3 Michael Stapelberg <michael+i3@stapelberg.de>
6 This document contains all the information you need to configure and use the i3
7 window manager. If it does not, please contact me on IRC, Jabber or E-Mail and
10 == Default keybindings
12 For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here is an overview of the default
13 keybindings (click to see the full size image):
15 *Keys to use with Mod1 (alt):*
17 image:keyboard-layer1.png["Keys to use with Mod1 (alt)",width=600,link="keyboard-layer1.png"]
19 *Keys to use with Shift+Mod1:*
21 image:keyboard-layer2.png["Keys to use with Shift+Mod1",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]
23 As i3 uses keycodes in the default configuration, it does not matter which
24 keyboard layout you actually use. The key positions are what matters (of course you can
25 also use keysymbols, see below).
27 The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
32 === Opening terminals and moving around
34 One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
35 for this is Mod1+Enter, that is Alt+Enter in the default configuration. By
36 pressing Mod1+Enter, a new terminal will be opened. It will fill the whole
37 space available on your screen.
39 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
41 It is important to keep in mind that i3 uses a table to manage your windows. At
42 the moment, you have exactly one column and one row which leaves you with one
43 cell. In this cell there is a container which is where your new terminal is opened.
45 If you now open another terminal, you still have only one cell. However, the
46 container in that cell holds both of your terminals. So, a container is just a
47 group of clients with a specific layout. Containers can be resized by adjusting
48 the size of the cell that holds them.
50 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
52 To move the focus between the two terminals, you use the direction keys which
53 you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used for
54 these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for compatibility
55 with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +Mod1+J+ is left, +Mod1+K+ is down, +Mod1+L+
56 is up and `Mod1+;` is right. So, to switch between the terminals, use +Mod1+K+ or
59 To create a new row/column (and a new cell), you can simply move a terminal (or
60 any other window) to the direction you want to expand your table. So, let’s
61 expand the table to the right by pressing `Mod1+Shift+;`.
63 image:two_columns.png[Two columns]
65 === Changing container modes
67 A container can have the following modes:
70 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
73 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
74 windows at the top of the container.
76 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
77 a single line which is vertically split.
79 To switch modes, press +Mod1+e+ for default, +Mod1+h+ for stacking and
82 image:modes.png[Container modes]
84 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
86 To display a window fullscreen or to go out of fullscreen mode again, press
89 There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will use all
90 available outputs. To use it, or to get out of it again, press +Mod1+Shift+f+.
92 === Opening other applications
94 Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
95 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +Mod1+v+ by default. Just type the name
96 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The application
97 typed has to be in your +$PATH+ for this to work.
99 Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
100 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
101 "Configuring i3" for details.
105 If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
106 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
107 can press +Mod1+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
108 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
109 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
110 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
111 depends on the application.
115 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
116 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
117 another workspace, press +Mod1+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
118 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
120 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
121 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one and the ones with which you
122 work on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
124 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
125 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
126 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
127 focus to that screen.
129 === Moving windows to workspaces
131 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +Mod1+Shift+num+ where
132 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
133 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
134 it does not yet exist.
136 === Resizing columns/rows
138 To resize columns or rows just grab the border between the two columns/rows
139 and move it to the wanted size. Please keep in mind that each cell of the table
140 holds a +container+ and thus you cannot horizontally resize single windows. If
141 you need applications with different horizontal sizes place them in seperate
142 cells one above the other.
144 See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
145 columns/rows with your keyboard.
147 === Restarting i3 inplace
149 To restart i3 inplace (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug or
150 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +Mod1+Shift+r+. Be aware,
151 though, that this kills your current layout and all the windows you have opened
152 will be put in a default container in only one cell. Saving layouts will be
153 implemented in a later version.
157 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +Mod1+Shift+e+.
161 Snapping is a mechanism to increase/decrease the colspan/rowspan of a container.
162 Colspan/rowspan is the number of columns/rows a specific cell of the table
163 consumes. This is easier explained by giving an example, so take the following
166 image:snapping.png[Snapping example]
168 To use the full size of your screen, you can now snap container 3 downwards
169 by pressing +Mod1+Control+k+ (or snap container 2 rightwards).
173 Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of a window
174 are not managed by i3, but by you. Using this mode violates the tiling
175 paradigm but can be useful for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog
176 windows or toolbar windows (GIMP or similar).
