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 that largely prevents conflicts with
39 application-defined shortcuts.
41 === Opening terminals and moving around
43 One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
44 for this is +$mod+Enter+, that is Alt+Enter (+Mod1+Enter+) in the default
45 configuration. By pressing +$mod+Enter+, a new terminal will be opened. It
46 will fill the whole space available on your screen.
48 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
50 If you now open another terminal, i3 will place it next to the current one,
51 splitting the screen size in half. Depending on your monitor, i3 will put the
52 created window beside the existing window (on wide displays) or below the
53 existing window (rotated displays).
55 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
57 To move the focus between the two terminals, you can use the direction keys
58 which you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used
59 for these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for
60 compatibility with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +$mod+j+ is left, +$mod+k+
61 is down, +$mod+l+ is up and `$mod+;` is right. So, to switch between the
62 terminals, use +$mod+k+ or +$mod+l+. Of course, you can also use the arrow keys.
64 At the moment, your workspace is split (it contains two terminals) in a
65 specific direction (horizontal by default). Every window can be split
66 horizontally or vertically again, just like the workspace. The terminology is
67 "window" for a container that actually contains an X11 window (like a terminal
68 or browser) and "split container" for containers that consist of one or more
71 TODO: picture of the tree
73 To split a window vertically, press +$mod+v+ before you create the new window.
74 To split it horizontally, press +$mod+h+.
76 === Changing the container layout
78 A split container can have one of the following layouts:
81 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
82 container. splith distributes the windows horizontally (windows are right next
83 to each other), splitv distributes them vertically (windows are on top of each
86 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
87 windows at the top of the container.
89 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
90 a single line which is vertically split.
92 To switch modes, press +$mod+e+ for splith/splitv (it toggles), +$mod+s+ for
93 stacking and +$mod+w+ for tabbed.
95 image:modes.png[Container modes]
97 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
99 To display a window in fullscreen mode or to go out of fullscreen mode again,
102 There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will span all
103 available outputs (the command is +fullscreen toggle global+).
105 === Opening other applications
107 Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
108 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +$mod+d+ by default. Just type the name
109 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The corresponding
110 application has to be in your +$PATH+ for this to work.
112 Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
113 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
114 <<configuring>> for details.
118 If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
119 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+w+ to close), you
120 can press +$mod+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
121 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
122 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
123 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
124 depends on the application.
128 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
129 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
130 another workspace, press +$mod+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
131 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
133 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
134 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one, and the ones with which you
135 work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
137 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
138 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
139 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
140 focus to that screen.
142 === Moving windows to workspaces
144 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +$mod+Shift+num+ where
145 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
146 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
147 it does not yet exist.
151 The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
152 and move it to the wanted size.
154 You can also use <<binding_modes>> to define a mode for resizing via the
155 keyboard. To see an example for this, look at the
156 https://github.com/i3/i3/blob/next/etc/config.keycodes[default config] provided
159 === Restarting i3 inplace
161 To restart i3 in place (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
162 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +$mod+Shift+r+.
166 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +$mod+Shift+e+.
167 By default, a dialog will ask you to confirm if you really want to quit.
171 Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of
172 a window are not managed automatically by i3, but manually by
173 you. Using this mode violates the tiling paradigm but can be useful
174 for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog windows, or toolbar
175 windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the appropriate
176 hint and are opened in floating mode by default.
178 You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing +$mod+Shift+Space+. By
179 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
180 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
181 can also do that by using the <<floating_modifier>>. Another way to resize
182 floating windows using the mouse is to right-click on the titlebar and drag.
184 For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see the resizing binding mode
185 provided by the i3 https://github.com/i3/i3/blob/next/etc/config.keycodes[default config].
187 Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.
191 i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
192 windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
193 the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
194 finally the windows themselves. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
195 (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
196 out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.
198 === The tree consists of Containers
200 The building blocks of our tree are so-called +Containers+. A +Container+ can
201 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
202 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more +Containers+. A
203 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
204 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
207 image::tree-layout2.png["layout2",float="right"]
208 image::tree-shot4.png["shot4",title="Two terminals on standard workspace"]
211 === Orientation and Split Containers
213 It is only natural to use so-called +Split Containers+ in order to build a
214 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every +Container+ has an
215 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified) and the orientation depends
216 on the layout the container is in (vertical for splitv and stacking, horizontal
217 for splith and tabbed). So, in our example with the workspace, the default
218 layout of the workspace +Container+ is splith (most monitors are widescreen
219 nowadays). If you change the layout to splitv (+$mod+v+ in the default config)
220 and *then* open two terminals, i3 will configure your windows like this:
222 image::tree-shot2.png["shot2",title="Vertical Workspace Orientation"]
224 An interesting new feature of i3 since version 4 is the ability to split anything:
225 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with splith layout, that is
226 horizontal orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open
227 another terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new
228 terminal window, it would show up to the right due to the splith layout.
229 Instead, press +$mod+v+ to split the container with the splitv layout (to
230 open a +Horizontal Split Container+, use +$mod+h+). Now you can open a new
231 terminal and it will open below the current one:
233 image::tree-layout1.png["Layout",float="right"]
234 image::tree-shot1.png["shot",title="Vertical Split Container"]
238 You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
243 Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
244 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
245 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.
247 So, how can you open a new terminal window to the *right* of the current one?
248 The solution is to use +focus parent+, which will focus the +Parent Container+ of
249 the current +Container+. In this case, you would focus the +Vertical Split
250 Container+ which is *inside* the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
251 windows will be opened to the right of the +Vertical Split Container+:
253 image::tree-shot3.png["shot3",title="Focus parent, then open new terminal"]
255 === Implicit containers
257 In some cases, i3 needs to implicitly create a container to fulfill your
260 One example is the following scenario: You start i3 with a single monitor and a
261 single workspace on which you open three terminal windows. All these terminal
262 windows are directly attached to one node inside i3’s layout tree, the
263 workspace node. By default, the workspace node’s orientation is +horizontal+.
265 Now you move one of these terminals down (+$mod+Shift+k+ by default). The
266 workspace node’s orientation will be changed to +vertical+. The terminal window
267 you moved down is directly attached to the workspace and appears on the bottom
268 of the screen. A new (horizontal) container was created to accommodate the
269 other two terminal windows. You will notice this when switching to tabbed mode
270 (for example). You would end up having one tab with a representation of the split
271 container (e.g., "H[urxvt firefox]") and the other one being the terminal window
277 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependent on your
278 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
280 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
281 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
284 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
285 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
286 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
287 can bind your keys to do useful things.
289 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
290 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
293 On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
294 file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
295 wizard to use either Alt (+Mod1+) or Windows (+Mod4+) as modifier in the config
296 file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
297 keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command +i3-config-wizard+.
298 Please note that you must not have +~/.i3/config+, otherwise the wizard will
301 Since i3 4.0, a new configuration format is used. i3 will try to automatically
302 detect the format version of a config file based on a few different keywords,
303 but if you want to make sure that your config is read with the new format,
304 include the following line in your config file:
306 ---------------------
307 # i3 config file (v4)
308 ---------------------
312 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
313 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
314 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:
324 i3 has support for both X core fonts and FreeType fonts (through Pango) to
325 render window titles.
327 To generate an X core font description, you can use +xfontsel(1)+. To see
328 special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the
331 A FreeType font description is composed by a font family, a style, a weight,
332 a variant, a stretch and a size.
333 FreeType fonts support right-to-left rendering and contain often more
334 Unicode glyphs than X core fonts.
336 If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
337 and fall back to a working font.
