3 Michael Stapelberg <michael+i3@stapelberg.de>
6 This document contains all the information you need to configure and use the i3
7 window manager. If it does not, please contact us on IRC (preferred) or post your
8 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 windows (Mod4)
30 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+. To split it horizontally, press
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
75 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
76 windows at the top of the container.
78 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
79 a single line which is vertically split.
81 To switch modes, press +mod+e+ for default, +mod+s+ for stacking and
84 image:modes.png[Container modes]
86 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
88 To display a window in fullscreen mode or to go out of fullscreen mode again,
91 There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will span all
94 === Opening other applications
96 Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
97 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +mod+d+ by default. Just type the name
98 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The corresponding
99 application has to be in your +$PATH+ for this to work.
101 Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
102 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
103 <<configuring>> for details.
107 If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
108 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
109 can press +mod+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
110 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
111 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
112 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
113 depends on the application.
117 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
118 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
119 another workspace, press +mod+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
120 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
122 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
123 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one, and the ones with which you
124 work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
126 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
127 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
128 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
129 focus to that screen.
131 === Moving windows to workspaces
133 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +mod+Shift+num+ where
134 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
135 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
136 it does not yet exist.
140 The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
141 and move it to the wanted size.
143 See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
144 columns/rows with your keyboard.
146 === Restarting i3 inplace
148 To restart i3 inplace (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
149 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +mod+Shift+r+.
153 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +mod+Shift+e+.
157 Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of a window
158 are not managed by i3, but by you. Using this mode violates the tiling
159 paradigm but can be useful for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog
160 windows, or toolbar windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the
161 appropriate hint and are opened in floating mode by default.
163 You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing +mod+Shift+Space+. By
164 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
165 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
166 can also do that by using the <<floating_modifier>>.
168 For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see <<resizingconfig>>.
170 Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.
174 i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
175 windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
176 the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
177 finally the windows themselve. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
178 (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
179 out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.
181 === The tree consists of Containers
183 The building blocks of our tree are so called +Containers+. A +Container+ can
184 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
185 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more +Containers+. A
186 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
187 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
190 image::tree-layout2.png["layout2",float="right"]
191 image::tree-shot4.png["shot4",title="Two terminals on standard workspace"]
193 === Orientation and Split Containers
197 It is only natural to use so-called +Split Containers+ in order to build a
198 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every +Container+ has an
199 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified). So, in our example with the
200 workspace, the default orientation of the workspace +Container+ is horizontal
201 (most monitors are widescreen nowadays). If you change the orientation to
202 vertical (+mod+v+ in the default config) and *then* open two terminals, i3 will
203 configure your windows like this:
205 image::tree-shot2.png["shot2",title="Vertical Workspace Orientation"]
207 An interesting new feature of the tree branch is the ability to split anything:
208 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with horizontal
209 orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open another
210 terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new terminal
211 window, it would show up to the right due to the horizontal workspace
212 orientation. Instead, press +mod+v+ to create a +Vertical Split Container+ (to
213 open a +Horizontal Split Container+, use +mod+h+). Now you can open a new
214 terminal and it will open below the current one:
216 image::tree-layout1.png["Layout",float="right"]
217 image::tree-shot1.png["shot",title="Vertical Split Container"]
221 You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
226 Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
227 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
228 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.
230 So, how can you open a new terminal window to the *right* of the current one?
231 The solution is to use +focus parent+, which will focus the +Parent Container+ of
232 the current +Container+. In this case, you would focus the +Vertical Split
233 Container+ which is *inside* the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
234 windows will be opened to the right of the +Vertical Split Container+:
236 image::tree-shot3.png["shot3",title="Focus parent, then open new terminal"]
241 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependant on your
242 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
244 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
245 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
248 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
249 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
250 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
251 can bind your keys to do useful things.
253 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
254 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
257 On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
258 file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
259 wizard to use either Alt (Mod1) or Windows (Mod4) as modifier in the config
260 file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
261 keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command +i3-config-wizard+.
