3 Michael Stapelberg <michael+i3@stapelberg.de>
6 This document contains all information you need to configuring and using the i3
7 window manager. If it does not, please contact me on IRC, Jabber or E-Mail and
10 For a complete listing of the default keybindings, please see the manpage.
14 === Creating terminals and moving around
16 A very basic operation is to create a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
17 for that is Mod1+Enter, that is Alt+Enter in the default configuration. By
18 pressing Mod1+Enter, a new terminal will be created and it will fill the whole
19 space which is available on your screen.
21 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
23 It is important to keep in mind that i3 uses a table to manage your windows. At
24 the moment, you have exactly one column and one row which leaves you with one
25 cell. In this cell, there is a container in which your newly opened terminal is.
27 If you now open another terminal, you still have only one cell. However, the
28 container has both of your terminals. So, a container is just a group of clients
29 with a specific layout. You can resize containers as they directly resemble
30 columns/rows of the layout table.
32 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
34 To move the focus between the two terminals, you use the direction keys which
35 you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used for
36 these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for compatibility
37 with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +Mod1+J+ is left, +Mod1+K+ is down, +Mod1+L+
38 is up and `Mod1+;` is right. So, to switch between the terminals, use +Mod1+K+ or
41 To create a new row/column, you can simply move a terminal (or any other window)
42 to the direction you want to expand your table. So, let’s expand the table to
43 the right by pressing `Mod1+Shift+;`.
45 image:two_columns.png[Two columns]
47 === Changing mode of containers
49 A container can be in different modes:
52 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space of the
55 Only the focused client of the container is displayed and you get a list of
56 windows at the top of the container.
58 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
59 a single line which will be vertically split.
61 To switch the mode, press +Mod1+e+ for default, +Mod1+h+ for stacking and
64 image:modes.png[Container modes]
66 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
68 To display a window fullscreen or to go out of fullscreen mode again, press
71 === Opening other applications
73 Aside from opening applicatios from a terminal, you can also use the handy
74 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +Mod1+v+ by default. Just type the name
75 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. It has to be in
76 your +$PATH+ for that to work.
78 Furthermore, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can also
79 create a keybinding for it. See the section "Configuring i3" for details.
83 If an application does not provide a mechanism to close (most applications
84 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
85 can press +Mod1+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
86 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
87 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
88 it, your X server will kill the window and the behaviour depends on the
93 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
94 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
95 another workspace, press +Mod1+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
96 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
98 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
99 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one and the ones with which you
100 work on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
102 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen. If
103 you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you created it on.
104 When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set focus to this
107 === Moving windows to workspaces
109 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +Mod1+Shift+num+ where
110 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
111 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
112 it does not yet exist.
114 === Resizing columns/rows
116 To resize columns or rows just grab the border between the two columns/rows
117 and move it to the wanted size. Please keep in mind that each cell of the table
118 holds a +container+ and thus you cannot horizontally resize single windows.
120 See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
121 columns/rows with your keyboard.
123 === Restarting i3 inplace
125 To restart i3 inplace (and thus get it into a clean state if it has a bug, to
126 reload your configuration or even to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you
127 can use +Mod1+Shift+r+. Be aware, though, that this kills your current layout
128 and all the windows you have opened will be put in a default container in only
129 one cell. Saving the layout will be implemented in a later version.
133 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +Mod1+Shift+e+.
137 Snapping is a mechanism to increase/decrease the colspan/rowspan of a container.
138 Colspan/rowspan is the amount of columns/rows a specific cell of the table
139 consumes. This is easier explained by giving an example, so take the following
142 image:snapping.png[Snapping example]
144 To use the full size of your screen, you can now snap container 3 downwards
145 by pressing +Mod1+Control+k+ (or snap container 2 rightwards).
149 Floating is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of a window
150 are then not managed by i3, but by you. Using this mode violates the tiling
151 paradigm but can be useful for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog
152 windows or toolbar windows (GIMP or similar).
154 You can enable floating for a window by pressing +Mod1+Shift+Space+. By
155 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse, you can move the window
156 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window.
158 Bindings for doing this with your keyboard will follow.
160 Floating clients are always on top of tiling clients.
164 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependant on your
165 ideal working environment, so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
167 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
168 quite flexible regarding to the things you usually want your window manager
171 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
172 you can set specific applications to start on a specific workspace, you can
173 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3 or bind
174 your keys to do useful stuff.
176 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +~/.i3/config+
177 and edit it with a text editor.