340 ------------------------------
341 font <X core font description>
342 font pango:<family list> [<style options>] <size>
343 ------------------------------
346 --------------------------------------------------------------
347 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
348 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
349 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono, Terminus Bold Semi-Condensed 11
350 font pango:Terminus 11px
351 --------------------------------------------------------------
354 === Keyboard bindings
356 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
357 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
358 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
360 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
361 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
362 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
363 mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+. To interactively enter a key and
364 see what keysym it is configured to, use +xev+.
366 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
367 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
368 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
370 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
371 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
372 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
375 Some tools (such as +import+ or +xdotool+) might be unable to run upon a
376 KeyPress event, because the keyboard/pointer is still grabbed. For these
377 situations, the +--release+ flag can be used, which will execute the command
378 after the keys have been released.
381 ----------------------------------
382 bindsym [--release] [<Group>+][<Modifiers>+]<keysym> command
383 bindcode [--release] [<Group>+][<Modifiers>+]<keycode> command
384 ----------------------------------
387 --------------------------------
389 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
392 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
394 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
395 bindcode 214 exec --no-startup-id /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
397 # Simulate ctrl+v upon pressing $mod+x
398 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v
400 # Take a screenshot upon pressing $mod+x (select an area)
401 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id import /tmp/latest-screenshot.png
402 --------------------------------
406 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
407 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
409 Group1, Group2, Group3, Group4::
410 When using multiple keyboard layouts (e.g. with `setxkbmap -layout us,ru`), you
411 can specify in which XKB group (also called “layout”) a keybinding should be
412 active. By default, keybindings are translated in Group1 and are active in all
413 groups. If you want to override keybindings in one of your layouts, specify the
414 corresponding group. For backwards compatibility, the group “Mode_switch” is an
420 A mouse binding makes i3 execute a command upon pressing a specific mouse
421 button in the scope of the clicked container (see <<command_criteria>>). You
422 can configure mouse bindings in a similar way to key bindings.
425 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
426 bindsym [--release] [--border] [--whole-window] [--exclude-titlebar] [<Modifiers>+]button<n> command
427 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
429 By default, the binding will only run when you click on the titlebar of the
430 window. If the +--release+ flag is given, it will run when the mouse button
433 If the +--whole-window+ flag is given, the binding will also run when any part
434 of the window is clicked, with the exception of the border. To have a bind run
435 when the border is clicked, specify the +--border+ flag.
437 If the +--exclude-titlebar+ flag is given, the titlebar will not be considered
441 --------------------------------
442 # The middle button over a titlebar kills the window
443 bindsym --release button2 kill
445 # The middle button and a modifer over any part of the window kills the window
446 bindsym --whole-window $mod+button2 kill
448 # The right button toggles floating
449 bindsym button3 floating toggle
450 bindsym $mod+button3 floating toggle
452 # The side buttons move the window around
453 bindsym button9 move left
454 bindsym button8 move right
455 --------------------------------
460 You can have multiple sets of bindings by using different binding modes. When
461 you switch to another binding mode, all bindings from the current mode are
462 released and only the bindings defined in the new mode are valid for as long as
463 you stay in that binding mode. The only predefined binding mode is +default+,
464 which is the mode i3 starts out with and to which all bindings not defined in a
465 specific binding mode belong.
467 Working with binding modes consists of two parts: defining a binding mode and
468 switching to it. For these purposes, there are one config directive and one
469 command, both of which are called +mode+. The directive is used to define the
470 bindings belonging to a certain binding mode, while the command will switch to
473 It is recommended to use binding modes in combination with <<variables>> in
474 order to make maintenance easier. Below is an example of how to use a binding
477 Note that it is advisable to define bindings for switching back to the default
480 Note that it is possible to use <<pango_markup>> for binding modes, but you
481 need to enable it explicitly by passing the +--pango_markup+ flag to the mode
485 ----------------------------
487 mode [--pango_markup] <name>
491 ----------------------------
494 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
495 # Press $mod+o followed by either f, t, Escape or Return to launch firefox,
496 # thunderbird or return to the default mode, respectively.
497 set $mode_launcher Launch: [f]irefox [t]hunderbird
498 bindsym $mod+o mode "$mode_launcher"
500 mode "$mode_launcher" {
501 bindsym f exec firefox
502 bindsym t exec thunderbird
504 bindsym Escape mode "default"
505 bindsym Return mode "default"
507 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
509 [[floating_modifier]]
510 === The floating modifier
512 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
513 or configure the so-called floating modifier which you can then press and
514 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
515 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
516 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
517 it to the position you want.
519 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
520 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
521 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
522 ratio will be preserved).
525 --------------------------------
526 floating_modifier <Modifier>
527 --------------------------------
530 --------------------------------
531 floating_modifier Mod1
532 --------------------------------
534 === Constraining floating window size
536 The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
537 either dimension of +floating_maximum_size+ is specified as -1, that dimension
538 will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
539 +floating_maximum_size+ is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
540 value to constrain the maximum size. +floating_minimum_size+ is treated in a
541 manner analogous to +floating_maximum_size+.
544 ----------------------------------------
545 floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
546 floating_maximum_size <width> x <height>
547 ----------------------------------------
550 --------------------------------------
551 floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
552 floating_maximum_size -1 x -1
553 --------------------------------------
555 === Orientation for new workspaces
557 New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
558 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
559 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.
561 With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
565 --------------------------------------------
566 default_orientation horizontal|vertical|auto
567 --------------------------------------------
570 ----------------------------
571 default_orientation vertical
572 ----------------------------
574 === Layout mode for new containers
576 This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
580 ---------------------------------------------
581 workspace_layout default|stacking|tabbed
582 ---------------------------------------------
585 ---------------------
586 workspace_layout tabbed
587 ---------------------
589 === Border style for new windows
591 This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
592 +normal+. Note that new_float applies only to windows which are starting out as
593 floating windows, e.g., dialog windows, but not windows that are floated later on.
596 ---------------------------------------------
597 new_window normal|none|pixel
598 new_window normal|pixel <px>
599 new_float normal|none|pixel
600 new_float normal|pixel <px>
601 ---------------------------------------------
604 ---------------------
606 ---------------------
608 The "normal" and "pixel" border styles support an optional border width in
612 ---------------------
613 # The same as new_window none
618 ---------------------
621 [[_hiding_vertical_borders]]
622 === Hiding borders adjacent to the screen edges
624 You can hide container borders adjacent to the screen edges using
625 +hide_edge_borders+. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
626 to waste even two pixels in displayspace. The "smart" setting hides borders on
627 workspaces with only one window visible, but keeps them on workspaces with
628 multiple windows visible. Default is none.
631 -----------------------------------------------
632 hide_edge_borders none|vertical|horizontal|both|smart
633 -----------------------------------------------
636 ----------------------
637 hide_edge_borders vertical
638 ----------------------
641 === Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)
643 With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
644 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
645 change their border style, for example.
648 -------------------------------
649 for_window <criteria> <command>
650 -------------------------------
653 ------------------------------------------------
654 # enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
655 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
657 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
658 for_window [class="urxvt"] border pixel 1
660 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
661 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
662 # directory to ~/work
663 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
664 ------------------------------------------------
666 The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.
669 === Don't focus window upon opening
671 When a new window appears, it will be focused. The +no_focus+ directive allows preventing
672 this from happening and must be used in combination with <<command_criteria>>.
674 Note that this does not apply to all cases, e.g., when feeding data into a running application
675 causing it to request being focused. To configure the behavior in such cases, refer to
676 <<focus_on_window_activation>>.
678 +no_focus+ will also be ignored for the first window on a workspace as there shouldn't be
679 a reason to not focus the window in this case. This allows for better usability in
680 combination with +workspace_layout+.
688 -------------------------------
689 no_focus [window_role="pop-up"]
690 -------------------------------
695 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
696 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
697 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
698 variables can be handy.