262 Please note that you must not have +~/.i3/config+, otherwise the wizard will
267 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
268 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
269 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:
278 i3 uses X core fonts (not Xft) for rendering window titles. You can use
279 +xfontsel(1)+ to generate such a font description. To see special characters
280 (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the ISO-10646 encoding.
282 If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
283 and fall back to a working font.
286 ------------------------------
287 font <X core font description>
288 ------------------------------
291 --------------------------------------------------------------
292 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
293 --------------------------------------------------------------
297 === Keyboard bindings
299 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
300 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
301 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
303 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
304 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
305 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
306 mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+.
308 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
309 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
310 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
312 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
313 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
314 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
318 ----------------------------------
319 bindsym [Modifiers+]keysym command
320 bindcode [Modifiers+]keycode command
321 ----------------------------------
324 --------------------------------
329 bindsym mod+Shift+r restart
331 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
332 bindcode 214 exec /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
333 --------------------------------
337 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
338 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
341 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
342 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
343 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
344 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
345 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
347 [[floating_modifier]]
349 === The floating modifier
351 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
352 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
353 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
354 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
355 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
356 it to the position you want.
358 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
359 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
360 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
361 ratio will be preserved).
364 --------------------------------
365 floating_modifier <Modifiers>
366 --------------------------------
369 --------------------------------
370 floating_modifier Mod1
371 --------------------------------
373 === Orientation for new workspaces
375 New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
376 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
377 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.
379 With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
383 ----------------------------------------------
384 default_orientation <horizontal|vertical|auto>
385 ----------------------------------------------
388 ----------------------------
389 default_orientation vertical
390 ----------------------------
392 === Layout mode for new containers
394 This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
396 ///////////////////////////////
397 See also <<stack-limit>>.
398 //////////////////////////////
401 ---------------------------------------------
402 workspace_layout <default|stacking|tabbed>
403 ---------------------------------------------
404 /////////////////////////////////////////////
405 new_container stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
406 /////////////////////////////////////////////
409 ---------------------
410 workspace_layout tabbed
411 ---------------------
413 === Border style for new windows
415 This option determines which border style new windows will have.
418 ---------------------------------------------
419 new_window <normal|1pixel|none>
420 ---------------------------------------------
423 ---------------------
425 ---------------------
427 === Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)
429 With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
430 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
431 change their border style, for example.
434 -----------------------------
435 for_window <criteria> command
436 -----------------------------
439 ------------------------------------------------
440 # enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
441 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
443 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
444 for_window [class="urxvt"] border 1pixel
446 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
447 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
448 # directory to ~/work
449 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
450 ------------------------------------------------
452 The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.
456 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
457 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
458 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
459 variables can be handy.
467 ------------------------
469 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
470 ------------------------
472 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. There is no fancy
473 handling and there are absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more
474 dynamic configuration you should create a little script which generates a
475 configuration file and run it before starting i3 (for example in your
478 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
482 To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
483 can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
484 see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
485 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
486 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
487 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
488 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
489 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
490 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
491 to match on 'Firefox' in this case.
494 ------------------------------------------------------------
495 assign <criteria> [→] workspace
496 ------------------------------------------------------------
499 ----------------------
500 # Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
501 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
503 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
504 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
506 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
507 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
509 # Assignment to a named workspace
510 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
512 # Start urxvt -name irssi
513 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
514 ----------------------
516 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
517 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
519 To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
520 window, you will see the following output:
523 -----------------------------------
524 WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
525 -----------------------------------
527 The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
528 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).
530 Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
531 logfile first (see http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
532 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
533 title when starting up.
535 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
537 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
538 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
539 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
540 also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
541 keyword. These commands will be run in order.
545 exec [--no-startup-id] command
546 exec_always [--no-startup-id] command
550 --------------------------------
552 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
554 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
555 exec --no-startup-id urxvt
556 --------------------------------
558 The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <<exec>>.
562 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
564 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
565 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
566 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
567 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
568 the second screen and so on).
571 ----------------------------------
572 workspace <workspace> output <output>
573 ----------------------------------
575 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
576 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
577 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
579 If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:
582 ---------------------------
583 workspace 1 output LVDS1
584 workspace 5 output VGA1
585 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1
586 ---------------------------
590 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.
