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 == Default keybindings
12 For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here comes an overview of the default
13 keybindings (click to see the full size image):
15 *Keys to use with Mod1 (alt):*
17 image:keyboard-layer1.png["Keys to use with Mod1 (alt)",width=600,link="keyboard-layer1.png"]
19 *Keys to use with Shift+Mod1:*
21 image:keyboard-layer2.png["Keys to use with Shift+Mod1",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]
23 As i3 uses keycodes in the default configuration, it does not mapper which
24 layout you actually use. The key positions are what matters (of course you can
25 also use keysymbols, see below).
27 The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default, you may have
28 changed which keys are which modifier), the blue keys are your homerow.
32 === Creating terminals and moving around
34 A very basic operation is to create a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
35 for that is Mod1+Enter, that is Alt+Enter in the default configuration. By
36 pressing Mod1+Enter, a new terminal will be created and it will fill the whole
37 space which is available on your screen.
39 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
41 It is important to keep in mind that i3 uses a table to manage your windows. At
42 the moment, you have exactly one column and one row which leaves you with one
43 cell. In this cell, there is a container in which your newly opened terminal is.
45 If you now open another terminal, you still have only one cell. However, the
46 container has both of your terminals. So, a container is just a group of clients
47 with a specific layout. You can resize containers as they directly resemble
48 columns/rows of the layout table.
50 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
52 To move the focus between the two terminals, you use the direction keys which
53 you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used for
54 these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for compatibility
55 with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +Mod1+J+ is left, +Mod1+K+ is down, +Mod1+L+
56 is up and `Mod1+;` is right. So, to switch between the terminals, use +Mod1+K+ or
59 To create a new row/column, you can simply move a terminal (or any other window)
60 to the direction you want to expand your table. So, let’s expand the table to
61 the right by pressing `Mod1+Shift+;`.
63 image:two_columns.png[Two columns]
65 === Changing mode of containers
67 A container can be in different modes:
70 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space of the
73 Only the focused client of the container is displayed and you get a list of
74 windows at the top of the container.
76 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
77 a single line which will be vertically split.
79 To switch the mode, press +Mod1+e+ for default, +Mod1+h+ for stacking and
82 image:modes.png[Container modes]
84 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
86 To display a window fullscreen or to go out of fullscreen mode again, press
89 There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will use all
90 available outputs. To use it, or to get out of it again, press +Mod1+Shift+f+.
92 === Opening other applications
94 Aside from opening applicatios from a terminal, you can also use the handy
95 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +Mod1+v+ by default. Just type the name
96 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. It has to be in
97 your +$PATH+ for that to work.
99 Furthermore, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can also
100 create a keybinding for it. See the section "Configuring i3" for details.
104 If an application does not provide a mechanism to close (most applications
105 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
106 can press +Mod1+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
107 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
108 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
109 it, your X server will kill the window and the behaviour depends on the
114 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
115 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
116 another workspace, press +Mod1+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
117 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
119 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
120 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one and the ones with which you
121 work on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
123 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen. If
124 you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you created it on.
125 When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set focus to this
128 === Moving windows to workspaces
130 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +Mod1+Shift+num+ where
131 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
132 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
133 it does not yet exist.
135 === Resizing columns/rows
137 To resize columns or rows just grab the border between the two columns/rows
138 and move it to the wanted size. Please keep in mind that each cell of the table
139 holds a +container+ and thus you cannot horizontally resize single windows.
141 See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
142 columns/rows with your keyboard.
144 === Restarting i3 inplace
146 To restart i3 inplace (and thus get it into a clean state if it has a bug, to
147 reload your configuration or even to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you
148 can use +Mod1+Shift+r+. Be aware, though, that this kills your current layout
149 and all the windows you have opened will be put in a default container in only
150 one cell. Saving the layout will be implemented in a later version.
154 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +Mod1+Shift+e+.
158 Snapping is a mechanism to increase/decrease the colspan/rowspan of a container.
159 Colspan/rowspan is the amount of columns/rows a specific cell of the table
160 consumes. This is easier explained by giving an example, so take the following
163 image:snapping.png[Snapping example]
165 To use the full size of your screen, you can now snap container 3 downwards
166 by pressing +Mod1+Control+k+ (or snap container 2 rightwards).
170 Floating is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of a window
171 are then not managed by i3, but by you. Using this mode violates the tiling
172 paradigm but can be useful for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog
173 windows or toolbar windows (GIMP or similar).
175 You can enable floating for a window by pressing +Mod1+Shift+Space+. By
176 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse, you can move the window
177 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window.
179 Bindings for doing this with your keyboard will follow.
181 Floating clients are always on top of tiling clients.
185 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependant on your
186 ideal working environment, so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
188 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
189 quite flexible regarding to the things you usually want your window manager
192 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
193 you can set specific applications to start on a specific workspace, you can
194 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3 or bind
195 your keys to do useful stuff.
