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 http://faq.i3wm.org/ first, then
8 contact us on IRC (preferred) or post your question(s) on the mailing list.
10 == Default keybindings
12 For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here is an overview of the default
13 keybindings (click to see the full size image):
15 *Keys to use with $mod (Alt):*
17 image:keyboard-layer1.png["Keys to use with $mod (Alt)",width=600,link="keyboard-layer1.png"]
19 *Keys to use with Shift+$mod:*
21 image:keyboard-layer2.png["Keys to use with Shift+$mod",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]
23 The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
28 Throughout this guide, the keyword +$mod+ will be used to refer to the
29 configured modifier. This is the Alt key (Mod1) by default, with the Windows
30 key (Mod4) being a popular alternative.
32 === Opening terminals and moving around
34 One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
35 for this is $mod+Enter, that is Alt+Enter in the default configuration. By
36 pressing $mod+Enter, a new terminal will be opened. It will fill the whole
37 space available on your screen.
39 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
41 If you now open another terminal, i3 will place it next to the current one,
42 splitting the screen size in half. Depending on your monitor, i3 will put the
43 created window beside the existing window (on wide displays) or below the
44 existing window (rotated displays).
46 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
48 To move the focus between the two terminals, you can use the direction keys
49 which you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used
50 for these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for
51 compatibility with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +$mod+J+ is left, +$mod+K+
52 is down, +$mod+L+ is up and `$mod+;` is right. So, to switch between the
53 terminals, use +$mod+K+ or +$mod+L+. Of course, you can also use the arrow keys.
55 At the moment, your workspace is split (it contains two terminals) in a
56 specific direction (horizontal by default). Every window can be split
57 horizontally or vertically again, just like the workspace. The terminology is
58 "window" for a container that actually contains an X11 window (like a terminal
59 or browser) and "split container" for containers that consist of one or more
62 TODO: picture of the tree
64 To split a window vertically, press +$mod+v+ before you create the new window.
65 To split it horizontally, press +$mod+h+.
67 === Changing the container layout
69 A split container can have one of the following layouts:
72 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
73 container. splith distributes the windows horizontally (windows are right next
74 to each other), splitv distributes them vertically (windows are on top of each
77 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
78 windows at the top of the container.
80 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
81 a single line which is vertically split.
83 To switch modes, press +$mod+e+ for splith/splitv (it toggles), +$mod+s+ for
84 stacking and +$mod+w+ for tabbed.
86 image:modes.png[Container modes]
88 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
90 To display a window in fullscreen mode or to go out of fullscreen mode again,
93 There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will span all
94 available outputs (the command is +fullscreen toggle global+).
96 === Opening other applications
98 Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
99 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +$mod+d+ by default. Just type the name
100 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The corresponding
101 application has to be in your +$PATH+ for this to work.
103 Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
104 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
105 <<configuring>> for details.
109 If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
110 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
111 can press +$mod+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
112 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
113 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
114 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
115 depends on the application.
119 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
120 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
121 another workspace, press +$mod+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
122 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
124 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
125 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one, and the ones with which you
126 work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
128 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
129 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
130 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
131 focus to that screen.
133 === Moving windows to workspaces
135 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +$mod+Shift+num+ where
136 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
137 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
138 it does not yet exist.
142 The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
143 and move it to the wanted size.
145 See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
146 columns/rows with your keyboard.
148 === Restarting i3 inplace
150 To restart i3 in place (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
151 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +$mod+Shift+r+.
155 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +$mod+Shift+e+.
156 By default, a dialog will ask you to confirm if you really want to quit.
160 Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of
161 a window are not managed automatically by i3, but manually by
162 you. Using this mode violates the tiling paradigm but can be useful
163 for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog windows, or toolbar
164 windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the appropriate
165 hint and are opened in floating mode by default.
167 You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing +$mod+Shift+Space+. By
168 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
169 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
170 can also do that by using the <<floating_modifier>>. Another way to resize
171 floating windows using the mouse is to right-click on the titlebar and drag.
173 For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see <<resizingconfig>>.
175 Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.
179 i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
180 windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
181 the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
182 finally the windows themselves. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
183 (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
184 out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.
186 === The tree consists of Containers
188 The building blocks of our tree are so called +Containers+. A +Container+ can
189 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
190 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more +Containers+. A
191 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
192 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
195 image::tree-layout2.png["layout2",float="right"]
196 image::tree-shot4.png["shot4",title="Two terminals on standard workspace"]
198 === Orientation and Split Containers
202 It is only natural to use so-called +Split Containers+ in order to build a
203 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every +Container+ has an
204 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified) and the orientation depends
205 on the layout the container is in (vertical for splitv and stacking, horizontal
206 for splith and tabbed). So, in our example with the workspace, the default
207 layout of the workspace +Container+ is splith (most monitors are widescreen
208 nowadays). If you change the layout to splitv (+$mod+v+ in the default config)
209 and *then* open two terminals, i3 will configure your windows like this:
211 image::tree-shot2.png["shot2",title="Vertical Workspace Orientation"]
213 An interesting new feature of i3 since version 4 is the ability to split anything:
214 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with splith layout, that is
215 horizontal orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open
216 another terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new
217 terminal window, it would show up to the right due to the splith layout.
218 Instead, press +$mod+v+ to split the container with the splitv layout (to
219 open a +Horizontal Split Container+, use +$mod+h+). Now you can open a new
220 terminal and it will open below the current one:
222 image::tree-layout1.png["Layout",float="right"]
223 image::tree-shot1.png["shot",title="Vertical Split Container"]
227 You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
232 Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
233 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
234 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.