179 === General configuration
182 Specifies the default font you want i3 to use. Use an X core font
183 descriptor here, like
184 +-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1+. You can
185 use +xfontsel(1)+ to pick one.
187 === Keyboard bindings
189 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
190 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
191 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
193 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a" or "b",
194 but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These are the ones
195 you also use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current mapping of your
196 keys, use +xmodmap -pke+.
198 * Keycodes however do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for some hotkeys
199 on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you switch to a
200 different keyboard layout.
202 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts because you try to
203 learn a different one, but you want to keep your bindings at the same place,
204 use keycodes. If you don’t switch layouts and like a clean and simple config
208 ----------------------------------
209 bindsym [Modifiers+]keysym command
210 bind [Modifiers+]keycode command
211 ----------------------------------
214 --------------------------------
219 bind Mod1+Shift+r restart
221 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
222 bind 214 exec /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
223 --------------------------------
227 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
228 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
231 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
232 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
233 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
234 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
235 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
237 === The floating modifier
239 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
240 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
241 click anywhere in the window itself. The most common setup is to configure
242 it as the same one you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Afterwards,
243 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button and drag
244 it to the position you want it at.
247 --------------------------------
248 floating_modifier <Modifiers>
249 --------------------------------
252 --------------------------------
253 floating_modifier Mod1
254 --------------------------------
256 === Layout mode for new containers
258 This option is only available when using the new lexer/parser (pass +-l+ to i3
259 when starting). It determines in which mode new containers will start. See also
263 ---------------------------------------------
264 new_container <default|stacking|tabbed>
265 new_container stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
266 ---------------------------------------------
269 ---------------------
271 ---------------------
273 === Border style for new windows
275 This option is only available when using the new lexer/parser (pass +-l+ to i3
276 when starting). It determines which border new windows will have.
279 ---------------------------------------------
280 new_window <bp|bn|bb>
281 ---------------------------------------------
284 ---------------------
286 ---------------------
290 As you learned in the previous section about keyboard bindings, you will have
291 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
292 yourself some typing and have the possibility to change the modifier you want
293 to use later, variables can be handy.
301 ------------------------
303 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
304 ------------------------
306 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing, there is no fancy
307 handling and there are absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more
308 dynamic configuration, you should create a little script, like when configuring
311 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
315 It is recommended that you match on window classes whereever possible because
316 some applications first create their window and then care about setting the
317 correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind, as the window starts up
318 being named Firefox and only when Vimperator is loaded, the title changes. As
319 i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the window (mapping means
320 actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have to match on Firefox
323 You can prefix or suffix workspaces with a `~` to specify that matching clients
324 should be put into floating mode. If you specify only a `~`, the client will
325 not be put onto any workspace, but will be set floating on the current one.
328 ------------------------------------------------------------
329 assign ["]window class[/window title]["] [→] [~ | workspace]
330 ------------------------------------------------------------
333 ----------------------
337 assign "urxvt/VIM" → 3
339 assign "xv/MPlayer" → ~
340 ----------------------
342 === Automatically starting applications on startup
344 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure which
345 commands will be performed by i3 on the first start (not when reloading inplace
346 however). The commands will be run in order.
354 --------------------------------
355 exec sudo i3status | dzen2 -dock
356 --------------------------------
358 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
362 If you use the assigning of clients to workspaces and start some clients
363 automatically, it might be handy to put the workspaces on specific screens.
364 Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens will determine the workspace
365 which i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens or when starting (e.g., by
366 default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for the second screen and so on).
369 ----------------------------------
370 workspace <number> screen <screen>
371 ----------------------------------
373 Screen can be either a number (starting at 0 for the first screen) or a
374 position. When using numbers, it is not guaranteed that your screens always
375 get the same number. Though, unless you upgrade your X server or drivers, the
376 order usually stays the same. When using positions, you have to specify the
377 exact pixel where the screen *starts*, not a pixel which is contained by the
378 screen. Thus, if your first screen has the dimensions 1280x800, you can match
379 the second screen right of it by specifying 1280. You cannot use 1281.
382 ---------------------------
386 workspace 1 screen 1280
387 workspace 2 screen x800
388 workspace 3 screen 1280x800
389 ---------------------------
393 If you always have a certain arrangement of workspaces, you might want to give
394 them names (of course UTF-8 is supported):
397 ---------------------------------------
398 workspace <number> <name>
399 workspace <number> screen <screen> name
400 ---------------------------------------
402 For more details about the screen-part of this command, see above.
405 --------------------------
408 workspace 3 i ♥ workspaces
409 --------------------------
413 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations and the
417 --------------------------------------------
418 colorclass border background text
419 --------------------------------------------
421 Where colorclass can be one of:
424 A client which currently has the focus.
425 client.focused_inactive::
426 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
427 the focus at the moment.