197 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
198 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
203 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
204 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
205 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line, like this:
214 i3 uses X core fonts (not Xft) for rendering window titles and the internal
215 workspace bar. You can use +xfontsel(1)+ to generate such a font description.
218 ------------------------------
219 font <X core font description>
220 ------------------------------
223 --------------------------------------------------------------
224 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
225 --------------------------------------------------------------
227 === Keyboard bindings
229 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
230 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
231 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
233 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a" or "b",
234 but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These are the ones
235 you also use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current mapping of your
236 keys, use +xmodmap -pke+.
238 * Keycodes however do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for some hotkeys
239 on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you switch to a
240 different keyboard layout.
242 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts because you try to
243 learn a different one, but you want to keep your bindings at the same place,
244 use keycodes. If you don’t switch layouts and like a clean and simple config
248 ----------------------------------
249 bindsym [Modifiers+]keysym command
250 bind [Modifiers+]keycode command
251 ----------------------------------
254 --------------------------------
259 bind Mod1+Shift+r restart
261 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
262 bind 214 exec /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
263 --------------------------------
267 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
268 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
271 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
272 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
273 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
274 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
275 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
277 === The floating modifier
279 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
280 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
281 click anywhere in the window itself. The most common setup is to configure
282 it as the same one you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Afterwards,
283 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button and drag
284 it to the position you want it at.
287 --------------------------------
288 floating_modifier <Modifiers>
289 --------------------------------
292 --------------------------------
293 floating_modifier Mod1
294 --------------------------------
296 === Layout mode for new containers
298 This option is only available when using the new lexer/parser (pass +-l+ to i3
299 when starting). It determines in which mode new containers will start. See also
303 ---------------------------------------------
304 new_container <default|stacking|tabbed>
305 new_container stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
306 ---------------------------------------------
309 ---------------------
311 ---------------------
313 === Border style for new windows
315 This option is only available when using the new lexer/parser (pass +-l+ to i3
316 when starting). It determines which border new windows will have.
319 ---------------------------------------------
320 new_window <bp|bn|bb>
321 ---------------------------------------------
324 ---------------------
326 ---------------------
330 As you learned in the previous section about keyboard bindings, you will have
331 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
332 yourself some typing and have the possibility to change the modifier you want
333 to use later, variables can be handy.
341 ------------------------
343 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
344 ------------------------
346 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing, there is no fancy
347 handling and there are absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more
348 dynamic configuration, you should create a little script, like when configuring
351 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
355 It is recommended that you match on window classes whereever possible because
356 some applications first create their window and then care about setting the
357 correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind, as the window starts up
358 being named Firefox and only when Vimperator is loaded, the title changes. As
359 i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the window (mapping means
360 actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have to match on Firefox
363 You can prefix or suffix workspaces with a `~` to specify that matching clients
364 should be put into floating mode. If you specify only a `~`, the client will
365 not be put onto any workspace, but will be set floating on the current one.
368 ------------------------------------------------------------
369 assign ["]window class[/window title]["] [→] [~ | workspace]
370 ------------------------------------------------------------
373 ----------------------
377 assign "urxvt/VIM" → 3
379 assign "xv/MPlayer" → ~
380 ----------------------
382 === Automatically starting applications on startup
384 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure which
385 commands will be performed by i3 on the first start (not when reloading inplace
386 however). The commands will be run in order.
394 --------------------------------
395 exec sudo i3status | dzen2 -dock
396 --------------------------------
398 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
402 If you use the assigning of clients to workspaces and start some clients
403 automatically, it might be handy to put the workspaces on specific screens.
404 Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens will determine the workspace
405 which i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens or when starting (e.g., by
406 default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for the second screen and so on).
409 ----------------------------------
410 workspace <number> output <output>
411 ----------------------------------
413 The output is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
414 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
415 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
418 ---------------------------
419 workspace 1 output LVDS1
420 workspace 5 output VGA1
421 ---------------------------
425 If you always have a certain arrangement of workspaces, you might want to give
426 them names (of course UTF-8 is supported):
429 ---------------------------------------
430 workspace <number> <name>
431 workspace <number> output <output> name
432 ---------------------------------------
434 For more details about the output-part of this command, see above.
437 --------------------------
440 workspace 3 i ♥ workspaces
441 --------------------------
445 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations and the
449 --------------------------------------------
450 colorclass border background text
451 --------------------------------------------
453 Where colorclass can be one of:
456 A client which currently has the focus.
457 client.focused_inactive::
458 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
459 the focus at the moment.