236 So, how can you open a new terminal window to the *right* of the current one?
237 The solution is to use +focus parent+, which will focus the +Parent Container+ of
238 the current +Container+. In this case, you would focus the +Vertical Split
239 Container+ which is *inside* the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
240 windows will be opened to the right of the +Vertical Split Container+:
242 image::tree-shot3.png["shot3",title="Focus parent, then open new terminal"]
244 === Implicit containers
246 In some cases, i3 needs to implicitly create a container to fulfill your
249 One example is the following scenario: You start i3 with a single monitor and a
250 single workspace on which you open three terminal windows. All these terminal
251 windows are directly attached to one node inside i3’s layout tree, the
252 workspace node. By default, the workspace node’s orientation is +horizontal+.
254 Now you move one of these terminals down (+$mod+Shift+k+ by default). The
255 workspace node’s orientation will be changed to +vertical+. The terminal window
256 you moved down is directly attached to the workspace and appears on the bottom
257 of the screen. A new (horizontal) container was created to accommodate the
258 other two terminal windows. You will notice this when switching to tabbed mode
259 (for example). You would end up having one tab with a representation of the split
260 container (e.g., "H[urxvt firefox]") and the other one being the terminal window
266 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependent on your
267 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
269 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
270 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
273 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
274 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
275 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
276 can bind your keys to do useful things.
278 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
279 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
282 On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
283 file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
284 wizard to use either Alt (Mod1) or Windows (Mod4) as modifier in the config
285 file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
286 keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command +i3-config-wizard+.
287 Please note that you must not have +~/.i3/config+, otherwise the wizard will
292 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
293 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
294 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:
305 i3 has support for both X core fonts and FreeType fonts (through Pango) to
306 render window titles.
308 To generate an X core font description, you can use +xfontsel(1)+. To see
309 special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the
312 A FreeType font description is composed by a font family, a style, a weight,
313 a variant, a stretch and a size.
314 FreeType fonts support right-to-left rendering and contain often more
315 Unicode glyphs than X core fonts.
317 If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
318 and fall back to a working font.
321 ------------------------------
322 font <X core font description>
323 font pango:[family list] [style options] [size]
324 ------------------------------
327 --------------------------------------------------------------
328 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
329 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
330 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono, Terminus Bold Semi-Condensed 11
331 font pango:Terminus 11px
332 --------------------------------------------------------------
336 === Keyboard bindings
338 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
339 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
340 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
342 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
343 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
344 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
345 mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+. To interactively enter a key and
346 see what keysym it is configured to, use +xev+.
348 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
349 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
350 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
352 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
353 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
354 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
357 Some tools (such as +import+ or +xdotool+) might be unable to run upon a
358 KeyPress event, because the keyboard/pointer is still grabbed. For these
359 situations, the +--release+ flag can be used, which will execute the command
360 after the keys have been released.
363 ----------------------------------
364 bindsym [--release] [Modifiers+]keysym command
365 bindcode [--release] [Modifiers+]keycode command
366 ----------------------------------
369 --------------------------------
371 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
374 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
376 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
377 bindcode 214 exec --no-startup-id /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
379 # Simulate ctrl+v upon pressing $mod+x
380 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v
382 # Take a screenshot upon pressing $mod+x (select an area)
383 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id import /tmp/latest-screenshot.png
384 --------------------------------
388 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
389 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
392 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
393 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
394 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
395 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
396 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
402 A mouse binding makes i3 execute a command upon pressing a specific mouse
403 button in the scope of the clicked container (see <<command_criteria>>). You
404 can configure mouse bindings in a similar way to key bindings.
407 ----------------------------------
408 bindsym [--release] [--border] [--whole-window] [Modifiers+]button[n] command
409 ----------------------------------
411 By default, the binding will only run when you click on the titlebar of the
412 window. If the +--release+ flag is given, it will run when the mouse button
415 If the +--whole-window+ flag is given, the binding will also run when any part
416 of the window is clicked, with the exception of the border. To have a bind run
417 when the border is clicked, specify the +--border+ flag.
420 --------------------------------
421 # The middle button over a titlebar kills the window
422 bindsym --release button2 kill
424 # The middle button and a modifer over any part of the window kills the window
425 bindsym --whole-window $mod+button2 kill
427 # The right button toggles floating
428 bindsym button3 floating toggle
429 bindsym $mod+button3 floating toggle
431 # The side buttons move the window around
432 bindsym button9 move left
433 bindsym button8 move right
434 --------------------------------
436 [[floating_modifier]]
438 === The floating modifier
440 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
441 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
442 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
443 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
444 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
445 it to the position you want.
447 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
448 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
449 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
450 ratio will be preserved).
453 --------------------------------
454 floating_modifier <Modifiers>
455 --------------------------------
458 --------------------------------
459 floating_modifier Mod1
460 --------------------------------
462 === Constraining floating window size
464 The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
465 either dimension of +floating_maximum_size+ is specified as -1, that dimension
466 will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
467 +floating_maximum_size+ is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
468 value to constrain the maximum size. +floating_minimum_size+ is treated in a
469 manner analogous to +floating_maximum_size+.
472 ----------------------------------------
473 floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
474 floating_maximum_size <width> x <height>
475 ----------------------------------------
478 --------------------------------------
479 floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
480 floating_maximum_size -1 x -1
481 --------------------------------------
483 === Orientation for new workspaces
485 New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
486 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
487 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.
489 With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
493 ----------------------------------------------
494 default_orientation <horizontal|vertical|auto>
495 ----------------------------------------------
498 ----------------------------
499 default_orientation vertical
500 ----------------------------
502 === Layout mode for new containers
504 This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
506 ///////////////////////////////
507 See also <<stack-limit>>.
508 //////////////////////////////
511 ---------------------------------------------
512 workspace_layout <default|stacking|tabbed>
513 ---------------------------------------------
514 /////////////////////////////////////////////
515 new_container stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
516 /////////////////////////////////////////////
519 ---------------------
520 workspace_layout tabbed
521 ---------------------
523 === Border style for new windows
525 This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
526 "normal". Note that new_float applies only to windows which are starting out as
527 floating windows, e.g. dialog windows.