593 --------------------------------------------
594 colorclass border background text
595 --------------------------------------------
597 Where colorclass can be one of:
600 A client which currently has the focus.
601 client.focused_inactive::
602 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
603 the focus at the moment.
605 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
607 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
609 You can also specify the color to be used to paint the background of the client
610 windows. This color will be used to paint the window on top of which the client
614 -----------------------
615 client.background color
616 -----------------------
618 Only clients that do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color
619 used to paint it. If you use a color other than black for your terminals, you
620 most likely want to set the client background color to the same color as your
621 terminal program's background color to avoid black gaps between the rendered
622 area of the termianal and the i3 border.
624 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
626 *Examples (default colors)*:
627 -----------------------------------------------
628 # class border backgr. text
629 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
630 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
631 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888
632 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
633 -----------------------------------------------
635 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
636 background color, and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
639 === Interprocess communication
641 i3 uses unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
642 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
643 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
645 The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
646 +/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username, +%p+ is
647 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
648 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).
650 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
651 by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
652 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
653 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
654 user can create that directory.
657 ----------------------------
658 ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock
659 ----------------------------
661 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
664 === Focus follows mouse
666 If you have a setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad
667 on your laptop which you do not want to disable completely), you might want
668 to disable 'focus follows mouse' and control focus only by using your keyboard.
669 The mouse will still be useful inside the currently active window (for example
670 to click on links in your browser window).
673 ----------------------------
674 focus_follows_mouse <yes|no>
675 ----------------------------
678 ----------------------
679 focus_follows_mouse no
680 ----------------------
682 === Popups during fullscreen mode
684 When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
685 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
686 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
687 There are two things which are possible to do in this situation:
689 1. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
690 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
691 you go out of fullscreen).
692 2. Leave fullscreen mode. This is the default.
695 -------------------------------------------------
696 popup_during_fullscreen <ignore|leave_fullscreen>
697 -------------------------------------------------
700 ------------------------------
701 popup_during_fullscreen ignore
702 ------------------------------
706 When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
707 focused when you use +focus down+ on the last container -- the focus wraps. If
708 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
709 be set on that container. This is the default behaviour so you can navigate to
710 all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.
712 If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
713 parent+ to switch to different containers, you can use the
714 +force_focus_wrapping+ configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
718 -----------------------------
719 force_focus_wrapping <yes|no>
720 -----------------------------
723 ------------------------
724 force_focus_wrapping yes
725 ------------------------
729 As explained in-depth in <http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html>, some X11
730 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
731 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
732 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
733 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
736 For people who do cannot modify their +~/.xsession+ to add the
737 +--force-xinerama+ commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:
740 -----------------------
741 force_xinerama <yes|no>
742 -----------------------
749 Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like +HDMI1+) when using
750 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: +xinerama-0+, +xinerama-1+, …
752 === Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace
754 This configuration directive enables automatic +workspace back_and_forth+ (see
755 <<back_and_forth>>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.
757 For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
758 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
759 came from now, you can just press mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".
762 --------------------------------------
763 workspace_auto_back_and_forth <yes|no>
764 --------------------------------------
767 ---------------------------------
768 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes
769 ---------------------------------
773 The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
774 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
777 1. It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
778 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
779 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
780 2. It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
781 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
782 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
783 3. It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
784 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
786 That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
787 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
788 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
789 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
790 configuration infrastructure in place.
792 Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a +bar+ block. You can have
793 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):
796 ---------------------------
798 status_command i3status
800 ---------------------------
802 === Statusline command
804 i3bar can run a program and display every line of its +stdout+ output on the
805 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
806 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.
808 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
809 have to have correct quoting etc.
812 ----------------------
813 status_command command
814 ----------------------
817 -------------------------------------------------
818 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
819 -------------------------------------------------
823 You can have i3bar either be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
824 (+dock+ mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (+hide+
827 The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
828 i3bar sends the +SIGSTOP+ and +SIGCONT+ signals to the statusline process to
831 The default is dock mode.
845 This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.
847 The default is bottom.
850 ---------------------
851 position <top|bottom>
852 ---------------------
855 ---------------------
857 ---------------------
861 You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
862 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
863 options for different outputs by using multiple 'bar' blocks.