429 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
431 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
433 The current workspace in the bottom bar.
435 All other workspaces in the bottom bar.
437 A workspace which has at least one client with an activated urgency hint.
439 Colors are in HTML hex format, see below.
442 --------------------------------------
443 # class border backgr. text
444 client.focused #2F343A #900000 #FFFFFF
445 --------------------------------------
447 === Interprocess communication
449 i3 uses unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. At the moment, this interface
450 is only useful for sending commands. To enable it, you have to configure a path
451 where the unix socket will be stored. The default path is +/tmp/i3-ipc.sock+.
454 ----------------------------
455 ipc-socket /tmp/i3-ipc.sock
456 ----------------------------
458 You can then use the i3-msg command to perform any command listed in the next
463 === Manipulating layout
465 To change the layout of the current container to stacking, use +s+, for default
466 use +d+ and for tabbed, use +T+. To make the current client (!) fullscreen,
467 use +f+, to make it floating (or tiling again) use +t+:
478 # Toggle floating/tiling
482 === Focussing/Moving/Snapping clients/containers/screens
484 To change the focus, use one of the +h+, +j+, +k+ and +l+ commands, meaning
485 respectively left, down, up, right. To focus a container, prefix it with +wc+,
486 to focus a screen, prefix it with +ws+.
488 The same principle applies for moving and snapping, just prefix the command
489 with +m+ when moving and with +s+ when snapping:
492 ----------------------
493 # Focus clients on the left, bottom, top, right:
497 bindsym Mod1+semicolon l
499 # Move client to the left, bottom, top, right:
503 bindsym Mod1+semicolon ml
505 # Snap client to the left, bottom, top, right:
509 bindsym Mod1+semicolon sl
511 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right:
514 ----------------------
516 === Changing workspaces/moving clients to workspaces
518 To change to a specific workspace, the command is just the number of the
519 workspace, e.g. +1+ or +3+. To move the current client to a specific workspace,
520 prefix the number with an +m+.
522 Furthermore, you can switch to the next and previous workspace with the
523 commands +nw+ and +pw+, which is handy for example if you have workspace
524 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key combination.
527 -------------------------
532 bindsym Mod1+Shift+1 m1
533 bindsym Mod1+Shift+2 m2
538 -------------------------
542 === Resizing columns/rows
544 If you want to resize columns/rows using your keyboard, you can use the
545 +resize+ command, I recommend using it a +mode+ (you need to use the new
546 lexer/parser for that, so pass +-l+ to i3 when starting):
548 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
549 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
551 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
553 # They resize the border in the direction you pressed, e.g.
554 # when pressing left, the window is resized so that it has
555 # more space on its left
557 bindsym n resize left -10
558 bindsym Shift+n resize left +10
560 bindsym r resize bottom +10
561 bindsym Shift+r resize bottom -10
563 bindsym t resize top -10
564 bindsym Shift+t resize top +10
566 bindsym d resize right +10
567 bindsym Shift+d resize right -10
571 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
573 === Jumping to specific windows
575 Especially when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a specific
576 window, for example while currently working on workspace 3 you may want to jump to
577 your mailclient to mail your boss that you’ve achieved some important goal. Instead
578 of figuring out how to navigate to your mailclient, it would be more convenient to
582 ----------------------------------------------------
583 jump ["]window class[/window title]["]
584 jump workspace [ column row ]
585 ----------------------------------------------------
587 You can either use the same matching algorithm as in the +assign+ command (see above)
588 or you can specify the position of the client if you always use the same layout.
591 --------------------------------------
592 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
593 bindsym Mod1+a jump "urxvt/VIM"
594 --------------------------------------
596 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
600 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
601 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
602 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
603 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards, that is, you do not need to ensure
604 that your windows have unique classes or titles and you do not need to change
605 your configuration file.
607 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
608 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key (or, you could bind it to a key and
609 only use the set of labels for which you created bindings). +i3-input+ is a
610 tool created for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the
611 command to i3. It can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for
621 ---------------------------------------
622 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
623 bindsym Mod1+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
625 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
626 bindsym Mod1+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
627 ---------------------------------------
629 === Traveling the focus stack
631 This mechanism can be thought of as the opposite of the +jump+ command. It travels
632 the focus stack and jumps to the window you focused before.