530 ---------------------------------------------
531 new_window <normal|1pixel|none|pixel>
532 new_float <normal|1pixel|none|pixel>
533 ---------------------------------------------
536 ---------------------
538 ---------------------
540 The "normal" and "pixel" border styles support an optional border width in
544 ---------------------
545 # The same as new_window none
550 ---------------------
553 === Hiding vertical borders
555 You can hide vertical borders adjacent to the screen edges using
556 +hide_edge_borders+. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
557 to waste even two pixels in displayspace. Default is none.
560 ----------------------------
561 hide_edge_borders <none|vertical|horizontal|both>
562 ----------------------------
565 ----------------------
566 hide_edge_borders vertical
567 ----------------------
569 === Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)
571 With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
572 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
573 change their border style, for example.
576 -----------------------------
577 for_window <criteria> command
578 -----------------------------
581 ------------------------------------------------
582 # enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
583 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
585 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
586 for_window [class="urxvt"] border 1pixel
588 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
589 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
590 # directory to ~/work
591 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
592 ------------------------------------------------
594 The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.
596 === Don't focus window upon opening
600 When a new window appears, it will be focused. The +no_focus+ directive allows preventing
601 this from happening and can be used in combination with <<command_criteria>>.
603 Note that this does not apply to all cases, e.g., when feeding data into a running application
604 causing it to request being focused. To configure the behavior in such cases, refer to
605 <<focus_on_window_activation>>.
613 -------------------------------
614 no_focus [window_role="pop-up"]
615 -------------------------------
619 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
620 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
621 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
622 variables can be handy.
630 ------------------------
632 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
633 ------------------------
635 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. Variables expansion
636 is not recursive so it is not possible to define a variable with a value
637 containing another variable. There is no fancy handling and there are
638 absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more dynamic configuration
639 you should create a little script which generates a configuration file and run
640 it before starting i3 (for example in your +~/.xsession+ file).
642 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
646 To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
647 can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
648 see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
649 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
650 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
651 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
652 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
653 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
654 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
655 to match on 'Firefox' in this case.
657 Assignments are processed by i3 in the order in which they appear in the config
658 file. The first one which matches the window wins and later assignments are not
662 ------------------------------------------------------------
663 assign <criteria> [→] workspace
664 ------------------------------------------------------------
667 ----------------------
668 # Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
669 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
671 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
672 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
674 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
675 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
677 # Assignment to a named workspace
678 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
680 # Start urxvt -name irssi
681 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
682 ----------------------
684 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
685 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
687 To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
688 window, you will see the following output:
691 -----------------------------------
692 WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
693 -----------------------------------
695 The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
696 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).
698 Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
699 logfile first (see http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
700 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
701 title when starting up.
703 Note that if you want to start an application just once on a specific
704 workspace, but you don’t want to assign all instances of it permanently, you
705 can make use of i3’s startup-notification support (see <<exec>>) in your config
706 file in the following way:
708 *Start iceweasel on workspace 3 (once)*:
709 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
710 # Start iceweasel on workspace 3, then switch back to workspace 1
711 # (Being a command-line utility, i3-msg does not support startup notifications,
712 # hence the exec --no-startup-id.)
713 # (Starting iceweasel with i3’s exec command is important in order to make i3
714 # create a startup notification context, without which the iceweasel window(s)
715 # cannot be matched onto the workspace on which the command was started.)
716 exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 3; exec iceweasel; workspace 1'
717 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
719 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
721 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
722 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
723 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
724 also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
725 keyword. These commands will be run in order.
729 exec [--no-startup-id] command
730 exec_always [--no-startup-id] command
734 --------------------------------
736 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
738 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
739 exec --no-startup-id urxvt
740 --------------------------------
742 The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <<exec>>.
746 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
748 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
749 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
750 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
751 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
752 the second screen and so on).
755 ----------------------------------
756 workspace <workspace> output <output>
757 ----------------------------------
759 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
760 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
761 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
763 If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:
766 ---------------------------
767 workspace 1 output LVDS1
768 workspace 5 output VGA1
769 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1
770 ---------------------------
774 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.
777 --------------------------------------------
778 colorclass border background text indicator
779 --------------------------------------------
781 Where colorclass can be one of:
784 A client which currently has the focus.
785 client.focused_inactive::
786 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
787 the focus at the moment.
789 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
791 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
793 Background and text color are used to draw placeholder window contents
794 (when restoring layouts). Border and indicator are ignored.
796 You can also specify the color to be used to paint the background of the client
797 windows. This color will be used to paint the window on top of which the client
801 -----------------------
802 client.background color
803 -----------------------
805 Only clients that do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color
808 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
810 *Examples (default colors)*:
811 ---------------------------------------------------------
812 # class border backgr. text indicator
813 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff #2e9ef4
814 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff #484e50
815 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888 #292d2e
816 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff #900000
817 client.placeholder #000000 #0c0c0c #ffffff #000000
818 ---------------------------------------------------------
820 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
821 background color, and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
824 The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
825 For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
826 color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
827 single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
828 from single windows outside of a split container.
830 === Interprocess communication
832 i3 uses Unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
833 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
834 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
836 The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
837 +/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username, +%p+ is
838 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
839 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).
841 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
842 by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
843 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
844 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
845 user can create that directory.
848 ----------------------------
849 ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock
850 ----------------------------
852 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
855 === Focus follows mouse
857 By default, window focus follows your mouse movements. However, if you have a
858 setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad on your laptop
859 which you do not want to disable completely), you might want to disable 'focus
860 follows mouse' and control focus only by using your keyboard. The mouse will
861 still be useful inside the currently active window (for example to click on
862 links in your browser window).