706 ------------------------
708 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
709 ------------------------
711 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. Variables expansion
712 is not recursive so it is not possible to define a variable with a value
713 containing another variable. There is no fancy handling and there are
714 absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more dynamic configuration
715 you should create a little script which generates a configuration file and run
716 it before starting i3 (for example in your +~/.xsession+ file).
718 Also see <<xresources>> to learn how to create variables based on resources
719 loaded from the X resource database.
724 <<variables>> can also be created using a value configured in the X resource
725 database. This is useful, for example, to avoid configuring color values within
726 the i3 configuration. Instead, the values can be configured, once, in the X
727 resource database to achieve an easily maintainable, consistent color theme
728 across many X applications.
730 Defining a resource will load this resource from the resource database and
731 assign its value to the specified variable. A fallback must be specified in
732 case the resource cannot be loaded from the database.
735 ----------------------------------------------------
736 set_from_resource $<name> <resource_name> <fallback>
737 ----------------------------------------------------
740 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
741 # The ~/.Xresources should contain a line such as
743 # and must be loaded properly, e.g., by using
745 # This value is picked up on by other applications (e.g., the URxvt terminal
746 # emulator) and can be used in i3 like this:
747 set_from_resource $black i3wm.color0 #000000
748 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
751 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
753 To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
754 can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
755 see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
756 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
757 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
758 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
759 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
760 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
761 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
762 to match on 'Firefox' in this case.
764 You can also assign a window to show up on a specific output. You can use RandR
765 names such as +VGA1+ or names relative to the output with the currently focused
766 workspace such as +left+ and +down+.
768 Assignments are processed by i3 in the order in which they appear in the config
769 file. The first one which matches the window wins and later assignments are not
773 ------------------------------------------------------------
774 assign <criteria> [→] [workspace] [number] <workspace>
775 assign <criteria> [→] output left|right|up|down|primary|<output>
776 ------------------------------------------------------------
779 ----------------------
780 # Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
781 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
783 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
784 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
786 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
787 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
789 # Assignment to a named workspace
790 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
792 # Assign to the workspace with number 2, regardless of name
793 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → number 2
795 # You can also specify a number + name. If the workspace with number 2 exists, assign will skip the text part.
796 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → number "2: work"
798 # Start urxvt -name irssi
799 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
801 # Assign urxvt to the output right of the current one
802 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → output right
804 # Assign urxvt to the primary output
805 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → output primary
806 ----------------------
808 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
809 -------------------------
810 xrandr --output <output> --primary
811 -------------------------
813 Also, the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
814 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
816 To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
817 window, you will see the following output:
820 -----------------------------------
821 WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
822 -----------------------------------
824 The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
825 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).
827 Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
828 logfile first (see https://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
829 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
830 title when starting up.
832 Note that if you want to start an application just once on a specific
833 workspace, but you don’t want to assign all instances of it permanently, you
834 can make use of i3’s startup-notification support (see <<exec>>) in your config
835 file in the following way:
837 *Start iceweasel on workspace 3 (once)*:
838 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
839 # Start iceweasel on workspace 3, then switch back to workspace 1
840 # (Being a command-line utility, i3-msg does not support startup notifications,
841 # hence the exec --no-startup-id.)
842 # (Starting iceweasel with i3’s exec command is important in order to make i3
843 # create a startup notification context, without which the iceweasel window(s)
844 # cannot be matched onto the workspace on which the command was started.)
845 exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 3; exec iceweasel; workspace 1'
846 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
848 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
850 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
851 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
852 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
853 also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
854 keyword. These commands will be run in order.
856 See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
857 and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
858 strings (as shown in <<exec_quoting>>) if they appear in your command.
861 ---------------------------------------
862 exec [--no-startup-id] <command>
863 exec_always [--no-startup-id] <command>
864 ---------------------------------------
867 --------------------------------
869 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
871 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
872 exec --no-startup-id urxvt
873 --------------------------------
875 The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <<exec>>.
878 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
880 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
881 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
882 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
883 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
884 the second screen and so on).
887 -------------------------------------
888 workspace <workspace> output <output>
889 -------------------------------------
891 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
892 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
893 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
895 If your X server supports RandR 1.5 or newer, i3 will use RandR monitor objects
896 instead of output objects. Run +xrandr --listmonitors+ to see a list. Usually,
897 a monitor object contains exactly one output, and has the same name as the
898 output; but should that not be the case, you may specify the name of either the
899 monitor or the output in i3's configuration. For example, the Dell UP2414Q uses
900 two scalers internally, so its output names might be “DP1” and “DP2”, but the
901 monitor name is “Dell UP2414Q”.
903 (Note that even if you specify the name of an output which doesn't span the
904 entire monitor, i3 will still use the entire area of the containing monitor
905 rather than that of just the output's.)
907 If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:
910 ---------------------------
911 workspace 1 output LVDS1
912 workspace 5 output VGA1
913 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1
914 ---------------------------
918 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.
921 --------------------------------------------------------------------
922 <colorclass> <border> <background> <text> <indicator> <child_border>
923 --------------------------------------------------------------------
925 Where colorclass can be one of:
928 A client which currently has the focus.
929 client.focused_inactive::
930 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
931 the focus at the moment.
933 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
935 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
937 Background and text color are used to draw placeholder window contents
938 (when restoring layouts). Border and indicator are ignored.
940 Background color which will be used to paint the background of the
941 client window on top of which the client will be rendered. Only clients
942 which do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color. Note
943 that this colorclass only takes a single color.
945 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
947 *Examples (default colors)*:
948 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
949 # class border backgr. text indicator child_border
950 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff #2e9ef4 #285577
951 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff #484e50 #5f676a
952 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888 #292d2e #222222
953 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff #900000 #900000
954 client.placeholder #000000 #0c0c0c #ffffff #000000 #0c0c0c
956 client.background #ffffff
957 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
959 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
960 "child_border", and "border" color is only the two thin lines around the
963 The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
964 For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
965 color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
966 single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
967 from single windows outside of a split container.
969 === Interprocess communication
971 i3 uses Unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
972 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
973 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
975 The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
976 +/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username, +%p+ is
977 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
978 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).
980 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
981 by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
982 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
983 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
984 user can create that directory.
987 ----------------------------
988 ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock
989 ----------------------------
991 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
994 === Focus follows mouse
996 By default, window focus follows your mouse movements as the mouse crosses
997 window borders. However, if you have a setup where your mouse usually is in your
998 way (like a touchpad on your laptop which you do not want to disable
999 completely), you might want to disable 'focus follows mouse' and control focus
1000 only by using your keyboard. The mouse will still be useful inside the
1001 currently active window (for example to click on links in your browser window).
1004 --------------------------
1005 focus_follows_mouse yes|no
1006 --------------------------
1009 ----------------------
1010 focus_follows_mouse no
1011 ----------------------
1015 By default, when switching focus to a window on a different output (e.g.
1016 focusing a window on workspace 3 on output VGA-1, coming from workspace 2 on
1017 LVDS-1), the mouse cursor is warped to the center of that window.
1019 With the +mouse_warping+ option, you can control when the mouse cursor should
1020 be warped. +none+ disables warping entirely, whereas +output+ is the default
1021 behavior described above.
1024 -------------------------
1025 mouse_warping output|none
1026 -------------------------
1033 === Popups during fullscreen mode
1035 When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
1036 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
1037 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
1038 There are three things which are possible to do in this situation:
1040 1. Display the popup if it belongs to the fullscreen application only. This is
1041 the default and should be reasonable behavior for most users.
1042 2. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
1043 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
1044 you go out of fullscreen).
1045 3. Leave fullscreen mode.