461 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
463 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
465 The current workspace in the bottom bar.
467 All other workspaces in the bottom bar.
469 A workspace which has at least one client with an activated urgency hint.
471 Colors are in HTML hex format, see below.
474 --------------------------------------
475 # class border backgr. text
476 client.focused #2F343A #900000 #FFFFFF
477 --------------------------------------
479 Note that for the window decorations the color around the child window is the
480 background color and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
483 === Interprocess communication
485 i3 uses unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. At the moment, this interface
486 is only useful for sending commands. To enable it, you have to configure a path
487 where the unix socket will be stored. The default path is +/tmp/i3-ipc.sock+.
490 ----------------------------
491 ipc-socket /tmp/i3-ipc.sock
492 ----------------------------
494 You can then use the i3-msg command to perform any command listed in the next
497 === Disable focus follows mouse
499 If you have a setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad
500 on your laptop which you do not want to disable completely), you might want
501 to disable focus follows mouse and control focus only by using your keyboard.
502 The mouse will still be useful inside the currently active window (for example
503 to click on links in your browser window).
506 ----------------------------
507 focus_follows_mouse <yes|no>
508 ----------------------------
511 ----------------------
512 focus_follows_mouse no
513 ----------------------
517 === Manipulating layout
519 To change the layout of the current container to stacking, use +s+, for default
520 use +d+ and for tabbed, use +T+. To make the current client (!) fullscreen,
521 use +f+, to make it spanning all outputs, use +fg+, to make it floating (or
522 tiling again) use +t+:
533 # Toggle global fullscreen
534 bindsym Mod1+Shift+f fg
536 # Toggle floating/tiling
540 === Focussing/Moving/Snapping clients/containers/screens
542 To change the focus, use one of the +h+, +j+, +k+ and +l+ commands, meaning
543 respectively left, down, up, right. To focus a container, prefix it with +wc+,
544 to focus a screen, prefix it with +ws+.
546 The same principle applies for moving and snapping, just prefix the command
547 with +m+ when moving and with +s+ when snapping:
550 ----------------------
551 # Focus clients on the left, bottom, top, right:
555 bindsym Mod1+semicolon l
557 # Move client to the left, bottom, top, right:
561 bindsym Mod1+semicolon ml
563 # Snap client to the left, bottom, top, right:
567 bindsym Mod1+semicolon sl
569 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right:
572 ----------------------
574 === Changing workspaces/moving clients to workspaces
576 To change to a specific workspace, the command is just the number of the
577 workspace, e.g. +1+ or +3+. To move the current client to a specific workspace,
578 prefix the number with an +m+.
580 Furthermore, you can switch to the next and previous workspace with the
581 commands +nw+ and +pw+, which is handy for example if you have workspace
582 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key combination.
585 -------------------------
590 bindsym Mod1+Shift+1 m1
591 bindsym Mod1+Shift+2 m2
596 -------------------------
600 === Resizing columns/rows
602 If you want to resize columns/rows using your keyboard, you can use the
603 +resize+ command, I recommend using it inside a so called +mode+ (you need to
604 use the new lexer/parser for that, so pass +-l+ to i3 when starting):
606 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
607 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
609 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
611 # They resize the border in the direction you pressed, e.g.
612 # when pressing left, the window is resized so that it has
613 # more space on its left
615 bindsym n resize left -10
616 bindsym Shift+n resize left +10
618 bindsym r resize bottom +10
619 bindsym Shift+r resize bottom -10
621 bindsym t resize top -10
622 bindsym Shift+t resize top +10
624 bindsym d resize right +10
625 bindsym Shift+d resize right -10
631 bindsym Mod1+r mode resize
632 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
634 === Jumping to specific windows
636 Especially when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a specific
637 window, for example while currently working on workspace 3 you may want to jump to
638 your mailclient to mail your boss that you’ve achieved some important goal. Instead
639 of figuring out how to navigate to your mailclient, it would be more convenient to
643 ----------------------------------------------------
644 jump ["]window class[/window title]["]
645 jump workspace [ column row ]
646 ----------------------------------------------------
648 You can either use the same matching algorithm as in the +assign+ command (see above)
649 or you can specify the position of the client if you always use the same layout.
652 --------------------------------------
653 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
654 bindsym Mod1+a jump "urxvt/VIM"
655 --------------------------------------
657 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
661 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
662 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
663 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
664 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards, that is, you do not need to ensure
665 that your windows have unique classes or titles and you do not need to change
666 your configuration file.
668 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
669 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key (or, you could bind it to a key and
670 only use the set of labels for which you created bindings). +i3-input+ is a
671 tool created for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the
672 command to i3. It can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for
682 ---------------------------------------
683 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
684 bindsym Mod1+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
686 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
687 bindsym Mod1+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
688 ---------------------------------------
690 === Traveling the focus stack
692 This mechanism can be thought of as the opposite of the +jump+ command. It travels
693 the focus stack and jumps to the window you focused before.