865 ----------------------------
866 focus_follows_mouse <yes|no>
867 ----------------------------
870 ----------------------
871 focus_follows_mouse no
872 ----------------------
876 By default, when switching focus to a window on a different output (e.g.
877 focusing a window on workspace 3 on output VGA-1, coming from workspace 2 on
878 LVDS-1), the mouse cursor is warped to the center of that window.
880 With the +mouse_warping+ option, you can control when the mouse cursor should
881 be warped. +none+ disables warping entirely, whereas +output+ is the default
882 behavior described above.
885 ---------------------------
886 mouse_warping <output|none>
887 ---------------------------
894 === Popups during fullscreen mode
896 When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
897 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
898 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
899 There are three things which are possible to do in this situation:
901 1. Display the popup if it belongs to the fullscreen application only. This is
902 the default and should be reasonable behavior for most users.
903 2. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
904 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
905 you go out of fullscreen).
906 3. Leave fullscreen mode.
909 -------------------------------------------------
910 popup_during_fullscreen <smart|ignore|leave_fullscreen>
911 -------------------------------------------------
914 ------------------------------
915 popup_during_fullscreen smart
916 ------------------------------
920 When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
921 focused when you use +focus down+ on the last container -- the focus wraps. If
922 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
923 be set on that container. This is the default behavior so you can navigate to
924 all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.
926 If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
927 parent+ to switch to different containers, you can use the
928 +force_focus_wrapping+ configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
932 -----------------------------
933 force_focus_wrapping <yes|no>
934 -----------------------------
937 ------------------------
938 force_focus_wrapping yes
939 ------------------------
943 As explained in-depth in <http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html>, some X11
944 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
945 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
946 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
947 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
950 For people who cannot modify their +~/.xsession+ to add the
951 +--force-xinerama+ commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:
954 -----------------------
955 force_xinerama <yes|no>
956 -----------------------
963 Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like +HDMI1+) when using
964 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: +xinerama-0+, +xinerama-1+, …
966 === Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace
968 This configuration directive enables automatic +workspace back_and_forth+ (see
969 <<back_and_forth>>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.
971 For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
972 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
973 came from now, you can just press $mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".
976 --------------------------------------
977 workspace_auto_back_and_forth <yes|no>
978 --------------------------------------
981 ---------------------------------
982 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes
983 ---------------------------------
985 === Delaying urgency hint reset on workspace change
987 If an application on another workspace sets an urgency hint, switching to this
988 workspace may lead to immediate focus of the application, which also means the
989 window decoration color would be immediately reset to +client.focused+. This
990 may make it unnecessarily hard to tell which window originally raised the
993 In order to prevent this, you can tell i3 to delay resetting the urgency state
994 by a certain time using the +force_display_urgency_hint+ directive. Setting the
995 value to 0 disables this feature.
997 The default is 500ms.
1000 ---------------------------------------
1001 force_display_urgency_hint <timeout> ms
1002 ---------------------------------------
1005 ---------------------------------
1006 force_display_urgency_hint 500 ms
1007 ---------------------------------
1009 === Focus on window activation
1011 [[focus_on_window_activation]]
1013 If a window is activated, e.g., via +google-chrome www.google.com+, it may request
1014 to take focus. Since this may not preferable, different reactions can be configured.
1016 Note that this may not affect windows that are being opened. To prevent new windows
1017 from being focused, see <<no_focus>>.
1020 ----------------------------------------------------
1021 focus_on_window_activation <smart|urgent|focus|none>
1022 ----------------------------------------------------
1024 The different modes will act as follows:
1027 This is the default behavior. If the window requesting focus is on an active
1028 workspace, it will receive the focus. Otherwise, the urgency hint will be set.
1030 The window will always be marked urgent, but the focus will not be stolen.
1032 The window will always be focused and not be marked urgent.
1034 The window will neither be focused, nor be marked urgent.
1036 === Drawing marks on window decoration
1038 If activated, marks on windows are drawn in their window decoration. However,
1039 any mark starting with an underscore in its name (+_+) will not be drawn even if
1040 this option is activated.
1042 The default for this option is +yes+.
1054 == Configuring i3bar
1056 The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
1057 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
1060 1. It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
1061 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
1062 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
1063 2. It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
1064 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
1065 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
1066 3. It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
1067 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
1069 That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
1070 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
1071 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
1072 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
1073 configuration infrastructure in place.
1075 Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a +bar+ block. You can have
1076 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):
1079 ---------------------------
1081 status_command i3status
1083 ---------------------------
1087 By default i3 will just pass +i3bar+ and let your shell handle the execution,
1088 searching your +$PATH+ for a correct version.
1089 If you have a different +i3bar+ somewhere or the binary is not in your +$PATH+ you can
1090 tell i3 what to execute.
1092 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1093 have to have correct quoting etc.
1096 ----------------------
1097 i3bar_command command
1098 ----------------------
1101 -------------------------------------------------
1103 i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
1105 -------------------------------------------------
1108 === Statusline command
1110 i3bar can run a program and display every line of its +stdout+ output on the
1111 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
1112 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.
1114 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1115 have to have correct quoting etc.
1118 ----------------------
1119 status_command command
1120 ----------------------
1123 -------------------------------------------------
1125 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
1127 -------------------------------------------------
1131 You can either have i3bar be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
1132 (+dock+ mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (+hide+ mode).
1133 It is also possible to force i3bar to always stay hidden (+invisible+
1134 mode). The modifier key can be configured using the +modifier+ option.
1136 The mode option can be changed during runtime through the +bar mode+ command.
1137 On reload the mode will be reverted to its configured value.
1139 The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
1140 i3bar sends the +SIGSTOP+ and +SIGCONT+ signals to the statusline process to
1143 Invisible mode allows to permanently maximize screen space, as the bar is never
1144 shown. Thus, you can configure i3bar to not disturb you by popping up because
1145 of an urgency hint or because the modifier key is pressed.