871 -------------------------------
872 # big monitor: everything
875 status_command i3status
878 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
881 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
887 -------------------------------
891 i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
892 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.
894 You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
895 you can turn off the functionality entirely.
898 -------------------------
899 tray_output <none|output>
900 -------------------------
903 -------------------------
904 # disable system tray
907 # show tray icons on the big monitor
909 -------------------------
913 Specifies the font (again, X core font, not Xft, just like in i3) to be used in
917 ---------------------
919 ---------------------
922 --------------------------------------------------------------
923 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
924 --------------------------------------------------------------
926 === Workspace buttons
928 Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
929 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.
931 The default is to show workspace buttons.
934 --------------------------
935 workspace_buttons <yes|no>
936 --------------------------
945 As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
946 be configured at the moment:
949 Background color of the bar.
951 Text color to be used for the statusline.
953 Text color/background color for a workspace button when the workspace
956 Text color/background color for a workspace button when the workspace
957 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
958 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
959 using multiple monitors.
961 Text color/background color for a workspace button when the workspace
962 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
963 will be the case for most workspaces.
965 Text color/background color for workspaces which contain at least one
966 window with the urgency hint set.
969 ----------------------------------------
974 colorclass <foreground> <background>
976 ----------------------------------------
979 --------------------------------------
984 focused_workspace #ffffff #285577
985 active_workspace #ffffff #333333
986 inactive_workspace #888888 #222222
987 urgent_workspace #ffffff #900000
989 --------------------------------------
993 Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
994 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
995 do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:
998 --------------------------
999 # execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
1001 --------------------------
1003 Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
1004 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
1005 the following keybinding:
1008 -------------------------------------------
1009 bindsym mod+x move workspace 3; workspace 3
1010 -------------------------------------------
1012 [[command_criteria]]
1014 Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command, that is, which containers
1015 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. These are
1016 prefixed in square brackets to every command. If you want to kill all windows
1017 which have the class Firefox, use:
1020 ------------------------------------
1021 bindsym mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
1023 # same thing, but case-insensitive
1024 bindsym mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
1025 ------------------------------------
1027 The criteria which are currently implemented are:
1030 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS)
1032 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS)
1034 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE).
1036 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
1038 Compares the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
1040 Compares the mark set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>.
1042 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
1043 interface. Handy for scripting.
1045 The criteria +class+, +instance+, +role+, +title+ and +mark+ are actually
1046 regular expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for
1047 information on how to use them.
1051 === Executing applications (exec)
1053 What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
1054 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
1055 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
1056 searched in your $PATH.
1059 ------------------------------
1060 exec [--no-startup-id] command
1061 ------------------------------
1064 ------------------------------
1066 bindsym mod+g exec gimp
1068 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
1069 bindsym mod+enter exec --no-startup-id urxvt
1070 ------------------------------
1072 The +--no-startup-id+ parameter disables startup-notification support for this
1073 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
1074 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
1075 will change the X11 cursor to +watch+ (a clock) while the application is
1076 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
1077 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
1078 cursor for 60 seconds.
1080 === Splitting containers
1082 The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
1083 can contain multiple windows. Every split container has an orientation, it is
1084 either split horizontally (a new window gets placed to the right of the current
1085 one) or vertically (a new window gets placed below the current one).
1087 If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
1088 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
1089 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window).
1092 ---------------------------
1093 split <vertical|horizontal>
1094 ---------------------------
1097 ------------------------------
1098 bindsym mod+v split vertical
1099 bindsym mod+h split horizontal
1100 ------------------------------
1102 === Manipulating layout
1104 Use +layout default+, +layout stacking+ or +layout tabbed+ to change the
1105 current container layout to default, stacking or tabbed layout, respectively.