636 focus [number] | floating | tilling | ft
639 Where +number+ by default is 1 meaning that the next client in the focus stack will
642 The special values have the following meaning:
645 The next floating window is selected.
647 The next tiling window is selected.
649 If the current window is floating, the next tiling window will be selected
652 === Changing border style
654 To change the border of the current client, you can use +bn+ to use the normal
655 border (including window title), +bp+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
656 and +bb+ to make the client borderless. There also is +bt+ which will toggle
657 the different border styles.
668 === Changing the stack-limit of a container
670 If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside (say, more than
671 10), the default layout of a stacking container can get a little unhandy.
672 Depending on your screen’s size, you might end up only using half of the
673 titlebars of each window in the container.
675 Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the amount of rows or columns
676 in a stacking container. i3 will create columns or rows (depending on what
677 you limited) automatically as needed.
680 --------------------------------
681 stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
682 --------------------------------
686 # I always want to have two window titles in one line
689 # Not more than 5 rows in this stacking container
693 image:stacklimit.png[Container limited to two columns]
695 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
697 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
698 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
699 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
700 your X session. However, your layout is not preserved at the moment, meaning
701 that all open windows will be in a single container in default layout. To exit
702 i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command, however you don’t need to (e.g.,
703 simply killing your X session is fine aswell).
706 ----------------------------
707 bindsym Mod1+Shift+r restart
708 bindsym Mod1+Shift+w reload
709 bindsym Mod1+Shift+e exit
710 ----------------------------
716 As you can read in the goal list on its website, i3 was specifically developed
717 with Xinerama (support for multiple monitors) in mind. This section will
718 explain how to handle multiple monitors.
720 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
721 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
723 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
724 workspace, say the first gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third would
725 get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different screen, i3 will switch
726 to that screen and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t need
727 shortcuts to switch to a specific screen and remember where you put which
728 workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the screen you currently are on.
729 There is no possiblity to have a screen without workspaces.
731 The idea to make workspaces global is due to the observation that most users
732 have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors, often
733 using them for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring several
734 things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor and
735 "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
736 create unlimited workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific screens, you can
737 have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per screen by
738 changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
740 === Configuring your monitors
742 To help you get going if you never did multiple monitors before, here comes a
743 short overview of the xrandr options which are probably of interest for you.
744 It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration, so
745 just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
746 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
748 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
749 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
750 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
752 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
754 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
755 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
759 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
761 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
762 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have connected
763 a monitor to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
764 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
766 Furthermore, the maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line
767 is the maximum combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually
768 too low and has to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
770 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
771 -------------------------------------------
772 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
773 -------------------------------------------
774 This command lets xrandr try to find out the native resolution of the device
775 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
776 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
777 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
779 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
780 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
781 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
784 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
786 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
787 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
789 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
791 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
793 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
794 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
798 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
799 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
800 only what you can see in xrandr.
802 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
804 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
806 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
807 have more than one monitor:
809 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This will
810 allow you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
811 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
812 <<workspace_screen>>.
813 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
814 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
815 <<assign_workspace>>.
816 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
817 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
818 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
820 == i3 and the rest of your software world
822 === Displaying a status line
824 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
825 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement of the widget
826 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
828 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
829 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
830 this task. It was written in C with the goal to have as little syscalls as
831 possible to reduce the time your CPU is waken up from sleep states.
833 Regardless of which application you use to generate the status line, you
834 want to make sure that the application does one of the following things:
836 1. Register as a dock window using EWMH hints. This will make i3 position the
837 window above the workspace bar but below every other client. This is the
838 recommended way, but for example in case of dzen2 you need to check out
839 the source of dzen2 from subversion, because the -dock option is not present
840 in the released versions.
841 2. Overlay the internal workspace bar. This method will not waste any space
842 in the workspace bar. However, it is a rather hackish way. Just configure
843 the output window to be over your workspace bar (say -x 200 and -y 780 if
844 your screen is 800 px height).
846 The planned solution for this problem is to make the workspace bar optional
847 and switch to dzen2 (for example) completely (it will contain the workspaces
850 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
852 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
853 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
854 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
855 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
859 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
860 This is the rather easy case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
861 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
862 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
863 -----------------------------------------------------
864 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
865 -----------------------------------------------------
866 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
867 your screen will be left untouched (so it will show the X background). So, in
868 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
870 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
871 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
872 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
873 -----------------------------------------------------
874 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
875 -----------------------------------------------------
876 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
877 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
879 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no possibility to
880 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, you presentation
881 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen with the