1147 In order to control whether i3bar is hidden or shown in hide mode, there exists
1148 the hidden_state option, which has no effect in dock mode or invisible mode. It
1149 indicates the current hidden_state of the bar: (1) The bar acts like in normal
1150 hide mode, it is hidden and is only unhidden in case of urgency hints or by
1151 pressing the modifier key (+hide+ state), or (2) it is drawn on top of the
1152 currently visible workspace (+show+ state).
1154 Like the mode, the hidden_state can also be controlled through i3, this can be
1155 done by using the +bar hidden_state+ command.
1157 The default mode is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
1158 the windows key). The default value for the hidden_state is hide.
1162 mode <dock|hide|invisible>
1163 hidden_state <hide|show>
1176 Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see +xmodmap(1)+).
1178 === Mouse button commands
1180 Specifies a command to run when a button was pressed on i3bar to override the
1181 default behavior. Currently only the mouse wheel buttons are supported. This is
1182 useful for disabling the scroll wheel action or running scripts that implement
1183 custom behavior for these buttons.
1186 ---------------------
1187 wheel_up_cmd <command>
1188 wheel_down_cmd <command>
1189 ---------------------
1192 ---------------------
1195 wheel_down_cmd exec ~/.i3/scripts/custom_wheel_down
1197 ---------------------
1201 Specifies the bar ID for the configured bar instance. If this option is missing,
1202 the ID is set to 'bar-x', where x corresponds to the position of the embedding
1203 bar block in the config file ('bar-0', 'bar-1', ...).
1206 ---------------------
1208 ---------------------
1211 ---------------------
1215 ---------------------
1220 This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.
1222 The default is bottom.
1225 ---------------------
1226 position <top|bottom>
1227 ---------------------
1230 ---------------------
1234 ---------------------
1238 You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
1239 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
1240 options for different outputs by using multiple 'bar' blocks.
1242 To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
1243 directive multiple times.
1251 -------------------------------
1252 # big monitor: everything
1254 # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
1257 status_command i3status
1260 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
1263 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
1269 -------------------------------
1273 i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
1274 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.
1276 You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
1277 you can turn off the functionality entirely.
1280 -------------------------
1281 tray_output <none|primary|output>
1282 -------------------------
1285 -------------------------
1286 # disable system tray
1291 # show tray icons on the primary monitor
1294 # show tray icons on the big monitor
1298 -------------------------
1300 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1301 -------------------------
1302 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1303 -------------------------
1307 Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <<fonts>>.
1310 ---------------------
1312 ---------------------
1315 --------------------------------------------------------------
1317 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
1318 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
1320 --------------------------------------------------------------
1322 === Custom separator symbol
1324 Specifies a custom symbol to be used for the separator as opposed to the vertical,
1325 one pixel thick separator.
1328 -------------------------
1329 separator_symbol <symbol>
1330 -------------------------
1333 ------------------------
1335 separator_symbol ":|:"
1337 ------------------------
1339 === Workspace buttons
1341 Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
1342 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.
1344 The default is to show workspace buttons.
1347 --------------------------
1348 workspace_buttons <yes|no>
1349 --------------------------
1352 ------------------------
1354 workspace_buttons no
1356 ------------------------
1358 === Strip workspace numbers
1360 Specifies whether workspace numbers should be displayed within the workspace
1361 buttons. This is useful if you want to have a named workspace that stays in
1362 order on the bar according to its number without displaying the number prefix.
1364 When +strip_workspace_numbers+ is set to +yes+, any workspace that has a name of
1365 the form "[n]:[NAME]" will display only the name. You could use this, for
1366 instance, to display Roman numerals rather than digits by naming your
1367 workspaces to "1:I", "2:II", "3:III", "4:IV", ...
1369 The default is to display the full name within the workspace button.
1372 ----------------------------------
1373 strip_workspace_numbers <yes|no>
1374 ----------------------------------
1377 ----------------------------
1379 strip_workspace_numbers yes
1381 ----------------------------
1383 === Binding Mode indicator
1385 Specifies whether the current binding mode indicator should be shown or not.
1386 This is useful if you want to hide the workspace buttons but still be able
1387 to see the current binding mode indicator.
1388 For an example of a +mode+ definition, see <<resizingconfig>>.
1390 The default is to show the mode indicator.
1393 -------------------------------
1394 binding_mode_indicator <yes|no>
1395 -------------------------------
1398 -----------------------------
1400 binding_mode_indicator no
1402 -----------------------------
1406 As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
1407 be configured at the moment:
1410 Background color of the bar.
1412 Text color to be used for the statusline.
1414 Text color to be used for the separator.
1416 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1419 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1420 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
1421 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
1422 using multiple monitors.
1423 inactive_workspace::
1424 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1425 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
1426 will be the case for most workspaces.
1428 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1429 contains a window with the urgency hint set. Also applies to +mode+ indicators.
1432 ----------------------------------------
1438 colorclass <border> <background> <text>
1440 ----------------------------------------
1442 *Example (default colors)*:
1443 --------------------------------------
1450 focused_workspace #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
1451 active_workspace #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
1452 inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
1453 urgent_workspace #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1456 --------------------------------------
1460 Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
1461 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
1462 do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:
1465 --------------------------
1466 # execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
1468 --------------------------
1470 Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
1471 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
1472 the following keybinding:
1475 --------------------------------------------------------
1476 bindsym $mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3
1477 --------------------------------------------------------
1479 [[command_criteria]]
1481 Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command - that is, which containers
1482 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. The criteria
1483 are specified before any command in a pair of square brackets and are separated
1486 When using multiple commands, separate them by using a +,+ (a comma) instead of
1487 a semicolon. Criteria apply only until the next semicolon, so if you use a
1488 semicolon to separate commands, only the first one will be executed for the
1492 ------------------------------------
1493 # if you want to kill all windows which have the class Firefox, use:
1494 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
1496 # same thing, but case-insensitive
1497 bindsym $mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
1499 # kill only the About dialog from Firefox
1500 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox" window_role="About"] kill
1502 # enable floating mode and move container to workspace 4
1503 for_window [class="^evil-app$"] floating enable, move container to workspace 4
1504 ------------------------------------
1506 The criteria which are currently implemented are:
1509 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS)
1511 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS)
1513 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE).
