646 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
2647 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
2649 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
2650 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
2651 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
2653 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
2654 -------------------------------------------
2655 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
2656 -------------------------------------------
2657 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
2658 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
2659 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
2660 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2662 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
2663 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
2664 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
2667 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
2669 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2670 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
2672 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2673 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2674 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2676 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2677 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2681 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2682 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
2683 only what you can see in xrandr.
2685 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
2687 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
2689 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
2690 have more than one monitor:
2692 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
2693 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
2694 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
2695 <<workspace_screen>>.
2696 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
2697 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
2698 <<assign_workspace>>.
2699 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
2700 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
2701 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
2702 4. For information on how to move existing workspaces between monitors,
2703 see <<move_to_outputs>>.
2705 == i3 and the rest of your software world
2707 === Displaying a status line
2709 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
2710 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
2711 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
2713 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
2714 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
2715 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
2716 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
2717 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
2718 i3bar. See <<status_command>> for how to display i3status in i3bar.
2720 Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
2721 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
2722 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
2723 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
2724 see <<i3bar_position>>.
2727 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
2729 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
2730 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
2731 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
2732 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
2735 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
2736 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
2737 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
2738 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
2739 -----------------------------------------------------
2740 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
2741 -----------------------------------------------------
2742 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
2743 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
2744 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
2746 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
2747 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
2748 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
2749 -----------------------------------------------------
2750 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
2751 -----------------------------------------------------
2752 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
2753 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
2755 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
2756 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
2757 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).