1107 To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen+, to make
1108 it floating (or tiling again) use +floating enable+ respectively +floating disable+
1109 (or +floating toggle+):
1113 bindsym mod+s layout stacking
1114 bindsym mod+l layout default
1115 bindsym mod+w layout tabbed
1118 bindsym mod+f fullscreen
1120 # Toggle floating/tiling
1121 bindsym mod+t floating toggle
1124 === Focusing/Moving containers
1126 To change the focus, use the focus command: +focus left+, +focus right+, +focus down+ and +focus up+.
1128 There are a few special parameters you can use for the focus command:
1131 Sets focus to the +Parent Container+ of the current +Container+.
1133 The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
1136 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
1138 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
1140 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
1142 For moving, use +move left+, +move right+, +move down+ and +move up+.
1145 -----------------------------------
1146 focus <left|right|down|up>
1147 focus <parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle>
1148 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
1149 -----------------------------------
1151 Note that the amount of pixels you can specify for the +move+ command is only
1152 relevant for floating containers. The default amount is 10 pixels.
1155 ----------------------
1156 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right:
1157 bindsym mod+j focus left
1158 bindsym mod+k focus down
1159 bindsym mod+l focus up
1160 bindsym mod+semicolon focus right
1162 # Focus parent container
1163 bindsym mod+u focus parent
1165 # Focus last floating/tiling container
1166 bindsym mod+g focus mode_toggle
1168 # Move container to the left, bottom, top, right:
1169 bindsym mod+j move left
1170 bindsym mod+k move down
1171 bindsym mod+l move up
1172 bindsym mod+semicolon move right
1174 # Move container, but make floating containers
1175 # move more than the default
1176 bindsym mod+j move left 20 px
1177 ----------------------
1179 === Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces
1181 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
1182 number or name of the workspace. To move containers to specific workspaces, use
1185 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
1186 +workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
1187 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
1188 combination. Similarily, you can use +move workspace next+ and +move workspace
1189 prev+ to move a container to the next/previous workspace.
1192 To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use +workspace
1195 To move a container to another xrandr output such as +LVDS1+ or +VGA1+, you can
1196 use the +move output+ command followed by the name of the target output. You
1197 may also use +left+, +right+, +up+, +down+ instead of the xrandr output name to
1198 move to the the next output in the specified direction.
1201 -------------------------
1202 bindsym mod+1 workspace 1
1203 bindsym mod+2 workspace 2
1206 bindsym mod+Shift+1 move workspace 1
1207 bindsym mod+Shift+2 move workspace 2
1210 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
1211 bindsym mod+b workspace back_and_forth
1212 -------------------------
1214 ==== Named workspaces
1216 Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
1217 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:
1220 -------------------------
1221 bindsym mod+1 workspace mail
1223 -------------------------
1225 If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
1229 -------------------------
1230 bindsym mod+1 workspace 1: mail
1231 bindsym mod+2 workspace 2: www
1233 -------------------------
1235 Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
1236 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
1237 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
1238 will order them numerically.
1242 === Resizing containers/windows
1244 If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
1248 ---------------------------------------------------------
1249 resize <grow|shrink> <direction> [<px> px] [or <ppt> ppt]
1250 ---------------------------------------------------------
1252 Direction can be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. The optional pixel
1253 argument specifies by how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or
1254 shrunk (the default is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points
1255 and specifies by how many percentage points a *tiling container* should be
1256 grown or shrunk (the default is 10 percentage points).
1258 I recommend using the resize command inside a so called +mode+:
1260 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
1261 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1263 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
1265 # They resize the border in the direction you pressed, e.g.
1266 # when pressing left, the window is resized so that it has
1267 # more space on its left
1269 bindsym j resize shrink left
1270 bindsym Shift+j resize grow left
1272 bindsym k resize grow down
1273 bindsym Shift+k resize shrink down
1275 bindsym l resize shrink up
1276 bindsym Shift+l resize grow up
1278 bindsym semicolon resize grow right
1279 bindsym Shift+semicolon resize shrink right
1281 # back to normal: Enter or Escape
1282 bindsym Return mode "default"
1283 bindsym Escape mode "default"
1287 bindsym mod+r mode "resize"
1288 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1290 === Jumping to specific windows
1292 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
1293 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
1294 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
1295 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mailclient,
1296 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
1297 with criteria for that.