1515 Compare the window type (_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE). Possible values are
1516 +normal+, +dialog+, +utility+, +toolbar+, +splash+, +menu+, +dropdown_menu+,
1517 +popup_menu+ and +toolti+.
1519 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
1521 Compares the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
1523 Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
1524 Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
1525 (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
1527 Compares the mark set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>.
1529 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
1530 interface. Handy for scripting.
1532 The criteria +class+, +instance+, +role+, +title+ and +mark+ are actually
1533 regular expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for
1534 information on how to use them.
1538 === Executing applications (exec)
1540 What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
1541 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
1542 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
1543 searched in your $PATH.
1546 ------------------------------
1547 exec [--no-startup-id] command
1548 ------------------------------
1551 ------------------------------
1553 bindsym $mod+g exec gimp
1555 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
1556 bindsym $mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt
1557 ------------------------------
1559 The +--no-startup-id+ parameter disables startup-notification support for this
1560 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
1561 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
1562 will change the X11 cursor to +watch+ (a clock) while the application is
1563 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
1564 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
1565 cursor for 60 seconds.
1567 === Splitting containers
1569 The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
1570 can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
1571 new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
1572 get placed below the current one (splitv).
1574 If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
1575 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
1576 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window). Use
1577 +layout toggle split+ to change the layout of any split container from splitv
1578 to splith or vice-versa.
1581 ---------------------------
1582 split <vertical|horizontal>
1583 ---------------------------
1586 ------------------------------
1587 bindsym $mod+v split vertical
1588 bindsym $mod+h split horizontal
1589 ------------------------------
1591 === Manipulating layout
1593 Use +layout toggle split+, +layout stacking+, +layout tabbed+, +layout splitv+
1594 or +layout splith+ to change the current container layout to splith/splitv,
1595 stacking, tabbed layout, splitv or splith, respectively.
1597 To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen enable+ (or
1598 +fullscreen enable global+ for the global mode), to leave either fullscreen
1599 mode use +fullscreen disable+, and to toggle between these two states use
1600 +fullscreen toggle+ (or +fullscreen toggle global+).
1602 Likewise, to make the current window floating (or tiling again) use +floating
1603 enable+ respectively +floating disable+ (or +floating toggle+):
1607 layout <default|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith>
1608 layout toggle [split|all]
1613 bindsym $mod+s layout stacking
1614 bindsym $mod+l layout toggle split
1615 bindsym $mod+w layout tabbed
1617 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
1618 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle
1620 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
1621 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle all
1624 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
1626 # Toggle floating/tiling
1627 bindsym $mod+t floating toggle
1630 === Focusing/Moving containers
1632 To change the focus, use the focus command: +focus left+, +focus right+, +focus
1633 down+ and +focus up+.
1635 There are a few special parameters you can use for the focus command:
1638 Sets focus to the +Parent Container+ of the current +Container+.
1640 The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
1643 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
1645 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
1647 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
1649 Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
1650 corresponding output.
1652 For moving, use +move left+, +move right+, +move down+ and +move up+.
1655 -----------------------------------
1656 focus <left|right|down|up>
1657 focus <parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle>
1658 focus output <<left|right|down|up>|output>
1659 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
1660 move [absolute] position [[<px> px] [<px> px]|center]
1661 -----------------------------------
1663 Note that the amount of pixels you can specify for the +move+ command is only
1664 relevant for floating containers. The default amount is 10 pixels.
1667 ----------------------
1668 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right:
1669 bindsym $mod+j focus left
1670 bindsym $mod+k focus down
1671 bindsym $mod+l focus up
1672 bindsym $mod+semicolon focus right
1674 # Focus parent container
1675 bindsym $mod+u focus parent
1677 # Focus last floating/tiling container
1678 bindsym $mod+g focus mode_toggle
1680 # Focus the output right to the current one
1681 bindsym $mod+x focus output right
1683 # Focus the big output
1684 bindsym $mod+x focus output HDMI-2
1686 # Move container to the left, bottom, top, right:
1687 bindsym $mod+j move left
1688 bindsym $mod+k move down
1689 bindsym $mod+l move up
1690 bindsym $mod+semicolon move right
1692 # Move container, but make floating containers
1693 # move more than the default
1694 bindsym $mod+j move left 20 px
1696 # Move floating container to the center
1698 bindsym $mod+c move absolute position center
1699 ----------------------
1701 === Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces
1703 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
1704 number or name of the workspace. To move containers to specific workspaces, use
1705 +move container to workspace+.
1707 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
1708 +workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
1709 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
1710 combination. To restrict those to the current output, use +workspace
1711 next_on_output+ and +workspace prev_on_output+. Similarly, you can use +move
1712 container to workspace next+, +move container to workspace prev+ to move a
1713 container to the next/previous workspace and +move container to workspace current+
1714 (the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).
1716 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
1719 Workspace names are parsed as
1720 https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
1724 To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use +workspace
1725 back_and_forth+; likewise, you can move containers to the previously focused
1726 workspace using +move container to workspace back_and_forth+.