1048 -----------------------------------------------------
1049 popup_during_fullscreen smart|ignore|leave_fullscreen
1050 -----------------------------------------------------
1053 ------------------------------
1054 popup_during_fullscreen smart
1055 ------------------------------
1059 By default, when in a container with several windows or child containers, the
1060 opposite window will be focused when trying to move the focus over the edge of
1061 a container (and there are no other containers in that direction) -- the focus
1064 If desired, you can disable this behavior by setting the +focus_wrapping+
1065 configuration directive to the value +no+.
1067 When enabled, focus wrapping does not occur by default if there is another
1068 window or container in the specified direction, and focus will instead be set
1069 on that window or container. This is the default behavior so you can navigate
1070 to all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.
1072 If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
1073 parent+ to switch to different containers, you can instead set +focus_wrapping+
1074 to the value +force+.
1077 ---------------------------
1078 focus_wrapping yes|no|force
1080 # Legacy syntax, equivalent to "focus_wrapping force"
1081 force_focus_wrapping yes
1082 ---------------------------
1086 # Disable focus wrapping
1089 # Force focus wrapping
1090 focus_wrapping force
1093 === Forcing Xinerama
1095 As explained in-depth in <https://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html>, some X11
1096 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
1097 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
1098 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
1099 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
1102 For people who cannot modify their +~/.xsession+ to add the
1103 +--force-xinerama+ commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:
1106 ---------------------
1107 force_xinerama yes|no
1108 ---------------------
1115 Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like +HDMI1+) when using
1116 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: +xinerama-0+, +xinerama-1+, …
1118 === Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace
1120 This configuration directive enables automatic +workspace back_and_forth+ (see
1121 <<back_and_forth>>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.
1123 For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
1124 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
1125 came from now, you can just press $mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".
1128 ------------------------------------
1129 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes|no
1130 ------------------------------------
1133 ---------------------------------
1134 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes
1135 ---------------------------------
1137 === Delaying urgency hint reset on workspace change
1139 If an application on another workspace sets an urgency hint, switching to this
1140 workspace may lead to immediate focus of the application, which also means the
1141 window decoration color would be immediately reset to +client.focused+. This
1142 may make it unnecessarily hard to tell which window originally raised the
1145 In order to prevent this, you can tell i3 to delay resetting the urgency state
1146 by a certain time using the +force_display_urgency_hint+ directive. Setting the
1147 value to 0 disables this feature.
1149 The default is 500ms.
1152 ---------------------------------------
1153 force_display_urgency_hint <timeout> ms
1154 ---------------------------------------
1157 ---------------------------------
1158 force_display_urgency_hint 500 ms
1159 ---------------------------------
1161 [[focus_on_window_activation]]
1162 === Focus on window activation
1164 If a window is activated, e.g., via +google-chrome www.google.com+, it may request
1165 to take focus. Since this may not preferable, different reactions can be configured.
1167 Note that this may not affect windows that are being opened. To prevent new windows
1168 from being focused, see <<no_focus>>.
1171 --------------------------------------------------
1172 focus_on_window_activation smart|urgent|focus|none
1173 --------------------------------------------------
1175 The different modes will act as follows:
1178 This is the default behavior. If the window requesting focus is on an active
1179 workspace, it will receive the focus. Otherwise, the urgency hint will be set.
1181 The window will always be marked urgent, but the focus will not be stolen.
1183 The window will always be focused and not be marked urgent.
1185 The window will neither be focused, nor be marked urgent.
1188 === Drawing marks on window decoration
1190 If activated, marks (see <<vim_like_marks>>) on windows are drawn in their window
1191 decoration. However, any mark starting with an underscore in its name (+_+) will
1192 not be drawn even if this option is activated.
1194 The default for this option is +yes+.
1206 [[line_continuation]]
1207 === Line continuation
1209 Config files support line continuation, meaning when you end a line in a
1210 backslash character (`\`), the line-break will be ignored by the parser. This
1211 feature can be used to create more readable configuration files.
1212 Commented lines are not continued.
1219 # this line is not continued \
1220 bindsym Mod1+F fullscreen toggle
1223 == Configuring i3bar
1225 The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
1226 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
1229 1. It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
1230 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
1231 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
1232 2. It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
1233 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
1234 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
1235 3. It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
1236 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
1238 That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
1239 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
1240 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
1241 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
1242 configuration infrastructure in place.
1244 Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a +bar+ block. You can have
1245 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):
1248 ---------------------------
1250 status_command i3status
1252 ---------------------------
1256 By default i3 will just pass +i3bar+ and let your shell handle the execution,
1257 searching your +$PATH+ for a correct version.
1258 If you have a different +i3bar+ somewhere or the binary is not in your +$PATH+ you can
1259 tell i3 what to execute.
1261 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1262 have to have correct quoting etc.
1265 -----------------------
1266 i3bar_command <command>
1267 -----------------------
1270 -------------------------------------------------
1272 i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
1274 -------------------------------------------------
1277 === Statusline command
1279 i3bar can run a program and display every line of its +stdout+ output on the
1280 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
1281 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.
1283 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1284 have to have correct quoting etc. Note that for signal handling, depending on
1285 your shell (users of dash(1) are known to be affected), you have to use the
1286 shell’s exec command so that signals are passed to your program, not to the
1290 ------------------------
1291 status_command <command>
1292 ------------------------
1295 -------------------------------------------------
1297 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
1299 # For dash(1) users who want signal handling to work:
1300 status_command exec ~/.bin/my_status_command
1302 -------------------------------------------------
1306 You can either have i3bar be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
1307 (+dock+ mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (+hide+ mode).
1308 It is also possible to force i3bar to always stay hidden (+invisible+
1309 mode). The modifier key can be configured using the +modifier+ option.
1311 The mode option can be changed during runtime through the +bar mode+ command.
1312 On reload the mode will be reverted to its configured value.
1314 The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
1315 i3bar sends the +SIGSTOP+ and +SIGCONT+ signals to the statusline process to
1318 Invisible mode allows to permanently maximize screen space, as the bar is never
1319 shown. Thus, you can configure i3bar to not disturb you by popping up because
1320 of an urgency hint or because the modifier key is pressed.
1322 In order to control whether i3bar is hidden or shown in hide mode, there exists
1323 the hidden_state option, which has no effect in dock mode or invisible mode. It
1324 indicates the current hidden_state of the bar: (1) The bar acts like in normal
1325 hide mode, it is hidden and is only unhidden in case of urgency hints or by
1326 pressing the modifier key (+hide+ state), or (2) it is drawn on top of the
1327 currently visible workspace (+show+ state).
1329 Like the mode, the hidden_state can also be controlled through i3, this can be
1330 done by using the +bar hidden_state+ command.
1332 The default mode is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
1333 the windows key). The default value for the hidden_state is hide.
1336 -------------------------
1337 mode dock|hide|invisible
1338 hidden_state hide|show
1339 modifier <Modifier>|none
1340 ------------------------
1351 Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see +xmodmap(1)+). You can
1352 also use "none" if you don't want any modifier to trigger this behavior.
1354 === Mouse button commands
1356 Specifies a command to run when a button was pressed on i3bar to override the
1357 default behavior. This is useful, e.g., for disabling the scroll wheel action
1358 or running scripts that implement custom behavior for these buttons.
1360 A button is always named +button<n>+, where 1 to 5 are default buttons as follows and higher
1361 numbers can be special buttons on devices offering more buttons:
1366 Middle mouse button.
1374 Please note that the old +wheel_up_cmd+ and +wheel_down_cmd+ commands are deprecated
1375 and will be removed in a future release. We strongly recommend using the more general
1376 +bindsym+ with +button4+ and +button5+ instead.