1300 ----------------------------------------------------
1301 [class="class"] focus
1302 [title="title"] focus
1303 ----------------------------------------------------
1306 ------------------------------------------------
1307 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
1308 bindsym mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
1309 ------------------------------------------------
1311 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
1315 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
1316 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
1317 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
1318 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You do not need to ensure that your
1319 windows have unique classes or titles, and you do not need to change your
1322 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
1323 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
1324 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
1325 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
1328 ------------------------------
1330 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
1331 ------------------------------
1333 *Example (in a terminal)*:
1334 ------------------------------
1336 $ i3-msg '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
1337 ------------------------------
1339 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1340 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
1342 ---------------------------------------
1343 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
1344 bindsym mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
1346 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
1347 bindsym mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
1348 ---------------------------------------
1350 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
1351 seperate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
1352 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1354 === Changing border style
1356 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
1357 border (including window title), +border 1pixel+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
1358 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
1360 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
1363 ----------------------------
1364 bindsym mod+t border normal
1365 bindsym mod+y border 1pixel
1366 bindsym mod+u border none
1367 ----------------------------
1371 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1372 TODO: not yet implemented
1373 === Changing the stack-limit of a container
1375 If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside it (say, more than
1376 10), the default layout of a stacking container can get a little unhandy.
1377 Depending on your screen’s size, you might end up with only half of the title
1378 lines being actually used, wasting a lot of screen space.
1380 Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the number of rows or columns
1381 in a stacking container. i3 will create columns or rows (depending on what
1382 you limited) automatically as needed.
1385 --------------------------------
1386 stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
1387 --------------------------------
1391 # I always want to have two window titles in one line
1394 # Not more than 5 rows in this stacking container
1398 image:stacklimit.png[Container limited to two columns]
1399 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1401 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
1403 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
1404 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
1405 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
1406 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
1407 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
1410 ----------------------------
1411 bindsym mod+Shift+r restart
1412 bindsym mod+Shift+w reload
1413 bindsym mod+Shift+e exit
1414 ----------------------------
1418 == Multiple monitors
1420 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
1421 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
1422 handle multiple monitors.
1424 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
1425 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
1427 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
1428 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
1429 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
1430 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
1431 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
1432 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
1433 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
1435 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
1436 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
1437 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
1438 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
1439 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
1440 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
1441 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
1442 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
1444 === Configuring your monitors
1446 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
1447 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
1448 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
1449 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
1450 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1452 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
1453 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
1454 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
1455 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
1456 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
1458 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1459 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
1463 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1465 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
1466 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
1467 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
1468 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
1470 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
1471 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
1472 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
1474 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
1475 -------------------------------------------
1476 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
1477 -------------------------------------------
1478 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
1479 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
1480 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
1481 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1483 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
1484 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
1485 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
1488 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
1490 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1491 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
1493 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
1494 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
1495 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
1497 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1498 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
1502 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1503 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
1504 only what you can see in xrandr.
1506 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
1508 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
1510 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
1511 have more than one monitor:
1513 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
1514 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
1515 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
1516 <<workspace_screen>>.
1517 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
1518 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
1519 <<assign_workspace>>.
1520 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
1521 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
1522 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
1524 == i3 and the rest of your software world
1526 === Displaying a status line
1528 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
1529 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
1530 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
1532 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
1533 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
1534 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
1535 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
1536 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
1537 i3bar. Use a pipe to connect them: +i3status | i3bar -d+.
1539 Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
1540 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
1541 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
1542 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can use +-d+ or +-dbottom+
1543 for positioning it at the bottom and +-dtop+ to position it at the top of the
1546 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
1548 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
1549 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
1550 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
1551 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
1555 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
1556 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
1557 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
1558 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
1559 -----------------------------------------------------
1560 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
1561 -----------------------------------------------------
1562 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
1563 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
1564 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
1566 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
1567 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
1568 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
1569 -----------------------------------------------------
1570 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
1571 -----------------------------------------------------
1572 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
1573 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
1575 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
1576 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
1577 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).