1729 -----------------------------------
1730 workspace <next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output>
1731 workspace back_and_forth
1733 workspace number <name>
1735 move [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
1736 move [window|container] [to] workspace number <name>
1737 move [window|container] [to] workspace <prev|next|current>
1738 -----------------------------------
1741 -------------------------
1742 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1
1743 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2
1744 bindsym $mod+3 workspace 3:<span foreground="red">vim</span>
1747 bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
1748 bindsym $mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
1751 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
1752 bindsym $mod+b workspace back_and_forth
1753 bindsym $mod+Shift+b move container to workspace back_and_forth
1755 # move the whole workspace to the next output
1756 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
1758 # move firefox to current workspace
1759 bindsym $mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current
1760 -------------------------
1762 ==== Named workspaces
1764 Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
1765 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:
1768 -------------------------
1769 bindsym $mod+1 workspace mail
1771 -------------------------
1773 If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
1777 -------------------------
1778 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1: mail
1779 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2: www
1781 -------------------------
1783 Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
1784 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
1785 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
1786 will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use +workspace number 1+
1787 to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
1788 it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
1789 dynamically. To combine both commands you can use +workspace number 1: mail+ to
1790 specify a default name if there's currently no workspace starting with a "1".
1792 ==== Renaming workspaces
1794 You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
1795 numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
1796 reflect what’s actually on them. You can also omit the old name to rename
1797 the currently focused workspace. This is handy if you want to use the
1798 rename command with +i3-input+.
1801 ----------------------------------------------------
1802 rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
1803 rename workspace to <new_name>
1804 ----------------------------------------------------
1807 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
1808 i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
1809 i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
1810 i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
1811 i3-msg 'rename workspace to "2: mail"
1812 bindsym $mod+r exec i3-input -F 'rename workspace to "%s"' -P 'New name: '
1813 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
1815 === Moving workspaces to a different screen
1817 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
1820 === Moving containers/workspaces to RandR outputs
1824 To move a container to another RandR output (addressed by names like +LVDS1+ or
1825 +VGA1+) or to a RandR output identified by a specific direction (like +left+,
1826 +right+, +up+ or +down+), there are two commands:
1829 --------------------------------------------------------
1830 move container to output <<left|right|down|up>|<output>>
1831 move workspace to output <<left|right|down|up>|<output>>
1832 --------------------------------------------------------
1835 --------------------------------------------------------
1836 # Move the current workspace to the next output
1837 # (effectively toggles when you only have two outputs)
1838 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
1840 # Put this window on the presentation output.
1841 bindsym $mod+x move container to output VGA1
1842 --------------------------------------------------------
1844 === Moving containers/workspaces to marks
1846 To move a container to another container with a specific mark (see <<vim_like_marks>>),
1847 you can use the following command.
1849 The window will be moved right after the marked container in the tree, i.e., it ends up
1850 in the same position as if you had opened a new window when the marked container was
1851 focused. If the mark is on a split container, the window will appear as a new child
1852 after the currently focused child within that container.
1855 ------------------------------------
1856 move window|container to mark <mark>
1857 ------------------------------------
1860 --------------------------------------------------------
1861 for_window [instance="tabme"] move window to mark target
1862 --------------------------------------------------------
1866 === Resizing containers/windows
1868 If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
1872 ---------------------------------------------------------
1873 resize <grow|shrink> <direction> [<px> px [or <ppt> ppt]]
1874 ---------------------------------------------------------
1876 Direction can either be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. Or you can be
1877 less specific and use +width+ or +height+, in which case i3 will take/give
1878 space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
1879 how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or shrunk (the default
1880 is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
1881 many percentage points a *tiling container* should be grown or shrunk (the
1882 default is 10 percentage points).
1884 I recommend using the resize command inside a so called +mode+:
1886 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
1887 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1889 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
1891 # Pressing left will shrink the window’s width.
1892 # Pressing right will grow the window’s width.
1893 # Pressing up will shrink the window’s height.
1894 # Pressing down will grow the window’s height.
1895 bindsym j resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
1896 bindsym k resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
1897 bindsym l resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
1898 bindsym semicolon resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
1900 # same bindings, but for the arrow keys
1901 bindsym Left resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
1902 bindsym Down resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
1903 bindsym Up resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
1904 bindsym Right resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
1906 # back to normal: Enter or Escape
1907 bindsym Return mode "default"
1908 bindsym Escape mode "default"
1912 bindsym $mod+r mode "resize"
1913 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1915 === Jumping to specific windows
1917 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
1918 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
1919 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
1920 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mail client,
1921 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
1922 with criteria for that.
1925 ----------------------------------------------------
1926 [class="class"] focus
1927 [title="title"] focus
1928 ----------------------------------------------------
1931 ------------------------------------------------
1932 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
1933 bindsym $mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
1934 ------------------------------------------------
1936 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
1940 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
1941 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
1942 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
1943 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You can unmark the label in the same
1944 way, using the unmark command. If you don't specify a label, unmark removes all
1945 marks. You do not need to ensure that your windows have unique classes or
1946 titles, and you do not need to change your configuration file.
1948 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
1949 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
1950 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
1951 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
1953 The additional +--toggle+ option will remove the mark if the window already has
1954 this mark, add it if the window has none or replace the current mark if it has
1957 Refer to +show_marks+ if you don't want marks to be shown in the window decoration.
1960 ------------------------------
1961 mark [--toggle] identifier
1962 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
1964 ------------------------------
1966 *Example (in a terminal)*:
1967 ------------------------------
1969 $ i3-msg '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
1970 $ i3-msg unmark irssi
1971 ------------------------------
1973 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1974 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
1976 ---------------------------------------
1977 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
1978 bindsym $mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
1980 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
1981 bindsym $mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
1982 ---------------------------------------
1984 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
1985 seperate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
1986 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1988 === Changing border style
1990 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
1991 border (including window title), +border 1pixel+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
1992 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
1994 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
1997 ----------------------------
1998 bindsym $mod+t border normal
1999 bindsym $mod+y border 1pixel
2000 bindsym $mod+u border none
2001 ----------------------------
2005 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2006 TODO: not yet implemented
2007 === Changing the stack-limit of a container
2009 If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside it (say, more than
2010 10), the default layout of a stacking container can get a little unhandy.
2011 Depending on your screen’s size, you might end up with only half of the title
2012 lines being actually used, wasting a lot of screen space.
2014 Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the number of rows or columns
2015 in a stacking container. i3 will create columns or rows (depending on what
2016 you limited) automatically as needed.