178 You can enable floating mode for a window by pressing +Mod1+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.
182 Bindings for doing this with your keyboard will follow.
184 Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.
188 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependant on your
189 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
191 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
192 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
195 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
196 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
197 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
198 can bind your keys to do useful things.
200 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
201 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
206 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
207 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
208 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:
217 i3 uses X core fonts (not Xft) for rendering window titles and the internal
218 workspace bar. You can use +xfontsel(1)+ to generate such a font description.
219 To see special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports
220 the ISO-10646 encoding.
223 ------------------------------
224 font <X core font description>
225 ------------------------------
228 --------------------------------------------------------------
229 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
230 --------------------------------------------------------------
232 === Keyboard bindings
234 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
235 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
236 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
238 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a" or "b",
239 but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These are the ones
240 you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current mapping of your
241 keys, use +xmodmap -pke+.
243 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for some hotkeys
244 on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you switch to a
245 different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
247 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
248 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard use keycodes. If you
249 don’t switch layouts and want a clean and simple config file, use keysyms.
252 ----------------------------------
253 bindsym [Modifiers+]keysym command
254 bind [Modifiers+]keycode command
255 ----------------------------------
258 --------------------------------
263 bindsym Mod1+Shift+r restart
265 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
266 bind 214 exec /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
267 --------------------------------
271 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
272 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
275 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
276 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
277 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
278 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
279 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
281 === The floating modifier
283 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
284 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
285 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
286 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
287 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
288 it to the position you want.
290 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by pressing
291 the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If you hold the
292 shift button as well, the resize will be proportional.
295 --------------------------------
296 floating_modifier <Modifiers>
297 --------------------------------
300 --------------------------------
301 floating_modifier Mod1
302 --------------------------------
304 === Layout mode for new containers
306 This option determines in which mode new containers will start. See also
310 ---------------------------------------------
311 new_container <default|stacking|tabbed>
312 new_container stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
313 ---------------------------------------------
316 ---------------------
318 ---------------------
320 === Border style for new windows
322 This option determines which border style new windows will have.
325 ---------------------------------------------
326 new_window <bp|bn|bb>
327 ---------------------------------------------
330 ---------------------
332 ---------------------
336 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
337 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
338 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
339 variables can be handy.
347 ------------------------
349 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
350 ------------------------
352 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. There is no fancy
353 handling and there are absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more
354 dynamic configuration you should create a little script which generates a
355 configuration file and run it before starting i3 (for example in your
358 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
362 It is recommended that you match on window classes whereever possible because
363 some applications first create their window and then worry about setting the
364 correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window starts up
365 being named Firefox and only when Vimperator is loaded the title changes. As
366 i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the window (mapping means
367 actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have to match on Firefox
370 You can prefix or suffix workspaces with a `~` to specify that matching clients
371 should be put into floating mode. If you specify only a `~`, the client will
372 not be put onto any workspace, but will be set floating on the current one.
375 ------------------------------------------------------------
376 assign ["]window class[/window title]["] [→] [~ | workspace]
377 ------------------------------------------------------------
380 ----------------------
384 assign "urxvt/VIM" → 3
386 assign "xv/MPlayer" → ~
387 ----------------------
389 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
390 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not "->" or something like that.
392 === Automatically starting applications on startup
394 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure which
395 commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup (not when restarting inplace
396 however). These commands will be run in order.
404 --------------------------------
405 exec sudo i3status | dzen2 -dock
406 --------------------------------
408 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
412 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
413 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
414 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
415 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
416 the second screen and so on).
419 ----------------------------------
420 workspace <number> output <output>
421 ----------------------------------
423 The output is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
424 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
425 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
428 ---------------------------
429 workspace 1 output LVDS1
430 workspace 5 output VGA1
431 ---------------------------
435 If you always have a certain arrangement of workspaces, you might want to give
436 them names (of course UTF-8 is supported):
439 ---------------------------------------
440 workspace <number> <name>
441 workspace <number> output <output> name
442 ---------------------------------------
444 For more details about the output-part of this command, see above.
447 --------------------------
450 workspace 3 i ♥ workspaces
451 --------------------------
455 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations and the
459 --------------------------------------------
460 colorclass border background text
461 --------------------------------------------
463 Where colorclass can be one of:
466 A client which currently has the focus.
467 client.focused_inactive::
468 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
469 the focus at the moment.