697 focus [number] | floating | tilling | ft
700 Where +number+ by default is 1 meaning that the next client in the focus stack will
703 The special values have the following meaning:
706 The next floating window is selected.
708 The next tiling window is selected.
710 If the current window is floating, the next tiling window will be selected
713 === Changing border style
715 To change the border of the current client, you can use +bn+ to use the normal
716 border (including window title), +bp+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
717 and +bb+ to make the client borderless. There also is +bt+ which will toggle
718 the different border styles.
729 === Changing the stack-limit of a container
731 If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside (say, more than
732 10), the default layout of a stacking container can get a little unhandy.
733 Depending on your screen’s size, you might end up only using half of the
734 titlebars of each window in the container.
736 Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the amount of rows or columns
737 in a stacking container. i3 will create columns or rows (depending on what
738 you limited) automatically as needed.
741 --------------------------------
742 stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
743 --------------------------------
747 # I always want to have two window titles in one line
750 # Not more than 5 rows in this stacking container
754 image:stacklimit.png[Container limited to two columns]
756 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
758 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
759 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
760 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
761 your X session. However, your layout is not preserved at the moment, meaning
762 that all open windows will be in a single container in default layout. To exit
763 i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command, however you don’t need to (e.g.,
764 simply killing your X session is fine aswell).
767 ----------------------------
768 bindsym Mod1+Shift+r restart
769 bindsym Mod1+Shift+w reload
770 bindsym Mod1+Shift+e exit
771 ----------------------------
777 As you can read in the goal list on its website, i3 was specifically developed
778 with Xinerama (support for multiple monitors) in mind. This section will
779 explain how to handle multiple monitors.
781 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
782 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
784 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
785 workspace, say the first gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third would
786 get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different screen, i3 will switch
787 to that screen and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t need
788 shortcuts to switch to a specific screen and remember where you put which
789 workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the screen you currently are on.
790 There is no possiblity to have a screen without workspaces.
792 The idea to make workspaces global is due to the observation that most users
793 have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors, often
794 using them for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring several
795 things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor and
796 "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
797 create unlimited workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific screens, you can
798 have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per screen by
799 changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
801 === Configuring your monitors
803 To help you get going if you never did multiple monitors before, here comes a
804 short overview of the xrandr options which are probably of interest for you.
805 It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration, so
806 just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
807 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
809 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
810 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
811 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
813 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
815 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
816 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
820 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
822 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
823 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have connected
824 a monitor to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
825 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
827 Furthermore, the maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line
828 is the maximum combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually
829 too low and has to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
831 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
832 -------------------------------------------
833 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
834 -------------------------------------------
835 This command lets xrandr try to find out the native resolution of the device
836 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
837 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
838 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
840 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
841 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
842 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
845 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
847 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
848 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
850 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
852 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
854 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
855 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
859 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
860 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
861 only what you can see in xrandr.
863 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
865 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
867 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
868 have more than one monitor:
870 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This will
871 allow you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
872 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
873 <<workspace_screen>>.
874 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
875 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
876 <<assign_workspace>>.
877 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
878 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
879 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
881 == i3 and the rest of your software world
883 === Displaying a status line
885 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
886 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement of the widget
887 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
889 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
890 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
891 this task. It was written in C with the goal to have as little syscalls as
892 possible to reduce the time your CPU is waken up from sleep states.
894 Regardless of which application you use to generate the status line, you
895 want to make sure that the application does one of the following things:
897 1. Register as a dock window using EWMH hints. This will make i3 position the
898 window above the workspace bar but below every other client. This is the
899 recommended way, but for example in case of dzen2 you need to check out
900 the source of dzen2 from subversion, because the -dock option is not present
901 in the released versions.
902 2. Overlay the internal workspace bar. This method will not waste any space
903 in the workspace bar. However, it is a rather hackish way. Just configure
904 the output window to be over your workspace bar (say -x 200 and -y 780 if
905 your screen is 800 px height).
907 The planned solution for this problem is to make the workspace bar optional
908 and switch to dzen2 (for example) completely (it will contain the workspaces
911 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
913 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
914 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
915 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
916 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
920 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
921 This is the rather easy case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
922 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
923 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
924 -----------------------------------------------------
925 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
926 -----------------------------------------------------
927 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
928 your screen will be left untouched (so it will show the X background). So, in
929 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
931 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
932 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
933 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
934 -----------------------------------------------------
935 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
936 -----------------------------------------------------
937 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
938 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
940 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no possibility to
941 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, you presentation
942 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen with the