2019 --------------------------------
2020 stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
2021 --------------------------------
2025 # I always want to have two window titles in one line
2028 # Not more than 5 rows in this stacking container
2032 image:stacklimit.png[Container limited to two columns]
2033 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2037 === Enabling shared memory logging
2039 As described in http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html, i3 can log to a shared
2040 memory buffer, which you can dump using +i3-dump-log+. The +shmlog+ command
2041 allows you to enable or disable the shared memory logging at runtime.
2043 Note that when using +shmlog <size_in_bytes>+, the current log will be
2044 discarded and a new one will be started.
2047 ------------------------------
2048 shmlog <size_in_bytes>
2049 shmlog <on|off|toggle>
2050 ------------------------------
2054 # Enable/disable logging
2055 bindsym $mod+x shmlog toggle
2057 # or, from a terminal:
2058 # increase the shared memory log buffer to 50 MiB
2059 i3-msg shmlog $((50*1024*1024))
2062 === Enabling debug logging
2064 The +debuglog+ command allows you to enable or disable debug logging at
2065 runtime. Debug logging is much more verbose than non-debug logging. This
2066 command does not activate shared memory logging (shmlog), and as such is most
2067 likely useful in combination with the above-described <<shmlog>> command.
2070 ------------------------
2071 debuglog <on|off|toggle>
2072 ------------------------
2075 ------------------------
2076 # Enable/disable logging
2077 bindsym $mod+x debuglog toggle
2078 ------------------------
2080 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
2082 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
2083 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
2084 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
2085 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
2086 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
2089 ----------------------------
2090 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
2091 bindsym $mod+Shift+w reload
2092 bindsym $mod+Shift+e exit
2093 ----------------------------
2097 There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. +move
2098 scratchpad+ will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
2099 invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
2100 Instead, when using +scratchpad show+, the window will be shown again, as a
2101 floating window, centered on your current workspace (using +scratchpad show+ on
2102 a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
2103 keybinding to toggle). Note that this is just a normal floating window, so if
2104 you want to "remove it from scratchpad", you can simple make it tiling again
2105 (+floating toggle+).
2107 As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
2108 editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
2109 running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
2110 player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?
2120 ------------------------------------------------
2121 # Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
2122 bindsym $mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad
2124 # Show the first scratchpad window
2125 bindsym $mod+minus scratchpad show
2127 # Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
2128 bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show
2129 ------------------------------------------------
2133 There is a no operation command +nop+ which allows you to override default
2134 behavior. This can be useful for, e.g., disabling a focus change on clicks with
2135 the middle mouse button.
2137 The optional +comment+ argument is ignored, but will be printed to the log file
2138 for debugging purposes.
2146 ----------------------------------------------
2147 # Disable focus change for clicks on titlebars
2148 # with the middle mouse button
2150 ----------------------------------------------
2154 There are two options in the configuration of each i3bar instance that can be
2155 changed during runtime by invoking a command through i3. The commands +bar
2156 hidden_state+ and +bar mode+ allow setting the current hidden_state
2157 respectively mode option of each bar. It is also possible to toggle between
2158 hide state and show state as well as between dock mode and hide mode. Each
2159 i3bar instance can be controlled individually by specifying a bar_id, if none
2160 is given, the command is executed for all bar instances.
2164 bar hidden_state hide|show|toggle [<bar_id>]
2166 bar mode dock|hide|invisible|toggle [<bar_id>]
2170 ------------------------------------------------
2171 # Toggle between hide state and show state
2172 bindsym $mod+m bar hidden_state toggle
2174 # Toggle between dock mode and hide mode
2175 bindsym $mod+n bar mode toggle
2177 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to switch to hide mode
2178 bindsym $mod+b bar mode hide bar-1
2180 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to always stay hidden
2181 bindsym $mod+Shift+b bar mode invisible bar-1
2182 ------------------------------------------------
2186 == Multiple monitors
2188 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
2189 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
2190 handle multiple monitors.
2192 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
2193 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
2195 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
2196 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
2197 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
2198 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
2199 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
2200 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
2201 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
2203 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
2204 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
2205 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
2206 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
2207 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
2208 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
2209 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
2210 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
2212 === Configuring your monitors
2214 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
2215 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
2216 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
2217 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
2218 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2220 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
2221 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
2222 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2223 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2224 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2226 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2227 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2231 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2233 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
2234 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
2235 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
2236 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
2238 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
2239 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
2240 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
2242 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
2243 -------------------------------------------
2244 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
2245 -------------------------------------------
2246 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
2247 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
2248 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
2249 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2251 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
2252 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
2253 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
2256 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
2258 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2259 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
2261 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2262 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2263 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2265 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2266 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2270 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2271 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
2272 only what you can see in xrandr.
2274 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
2276 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
2278 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
2279 have more than one monitor:
2281 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
2282 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
2283 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
2284 <<workspace_screen>>.
2285 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
2286 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
2287 <<assign_workspace>>.
2288 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
2289 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
2290 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
2291 4. For information on how to move existing workspaces between monitors,
2292 see <<_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs>>.
2294 == i3 and the rest of your software world
2296 === Displaying a status line
2298 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
2299 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
2300 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
2302 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
2303 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
2304 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
2305 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
2306 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
2307 i3bar. See <<status_command>> for how to display i3status in i3bar.
2309 Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
2310 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
2311 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
2312 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
2313 see <<i3bar_position>>.
2315 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
2317 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
2318 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
2319 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
2320 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
2324 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
2325 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
2326 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
2327 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
2328 -----------------------------------------------------
2329 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
2330 -----------------------------------------------------
2331 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
2332 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
2333 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
2335 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
2336 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
2337 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
2338 -----------------------------------------------------
2339 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
2340 -----------------------------------------------------
2341 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
2342 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
2344 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
2345 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
2346 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).