471 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
473 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
475 The current workspace in the bottom bar.
477 All other workspaces in the bottom bar.
479 A workspace which has at least one client with an activated urgency hint.
481 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
484 --------------------------------------
485 # class border backgr. text
486 client.focused #2F343A #900000 #FFFFFF
487 --------------------------------------
489 Note that for the window decorations the color around the child window is the
490 background color and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
493 === Interprocess communication
495 i3 uses unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
496 programs to get information like the current workspaces to display a workspace
497 bar, and to control i3.
499 To enable it, you have to configure a path where the unix socket will be
500 stored. The default path is +/tmp/i3-ipc.sock+.
503 ----------------------------
504 ipc-socket /tmp/i3-ipc.sock
505 ----------------------------
507 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in the next
510 === Disable focus follows mouse
512 If you have a setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad
513 on your laptop which you do not want to disable completely), you might want
514 to disable focus follows mouse and control focus only by using your keyboard.
515 The mouse will still be useful inside the currently active window (for example
516 to click on links in your browser window).
519 ----------------------------
520 focus_follows_mouse <yes|no>
521 ----------------------------
524 ----------------------
525 focus_follows_mouse no
526 ----------------------
530 === Manipulating layout
532 To change the layout of the current container to stacking, use +s+, for default
533 use +d+ and for tabbed, use +T+. To make the current client (!) fullscreen,
534 use +f+, to make it span all outputs, use +fg+, to make it floating (or
535 tiling again) use +t+:
546 # Toggle global fullscreen
547 bindsym Mod1+Shift+f fg
549 # Toggle floating/tiling
553 === Focussing/Moving/Snapping clients/containers/screens
555 To change the focus, use one of the +h+, +j+, +k+ and +l+ commands, meaning
556 left, down, up, right (respectively). To focus a container, prefix it with +wc+,
557 to focus a screen, prefix it with +ws+.
559 The same principle applies for moving and snapping, just prefix the command
560 with +m+ when moving and with +s+ when snapping:
563 ----------------------
564 # Focus clients on the left, bottom, top, right:
568 bindsym Mod1+semicolon l
570 # Move client to the left, bottom, top, right:
574 bindsym Mod1+semicolon ml
576 # Snap client to the left, bottom, top, right:
580 bindsym Mod1+semicolon sl
582 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right:
585 ----------------------
587 === Changing workspaces/moving clients to workspaces
589 To change to a specific workspace, the command is just the number of the
590 workspace, e.g. +1+ or +3+. To move the current client to a specific workspace,
591 prefix the number with an +m+.
593 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the
594 commands +nw+ and +pw+, which is handy, for example, if you have workspace
595 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key combination.
598 -------------------------
603 bindsym Mod1+Shift+1 m1
604 bindsym Mod1+Shift+2 m2
609 -------------------------
613 === Resizing columns/rows
615 If you want to resize columns/rows using your keyboard, you can use the
616 +resize+ command, I recommend using it inside a so called +mode+:
618 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
619 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
621 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
623 # They resize the border in the direction you pressed, e.g.
624 # when pressing left, the window is resized so that it has
625 # more space on its left
627 bindsym n resize left -10
628 bindsym Shift+n resize left +10
630 bindsym r resize bottom +10
631 bindsym Shift+r resize bottom -10
633 bindsym t resize top -10
634 bindsym Shift+t resize top +10
636 bindsym d resize right +10
637 bindsym Shift+d resize right -10
643 bindsym Mod1+r mode resize
644 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
646 === Jumping to specific windows
648 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a specific
649 window. For example while working on workspace 3 you may want to jump to
650 your mailclient to mail your boss that you’ve achieved some important goal. Instead
651 of figuring out how to navigate to your mailclient, it would be more convenient to
655 ----------------------------------------------------
656 jump ["]window class[/window title]["]
657 jump workspace [ column row ]
658 ----------------------------------------------------
660 You can either use the same matching algorithm as in the +assign+ command (see above)
661 or you can specify the position of the client if you always use the same layout.
664 --------------------------------------
665 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
666 bindsym Mod1+a jump "urxvt/VIM"
667 --------------------------------------
669 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
673 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
674 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
675 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
676 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You do not need to ensure
677 that your windows have unique classes or titles, and you do not need to change
678 your configuration file.