1379 ----------------------------
1380 bindsym button<n> <command>
1381 ----------------------------
1384 ---------------------------------------------------------
1386 # disable clicking on workspace buttons
1388 # execute custom script when scrolling downwards
1389 bindsym button5 exec ~/.i3/scripts/custom_wheel_down
1391 ---------------------------------------------------------
1395 Specifies the bar ID for the configured bar instance. If this option is missing,
1396 the ID is set to 'bar-x', where x corresponds to the position of the embedding
1397 bar block in the config file ('bar-0', 'bar-1', ...).
1400 ---------------------
1402 ---------------------
1405 ---------------------
1409 ---------------------
1414 This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.
1416 The default is bottom.
1424 ---------------------
1428 ---------------------
1432 You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
1433 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
1434 options for different outputs by using multiple 'bar' blocks.
1436 To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
1437 directive multiple times.
1441 output primary|<output>
1445 -------------------------------
1446 # big monitor: everything
1448 # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
1451 status_command i3status
1454 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
1457 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
1464 # show bar on the primary monitor and on HDMI2
1468 status_command i3status
1471 -------------------------------
1472 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1473 -------------------------
1474 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1475 -------------------------
1479 i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
1480 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.
1482 You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
1483 you can turn off the functionality entirely.
1485 You can use multiple +tray_output+ directives in your config to specify a list
1486 of outputs on which you want the tray to appear. The first available output in
1487 that list as defined by the order of the directives will be used for the tray
1491 ---------------------------------
1492 tray_output none|primary|<output>
1493 ---------------------------------
1496 -------------------------
1497 # disable system tray
1502 # show tray icons on the primary monitor
1507 # show tray icons on the big monitor
1511 -------------------------
1513 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1514 -------------------------
1515 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1516 -------------------------
1518 Note that when you use multiple bar configuration blocks, either specify
1519 `tray_output primary` in all of them or explicitly specify `tray_output none`
1520 in bars which should not display the tray, otherwise the different instances
1521 might race each other in trying to display tray icons.
1525 The tray is shown on the right-hand side of the bar. By default, a padding of 2
1526 pixels is used for the upper, lower and right-hand side of the tray area and
1527 between the individual icons.
1530 -------------------------
1531 tray_padding <px> [px]
1532 -------------------------
1535 -------------------------
1538 -------------------------
1542 Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <<fonts>>.
1545 ---------------------
1547 ---------------------
1550 --------------------------------------------------------------
1552 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
1553 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
1555 --------------------------------------------------------------
1557 === Custom separator symbol
1559 Specifies a custom symbol to be used for the separator as opposed to the vertical,
1560 one pixel thick separator.
1563 -------------------------
1564 separator_symbol <symbol>
1565 -------------------------
1568 ------------------------
1570 separator_symbol ":|:"
1572 ------------------------
1574 === Workspace buttons
1576 Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
1577 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.
1579 The default is to show workspace buttons.
1582 ------------------------
1583 workspace_buttons yes|no
1584 ------------------------
1587 ------------------------
1589 workspace_buttons no
1591 ------------------------
1593 === Strip workspace numbers
1595 Specifies whether workspace numbers should be displayed within the workspace
1596 buttons. This is useful if you want to have a named workspace that stays in
1597 order on the bar according to its number without displaying the number prefix.
1599 When +strip_workspace_numbers+ is set to +yes+, any workspace that has a name of
1600 the form "[n]:[NAME]" will display only the name. You could use this, for
1601 instance, to display Roman numerals rather than digits by naming your
1602 workspaces to "1:I", "2:II", "3:III", "4:IV", ...
1604 The default is to display the full name within the workspace button.
1607 ------------------------------
1608 strip_workspace_numbers yes|no
1609 ------------------------------
1612 ----------------------------
1614 strip_workspace_numbers yes
1616 ----------------------------
1618 === Binding Mode indicator
1620 Specifies whether the current binding mode indicator should be shown or not.
1621 This is useful if you want to hide the workspace buttons but still be able
1622 to see the current binding mode indicator. See <<binding_modes>> to learn what
1623 modes are and how to use them.
1625 The default is to show the mode indicator.
1628 -----------------------------
1629 binding_mode_indicator yes|no
1630 -----------------------------
1633 -----------------------------
1635 binding_mode_indicator no
1637 -----------------------------
1641 As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
1642 be configured at the moment:
1645 Background color of the bar.
1647 Text color to be used for the statusline.
1649 Text color to be used for the separator.
1650 focused_background::
1651 Background color of the bar on the currently focused monitor output. If
1652 not used, the color will be taken from +background+.
1653 focused_statusline::
1654 Text color to be used for the statusline on the currently focused
1655 monitor output. If not used, the color will be taken from +statusline+.
1657 Text color to be used for the separator on the currently focused
1658 monitor output. If not used, the color will be taken from +separator+.
1660 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1663 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1664 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
1665 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
1666 using multiple monitors.
1667 inactive_workspace::
1668 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1669 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
1670 will be the case for most workspaces.
1672 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1673 contains a window with the urgency hint set.
1675 Border, background and text color for the binding mode indicator. If not used,
1676 the colors will be taken from +urgent_workspace+.
1679 ----------------------------------------
1685 <colorclass> <border> <background> <text>
1687 ----------------------------------------
1689 *Example (default colors)*:
1690 --------------------------------------
1697 focused_workspace #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
1698 active_workspace #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
1699 inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
1700 urgent_workspace #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1701 binding_mode #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1704 --------------------------------------
1708 Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
1709 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
1710 do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:
1713 --------------------------
1714 # execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
1716 --------------------------
1718 [[command_chaining]]
1720 Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
1721 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
1722 the following keybinding:
1725 --------------------------------------------------------
1726 bindsym $mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3
1727 --------------------------------------------------------
1729 [[command_criteria]]
1731 Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command - that is, which containers
1732 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. The criteria
1733 are specified before any command in a pair of square brackets and are separated
1736 When using multiple commands, separate them by using a +,+ (a comma) instead of
1737 a semicolon. Criteria apply only until the next semicolon, so if you use a
1738 semicolon to separate commands, only the first one will be executed for the
1742 ------------------------------------
1743 # if you want to kill all windows which have the class Firefox, use:
1744 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
1746 # same thing, but case-insensitive
1747 bindsym $mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
1749 # kill only the About dialog from Firefox
1750 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox" window_role="About"] kill
1752 # enable floating mode and move container to workspace 4
1753 for_window [class="^evil-app$"] floating enable, move container to workspace 4
1755 # move all floating windows to the scratchpad
1756 bindsym $mod+x [floating] move scratchpad
1757 ------------------------------------
1759 The criteria which are currently implemented are:
1762 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS). Use the
1763 special value +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows having the same window
1764 class as the currently focused window.
1766 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS). Use the
1767 special value +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows having the same window
1768 instance as the currently focused window.
1770 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE). Use the special value
1771 +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows having the same window role as the
1772 currently focused window.
1774 Compare the window type (_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE). Possible values are
1775 +normal+, +dialog+, +utility+, +toolbar+, +splash+, +menu+, +dropdown_menu+,
1776 +popup_menu+, +tooltip+ and +notification+.
1778 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
1780 Compares the X11 window title (\_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
1781 Use the special value +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows having the
1782 same window title as the currently focused window.
1784 Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
1785 Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
1786 (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
1788 Compares the workspace name of the workspace the window belongs to. Use
1789 the special value +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows in the currently
1792 Compares the marks set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>. A
1793 match is made if any of the container's marks matches the specified
1796 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
1797 interface. Handy for scripting. Use the special value +\_\_focused__+
1798 to match only the currently focused window.
1800 Only matches floating windows. This criterion requires no value.
1802 Only matches tiling windows. This criterion requires no value.
1804 The criteria +class+, +instance+, +role+, +title+, +workspace+ and +mark+ are
1805 actually regular expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for
1806 information on how to use them.