680 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
681 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
682 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
683 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
692 ---------------------------------------
693 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
694 bindsym Mod1+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
696 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
697 bindsym Mod1+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
698 ---------------------------------------
700 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
701 seperate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
703 === Traveling the focus stack
705 This mechanism can be thought of as the opposite of the +jump+ command. It travels
706 the focus stack and jumps to the window which had focus previously.
710 focus [number] | floating | tiling | ft
713 Where +number+ by default is 1 meaning that the next client in the focus stack will
716 The special values have the following meaning:
719 The next floating window is selected.
721 The next tiling window is selected.
723 If the current window is floating, the next tiling window will be selected
726 === Changing border style
728 To change the border of the current client, you can use +bn+ to use the normal
729 border (including window title), +bp+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
730 and +bb+ to make the client borderless. There is also +bt+ which will toggle
731 the different border styles.
742 === Changing the stack-limit of a container
744 If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside it (say, more than
745 10), the default layout of a stacking container can get a little unhandy.
746 Depending on your screen’s size, you might end up seeing only half of the
747 titlebars for each window in the container.
749 Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the number of rows or columns
750 in a stacking container. i3 will create columns or rows (depending on what
751 you limited) automatically as needed.
754 --------------------------------
755 stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
756 --------------------------------
760 # I always want to have two window titles in one line
763 # Not more than 5 rows in this stacking container
767 image:stacklimit.png[Container limited to two columns]
769 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
771 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
772 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
773 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
774 your X session. However, your layout is not preserved at the moment, meaning
775 that all open windows will be in a single container in default layout. To exit
776 i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command, however you don’t need to (e.g.,
777 simply killing your X session is fine as well).
780 ----------------------------
781 bindsym Mod1+Shift+r restart
782 bindsym Mod1+Shift+w reload
783 bindsym Mod1+Shift+e exit
784 ----------------------------
790 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
791 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
792 handle multiple monitors.
794 When you have only one monitor things are simple. You usually start with
795 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
797 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
798 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third would
799 get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will switch
800 to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t need
801 shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember where
802 you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently active
803 monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
805 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most users
806 have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors. They are
807 often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring several
808 things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor and
809 "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
810 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific screens,
811 you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per screen by
812 changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
814 === Configuring your monitors
816 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is a
817 short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to you.
818 It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
819 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
820 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
822 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
823 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
824 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
826 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
828 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
829 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
833 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
835 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
836 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
837 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
838 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
840 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line
841 is the maximum combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually
842 too low and has to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
844 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
845 -------------------------------------------
846 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
847 -------------------------------------------
848 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
849 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
850 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
851 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
853 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
854 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
855 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
858 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
860 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
861 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
863 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
865 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
867 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
868 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
872 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
873 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
874 only what you can see in xrandr.
876 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
878 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
880 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
881 have more than one monitor:
883 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
884 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
885 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
886 <<workspace_screen>>.
887 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
888 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
889 <<assign_workspace>>.
890 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
891 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
892 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
894 == i3 and the rest of your software world
896 === Displaying a status line
898 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
899 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
900 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
902 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
903 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
904 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
905 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states.
907 Regardless of which application you use to generate the status line, you
908 want to make sure that the application does one of the following things:
910 1. Register as a dock window using EWMH hints. This will make i3 position the
911 window above the workspace bar but below every other client. This is the
912 recommended way, but in case of dzen2, for example, you need to check out
913 the source of dzen2 from subversion, as the -dock option is not present
914 in the released versions.
915 2. Overlay the internal workspace bar. This method will not waste any space
916 on the workspace bar, however, it is rather hackish. Just configure
917 the output window to be over the workspace bar (say -x 200 and -y 780 if
918 your screen is 800 px height).
920 The planned solution for this problem is to make the workspace bar optional
921 and switch to a third party application completely (dzen2 for example)
922 which will then contain the workspace bar.
924 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
926 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
927 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
928 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
929 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
933 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
934 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
935 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
936 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
937 -----------------------------------------------------
938 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
939 -----------------------------------------------------
940 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
941 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
942 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
944 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
945 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
946 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
947 -----------------------------------------------------
948 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
949 -----------------------------------------------------
950 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
951 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
953 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
954 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
955 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).