1809 === Executing applications (exec)
1811 What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
1812 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
1813 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
1814 searched in your +$PATH+.
1816 See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
1817 and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
1818 strings (as shown in <<exec_quoting>>) if they appear in your command.
1821 --------------------------------
1822 exec [--no-startup-id] <command>
1823 --------------------------------
1826 ------------------------------
1828 bindsym $mod+g exec gimp
1830 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
1831 bindsym $mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt
1832 ------------------------------
1834 The +--no-startup-id+ parameter disables startup-notification support for this
1835 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
1836 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
1837 will change the X11 cursor to +watch+ (a clock) while the application is
1838 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
1839 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
1840 cursor for 60 seconds.
1843 If the command to be executed contains a +;+ (semicolon) and/or a +,+ (comma),
1844 the entire command must be quoted. For example, to have a keybinding for the
1845 shell command +notify-send Hello, i3+, you would add an entry to your
1846 configuration file like this:
1849 ------------------------------
1850 # Execute a command with a comma in it
1851 bindsym $mod+p exec "notify-send Hello, i3"
1852 ------------------------------
1854 If however a command with a comma and/or semicolon itself requires quotes, you
1855 must escape the internal quotation marks with double backslashes, like this:
1858 ------------------------------
1859 # Execute a command with a comma, semicolon and internal quotes
1860 bindsym $mod+p exec "notify-send \\"Hello, i3; from $USER\\""
1861 ------------------------------
1863 === Splitting containers
1865 The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
1866 can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
1867 new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
1868 get placed below the current one (splitv).
1870 If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
1871 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
1872 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window).
1873 The +toggle+ option will toggle the orientation of the split container if it
1874 contains a single window. Otherwise it makes the current window a split
1875 container with opposite orientation compared to the parent container.
1876 Use +layout toggle split+ to change the layout of any split container from
1877 splitv to splith or vice-versa. You can also define a custom sequence of layouts
1878 to cycle through with +layout toggle+, see <<manipulating_layout>>.
1881 --------------------------------
1882 split vertical|horizontal|toggle
1883 --------------------------------
1886 -------------------------------
1887 bindsym $mod+v split vertical
1888 bindsym $mod+h split horizontal
1889 bindsym $mod+t split toggle
1890 -------------------------------
1892 === Manipulating layout
1894 Use +layout toggle split+, +layout stacking+, +layout tabbed+, +layout splitv+
1895 or +layout splith+ to change the current container layout to splith/splitv,
1896 stacking, tabbed layout, splitv or splith, respectively.
1898 Specify up to four layouts after +layout toggle+ to cycle through them. Every
1899 time the command is executed, the layout specified after the currently active
1900 one will be applied. If the currently active layout is not in the list, the
1901 first layout in the list will be activated.
1903 To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen enable+ (or
1904 +fullscreen enable global+ for the global mode), to leave either fullscreen
1905 mode use +fullscreen disable+, and to toggle between these two states use
1906 +fullscreen toggle+ (or +fullscreen toggle global+).
1908 Likewise, to make the current window floating (or tiling again) use +floating
1909 enable+ respectively +floating disable+ (or +floating toggle+):
1912 --------------------------------------------
1913 layout default|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith
1914 layout toggle [split|all]
1915 layout toggle [split|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith] [split|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith]…
1916 --------------------------------------------
1920 bindsym $mod+s layout stacking
1921 bindsym $mod+l layout toggle split
1922 bindsym $mod+w layout tabbed
1924 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
1925 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle
1927 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
1928 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle all
1930 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith:
1931 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle stacking tabbed splith
1933 # Toggle between splitv/tabbed
1934 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle splitv tabbed
1936 # Toggle between last split layout/tabbed/stacking
1937 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle split tabbed stacking
1940 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
1942 # Toggle floating/tiling
1943 bindsym $mod+t floating toggle
1946 [[_focusing_moving_containers]]
1947 === Focusing containers
1949 To change focus, you can use the +focus+ command. The following options are
1952 left|right|up|down::
1953 Sets focus to the nearest container in the given direction.
1955 Sets focus to the parent container of the current container.
1957 The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
1960 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
1962 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
1964 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
1966 Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
1967 corresponding output.
1970 ----------------------------------------------
1971 focus left|right|down|up
1972 focus parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle
1973 focus output left|right|up|down|primary|<output>
1974 ----------------------------------------------
1977 -------------------------------------------------
1978 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right
1979 bindsym $mod+j focus left
1980 bindsym $mod+k focus down
1981 bindsym $mod+l focus up
1982 bindsym $mod+semicolon focus right
1984 # Focus parent container
1985 bindsym $mod+u focus parent
1987 # Focus last floating/tiling container
1988 bindsym $mod+g focus mode_toggle
1990 # Focus the output right to the current one
1991 bindsym $mod+x focus output right
1993 # Focus the big output
1994 bindsym $mod+x focus output HDMI-2
1996 # Focus the primary output
1997 bindsym $mod+x focus output primary
1998 -------------------------------------------------
2000 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
2001 -------------------------
2002 xrandr --output <output> --primary
2003 -------------------------
2005 === Moving containers
2007 Use the +move+ command to move a container.
2010 -----------------------------------------------------
2011 # Moves the container into the given direction.
2012 # The optional pixel argument specifies how far the
2013 # container should be moved if it is floating and
2014 # defaults to 10 pixels.
2015 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
2017 # Moves the container either to a specific location
2018 # or to the center of the screen. If 'absolute' is
2019 # used, it is moved to the center of all outputs.
2020 move [absolute] position <pos_x> [px] <pos_y> [px]
2021 move [absolute] position center
2023 # Moves the container to the current position of the
2024 # mouse cursor. Only affects floating containers.
2026 -----------------------------------------------------
2029 -------------------------------------------------------
2030 # Move container to the left, bottom, top, right
2031 bindsym $mod+j move left
2032 bindsym $mod+k move down
2033 bindsym $mod+l move up
2034 bindsym $mod+semicolon move right
2036 # Move container, but make floating containers
2037 # move more than the default
2038 bindsym $mod+j move left 20 px
2040 # Move floating container to the center of all outputs
2041 bindsym $mod+c move absolute position center
2043 # Move container to the current position of the cursor
2044 bindsym $mod+m move position mouse
2045 -------------------------------------------------------
2047 === Swapping containers
2049 Two containers can be swapped (i.e., move to each other's position) by using
2050 the +swap+ command. They will assume the position and geometry of the container
2051 they are swapped with.
2053 The first container to participate in the swapping can be selected through the
2054 normal command criteria process with the focused window being the usual
2055 fallback if no criteria are specified. The second container can be selected
2056 using one of the following methods:
2058 +id+:: The X11 window ID of a client window.
2059 +con_id+:: The i3 container ID of a container.
2060 +mark+:: A container with the specified mark, see <<vim_like_marks>>.
2062 Note that swapping does not work with all containers. Most notably, swapping
2063 floating containers or containers that have a parent-child relationship to one
2064 another does not work.
2067 ----------------------------------------
2068 swap container with id|con_id|mark <arg>
2069 ----------------------------------------
2072 -----------------------------------------------------------------
2073 # Swaps the focused container with the container marked »swapee«.
2074 swap container with mark swapee
2076 # Swaps container marked »A« and »B«
2077 [con_mark="^A$"] swap container with mark B
2078 -----------------------------------------------------------------
2080 === Sticky floating windows
2082 If you want a window to stick to the glass, i.e., have it stay on screen even
2083 if you switch to another workspace, you can use the +sticky+ command. For
2084 example, this can be useful for notepads, a media player or a video chat
2087 Note that while any window can be made sticky through this command, it will
2088 only take effect if the window is floating.
2091 ----------------------------
2092 sticky enable|disable|toggle
2093 ----------------------------
2096 ------------------------------------------------------
2097 # make a terminal sticky that was started as a notepad
2098 for_window [instance=notepad] sticky enable
2099 ------------------------------------------------------
2101 === Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces
2103 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
2104 number or name of the workspace. Pass the optional flag
2105 +--no-auto-back-and-forth+ to disable <<back_and_forth>> for this specific call
2108 To move containers to specific workspaces, use +move container to workspace+.
2110 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
2111 +workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
2112 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
2113 combination. To restrict those to the current output, use +workspace
2114 next_on_output+ and +workspace prev_on_output+. Similarly, you can use +move
2115 container to workspace next+, +move container to workspace prev+ to move a
2116 container to the next/previous workspace and +move container to workspace current+
2117 (the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).
2119 +workspace next+ cycles through either numbered or named workspaces. But when it
2120 reaches the last numbered/named workspace, it looks for named workspaces after
2121 exhausting numbered ones and looks for numbered ones after exhausting named ones.
2123 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
2126 Workspace names are parsed as
2127 https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
2131 To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use +workspace
2132 back_and_forth+; likewise, you can move containers to the previously focused
2133 workspace using +move container to workspace back_and_forth+.
2136 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2137 workspace next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output
2138 workspace back_and_forth
2139 workspace [--no-auto-back-and-forth] <name>
2140 workspace [--no-auto-back-and-forth] number <name>
2142 move [--no-auto-back-and-forth] [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
2143 move [--no-auto-back-and-forth] [window|container] [to] workspace number <name>
2144 move [window|container] [to] workspace prev|next|current
2145 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2148 -------------------------
2149 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1
2150 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2
2151 bindsym $mod+3 workspace 3:<span foreground="red">vim</span>
2154 bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
2155 bindsym $mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
2158 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
2159 bindsym $mod+b workspace back_and_forth
2160 bindsym $mod+Shift+b move container to workspace back_and_forth
2162 # move the whole workspace to the next output
2163 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
2165 # move firefox to current workspace
2166 bindsym $mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current
2167 -------------------------
2169 ==== Named workspaces
2171 Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
2172 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:
2175 -------------------------
2176 bindsym $mod+1 workspace mail
2178 -------------------------
2180 If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
2184 -------------------------
2185 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1: mail
2186 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2: www
2188 -------------------------
2190 Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
2191 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
2192 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
2193 will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use +workspace number 1+
2194 to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
2195 it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
2196 dynamically. To combine both commands you can use +workspace number 1: mail+ to
2197 specify a default name if there's currently no workspace starting with a "1".
2199 ==== Renaming workspaces
2201 You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
2202 numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
2203 reflect what’s actually on them. You can also omit the old name to rename
2204 the currently focused workspace. This is handy if you want to use the
2205 rename command with +i3-input+.
2208 ----------------------------------------------------
2209 rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
2210 rename workspace to <new_name>
2211 ----------------------------------------------------
2214 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
2215 i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
2216 i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
2217 i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
2218 i3-msg 'rename workspace to "2: mail"'
2219 bindsym $mod+r exec i3-input -F 'rename workspace to "%s"' -P 'New name: '
2220 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
2222 If you want to rename workspaces on demand while keeping the navigation stable,
2223 you can use a setup like this:
2226 -------------------------
2227 bindsym $mod+1 workspace number "1: www"
2228 bindsym $mod+2 workspace number "2: mail"
2230 -------------------------
2232 If a workspace does not exist, the command +workspace number "1: mail"+ will
2233 create workspace "1: mail".
2235 If a workspace with number 1 does already exist, the command will switch to this
2236 workspace and ignore the text part. So even when the workspace has been renamed
2237 to "1: web", the above command will still switch to it.
2239 === Moving workspaces to a different screen
2241 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
2245 [[_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs]]
2246 === Moving containers/workspaces to RandR outputs
2248 To move a container to another RandR output (addressed by names like +LVDS1+ or
2249 +VGA1+) or to a RandR output identified by a specific direction (like +left+,
2250 +right+, +up+ or +down+), there are two commands:
2253 ------------------------------------------------------------
2254 move container to output left|right|down|up|current|primary|<output>
2255 move workspace to output left|right|down|up|current|primary|<output>
2256 ------------------------------------------------------------
2259 --------------------------------------------------------
2260 # Move the current workspace to the next output
2261 # (effectively toggles when you only have two outputs)
2262 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
2264 # Put this window on the presentation output.
2265 bindsym $mod+x move container to output VGA1
2267 # Put this window on the primary output.
2268 bindsym $mod+x move container to output primary
2269 --------------------------------------------------------
2271 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
2272 -------------------------
2273 xrandr --output <output> --primary
2274 -------------------------
2276 === Moving containers/windows to marks
2278 To move a container to another container with a specific mark (see <<vim_like_marks>>),
2279 you can use the following command.
2281 The window will be moved right after the marked container in the tree, i.e., it ends up
2282 in the same position as if you had opened a new window when the marked container was
2283 focused. If the mark is on a split container, the window will appear as a new child
2284 after the currently focused child within that container.
2287 ------------------------------------
2288 move window|container to mark <mark>
2289 ------------------------------------
2292 --------------------------------------------------------
2293 for_window [instance="tabme"] move window to mark target
2294 --------------------------------------------------------
2297 === Resizing containers/windows
2299 If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
2303 -------------------------------------------------------
2304 resize grow|shrink <direction> [<px> px [or <ppt> ppt]]
2305 resize set <width> [px | ppt] <height> [px | ppt]
2306 -------------------------------------------------------
2308 Direction can either be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. Or you can be
2309 less specific and use +width+ or +height+, in which case i3 will take/give
2310 space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
2311 how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or shrunk (the default
2312 is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
2313 many percentage points a *tiling container* should be grown or shrunk (the
2314 default is 10 percentage points). Note that +resize set+ will only work for
2315 floating containers.
2317 It is recommended to define bindings for resizing in a dedicated binding mode.
2318 See <<binding_modes>> and the example in the i3
2319 https://github.com/i3/i3/blob/next/etc/config.keycodes[default config] for more
2323 ------------------------------------------------
2324 for_window [class="urxvt"] resize set 640 480
2325 ------------------------------------------------
2327 === Jumping to specific windows
2329 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
2330 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
2331 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
2332 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mail client,
2333 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
2334 with criteria for that.
2337 ----------------------------------------------------
2338 [class="class"] focus
2339 [title="title"] focus
2340 ----------------------------------------------------
2343 ------------------------------------------------
2344 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
2345 bindsym $mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
2346 ------------------------------------------------
2349 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
2351 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
2352 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
2353 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
2354 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You can unmark the label in the same
2355 way, using the unmark command. If you don't specify a label, unmark removes all
2356 marks. You do not need to ensure that your windows have unique classes or
2357 titles, and you do not need to change your configuration file.
2359 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
2360 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
2361 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
2362 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
2364 The additional +--toggle+ option will remove the mark if the window already has
2365 this mark or add it otherwise. Note that you may need to use this in
2366 combination with +--add+ (see below) as any other marks will otherwise be
2369 By default, a window can only have one mark. You can use the +--add+ flag to
2370 put more than one mark on a window.
2372 Refer to <<show_marks>> if you don't want marks to be shown in the window decoration.
2375 ----------------------------------------------
2376 mark [--add|--replace] [--toggle] <identifier>
2377 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
2379 ----------------------------------------------
2381 *Example (in a terminal)*:
2382 ---------------------------------------------------------
2383 # marks the focused container
2386 # focus the container with the mark "irssi"
2387 '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
2389 # remove the mark "irssi" from whichever container has it
2392 # remove all marks on all firefox windows
2393 [class="(?i)firefox"] unmark
2394 ---------------------------------------------------------
2396 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2397 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
2399 ---------------------------------------
2400 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
2401 bindsym $mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
2403 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
2404 bindsym $mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
2405 ---------------------------------------
2407 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
2408 separate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
2409 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2412 === Window title format
2414 By default, i3 will simply print the X11 window title. Using +title_format+,
2415 this can be customized by setting the format to the desired output. This
2417 https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
2418 and the following placeholders which will be replaced:
2421 For normal windows, this is the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME
2422 as fallback). When used on containers without a window (e.g., a split
2423 container inside a tabbed/stacked layout), this will be the tree
2424 representation of the container (e.g., "H[xterm xterm]").
2426 The X11 window class (second part of WM_CLASS). This corresponds to the
2427 +class+ criterion, see <<command_criteria>>.
2429 The X11 window instance (first part of WM_CLASS). This corresponds to the
2430 +instance+ criterion, see <<command_criteria>>.
2432 Using the <<for_window>> directive, you can set the title format for any window
2433 based on <<command_criteria>>.
2436 ---------------------
2437 title_format <format>
2438 ---------------------
2441 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2442 # give the focused window a prefix
2443 bindsym $mod+p title_format "Important | %title"
2445 # print all window titles bold
2446 for_window [class=".*"] title_format "<b>%title</b>"
2448 # print window titles of firefox windows red
2449 for_window [class="(?i)firefox"] title_format "<span foreground='red'>%title</span>"
2450 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2452 === Changing border style
2454 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
2455 border (including window title), +border pixel 1+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
2456 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
2458 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
2460 Note that "pixel" refers to logical pixel. On HiDPI displays, a logical pixel
2461 may be represented by multiple physical pixels, so +pixel 1+ might not
2462 necessarily translate into a single pixel row wide border.
2465 -----------------------------------------------
2466 border normal|pixel [<n>]
2469 # legacy syntax, equivalent to "border pixel 1"
2471 -----------------------------------------------
2474 ----------------------------------------------
2475 # use window title, but no border
2476 bindsym $mod+t border normal 0
2477 # use no window title and a thick border
2478 bindsym $mod+y border pixel 3
2479 # use neither window title nor border
2480 bindsym $mod+u border none
2481 ----------------------------------------------
2484 === Enabling shared memory logging
2486 As described in https://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html, i3 can log to a shared
2487 memory buffer, which you can dump using +i3-dump-log+. The +shmlog+ command
2488 allows you to enable or disable the shared memory logging at runtime.
2490 Note that when using +shmlog <size_in_bytes>+, the current log will be
2491 discarded and a new one will be started.
2494 ------------------------------
2495 shmlog <size_in_bytes>
2496 shmlog on|off|toggle
2497 ------------------------------
2501 # Enable/disable logging
2502 bindsym $mod+x shmlog toggle
2504 # or, from a terminal:
2505 # increase the shared memory log buffer to 50 MiB
2506 i3-msg shmlog $((50*1024*1024))
2509 === Enabling debug logging
2511 The +debuglog+ command allows you to enable or disable debug logging at
2512 runtime. Debug logging is much more verbose than non-debug logging. This
2513 command does not activate shared memory logging (shmlog), and as such is most
2514 likely useful in combination with the above-described <<shmlog>> command.
2517 ----------------------
2518 debuglog on|off|toggle
2519 ----------------------
2522 ------------------------
2523 # Enable/disable logging
2524 bindsym $mod+x debuglog toggle
2525 ------------------------
2527 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
2529 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
2530 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
2531 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
2532 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
2533 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
2536 ----------------------------
2537 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
2538 bindsym $mod+Shift+w reload
2539 bindsym $mod+Shift+e exit
2540 ----------------------------
2544 There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. +move
2545 scratchpad+ will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
2546 invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
2547 Instead, when using +scratchpad show+, the window will be shown again, as a
2548 floating window, centered on your current workspace (using +scratchpad show+ on
2549 a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
2550 keybinding to toggle). Note that this is just a normal floating window, so if
2551 you want to "remove it from scratchpad", you can simple make it tiling again
2552 (+floating toggle+).
2554 As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
2555 editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
2556 running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
2557 player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?
2567 ------------------------------------------------
2568 # Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
2569 bindsym $mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad
2571 # Show the first scratchpad window
2572 bindsym $mod+minus scratchpad show
2574 # Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
2575 bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show
2576 ------------------------------------------------
2580 There is a no operation command +nop+ which allows you to override default
2581 behavior. This can be useful for, e.g., disabling a focus change on clicks with
2582 the middle mouse button.
2584 The optional +comment+ argument is ignored, but will be printed to the log file
2585 for debugging purposes.
2593 ----------------------------------------------
2594 # Disable focus change for clicks on titlebars
2595 # with the middle mouse button
2597 ----------------------------------------------
2601 There are two options in the configuration of each i3bar instance that can be
2602 changed during runtime by invoking a command through i3. The commands +bar
2603 hidden_state+ and +bar mode+ allow setting the current hidden_state
2604 respectively mode option of each bar. It is also possible to toggle between
2605 hide state and show state as well as between dock mode and hide mode. Each
2606 i3bar instance can be controlled individually by specifying a bar_id, if none
2607 is given, the command is executed for all bar instances.
2611 bar hidden_state hide|show|toggle [<bar_id>]
2613 bar mode dock|hide|invisible|toggle [<bar_id>]
2617 ------------------------------------------------
2618 # Toggle between hide state and show state
2619 bindsym $mod+m bar hidden_state toggle
2621 # Toggle between dock mode and hide mode
2622 bindsym $mod+n bar mode toggle
2624 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to switch to hide mode
2625 bindsym $mod+b bar mode hide bar-1
2627 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to always stay hidden
2628 bindsym $mod+Shift+b bar mode invisible bar-1
2629 ------------------------------------------------
2632 == Multiple monitors
2634 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
2635 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
2636 handle multiple monitors.
2638 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
2639 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
2641 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
2642 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
2643 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
2644 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
2645 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
2646 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
2647 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
2649 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
2650 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
2651 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
2652 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
2653 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
2654 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
2655 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
2656 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
2658 === Configuring your monitors
2660 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
2661 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
2662 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
2663 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
2664 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2666 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
2667 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
2668 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2669 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2670 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2672 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2673 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2677 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2679 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
2680 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
2681 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
2682 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
2684 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
2685 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
2686 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
2688 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
2689 -------------------------------------------
2690 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
2691 -------------------------------------------
2692 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
2693 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
2694 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
2695 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2697 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
2698 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
2699 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
2702 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
2704 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2705 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
2707 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2708 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2709 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2711 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2712 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2716 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2717 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
2718 only what you can see in xrandr.
2720 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
2722 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
2724 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
2725 have more than one monitor:
2727 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
2728 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
2729 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
2730 <<workspace_screen>>.
2731 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
2732 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
2733 <<assign_workspace>>.
2734 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
2735 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
2736 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
2737 4. For information on how to move existing workspaces between monitors,
2738 see <<move_to_outputs>>.
2740 == i3 and the rest of your software world
2742 === Displaying a status line
2744 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
2745 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
2746 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
2748 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
2749 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
2750 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
2751 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
2752 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
2753 i3bar. See <<status_command>> for how to display i3status in i3bar.
2755 Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
2756 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
2757 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
2758 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
2759 see <<i3bar_position>>.
2762 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
2764 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
2765 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
2766 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
2767 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
2770 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
2771 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
2772 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
2773 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
2774 -----------------------------------------------------
2775 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
2776 -----------------------------------------------------
2777 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
2778 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
2779 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
2781 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
2782 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
2783 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
2784 -----------------------------------------------------
2785 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
2786 -----------------------------------------------------
2787 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
2788 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
2790 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
2791 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
2792 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).