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 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+ 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 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 +$mod+Shift+num+ where
136 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
137 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
138 it does not yet exist.
142 The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
143 and move it to the wanted size.
145 See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
146 columns/rows with your keyboard.
148 === Restarting i3 inplace
150 To restart i3 inplace (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
151 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +$mod+Shift+r+.
155 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +$mod+Shift+e+.
159 Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of a window
160 are not managed by i3, but by you. Using this mode violates the tiling
161 paradigm but can be useful for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog
162 windows, or toolbar windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the
163 appropriate hint and are opened in floating mode by default.
165 You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing +$mod+Shift+Space+. By
166 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
167 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
168 can also do that by using the <<floating_modifier>>.
170 For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see <<resizingconfig>>.
172 Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.
176 i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
177 windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
178 the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
179 finally the windows themselves. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
180 (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
181 out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.
183 === The tree consists of Containers
185 The building blocks of our tree are so called +Containers+. A +Container+ can
186 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
187 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more +Containers+. A
188 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
189 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
192 image::tree-layout2.png["layout2",float="right"]
193 image::tree-shot4.png["shot4",title="Two terminals on standard workspace"]
195 === Orientation and Split Containers
199 It is only natural to use so-called +Split Containers+ in order to build a
200 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every +Container+ has an
201 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified) and the orientation depends
202 on the layout the container is in (vertical for splitv and stacking, horizontal
203 for splith and tabbed). So, in our example with the workspace, the default
204 layout of the workspace +Container+ is splith (most monitors are widescreen
205 nowadays). If you change the layout to splitv (+$mod+l+ in the default config)
206 and *then* open two terminals, i3 will configure your windows like this:
208 image::tree-shot2.png["shot2",title="Vertical Workspace Orientation"]
210 An interesting new feature of i3 since version 4 is the ability to split anything:
211 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with splith layout, that is
212 horizontal orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open
213 another terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new
214 terminal window, it would show up to the right due to the splith layout.
215 Instead, press +$mod+v+ to split the container with the splitv layout (to
216 open a +Horizontal Split Container+, use +$mod+h+). Now you can open a new
217 terminal and it will open below the current one:
219 image::tree-layout1.png["Layout",float="right"]
220 image::tree-shot1.png["shot",title="Vertical Split Container"]
224 You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
229 Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
230 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
231 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.
233 So, how can you open a new terminal window to the *right* of the current one?
234 The solution is to use +focus parent+, which will focus the +Parent Container+ of
235 the current +Container+. In this case, you would focus the +Vertical Split
236 Container+ which is *inside* the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
237 windows will be opened to the right of the +Vertical Split Container+:
239 image::tree-shot3.png["shot3",title="Focus parent, then open new terminal"]
241 === Implicit containers
243 In some cases, i3 needs to implicitly create a container to fulfill your
246 One example is the following scenario: You start i3 with a single monitor and a
247 single workspace on which you open three terminal windows. All these terminal
248 windows are directly attached to one node inside i3’s layout tree, the
249 workspace node. By default, the workspace node’s orientation is +horizontal+.
251 Now you move one of these terminals down (+$mod+k+ by default). The workspace
252 node’s orientation will be changed to +vertical+. The terminal window you moved
253 down is directly attached to the workspace and appears on the bottom of the
254 screen. A new (horizontal) container was created to accomodate the other two
255 terminal windows. You will notice this when switching to tabbed mode (for
256 example). You would end up having one tab called "another container" and the
257 other one being the terminal window you moved down.
262 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependant on your
263 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
265 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
266 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
269 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
270 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
271 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
272 can bind your keys to do useful things.
274 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
275 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
278 On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
279 file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
280 wizard to use either Alt (Mod1) or Windows (Mod4) as modifier in the config
281 file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
282 keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command +i3-config-wizard+.
283 Please note that you must not have +~/.i3/config+, otherwise the wizard will
288 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
289 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
290 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:
301 i3 has support for both X core fonts and FreeType fonts (through Pango) to
302 render window titles.
304 To generate an X core font description, you can use +xfontsel(1)+. To see
305 special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the
308 A FreeType font description is composed by a font family, a style, a weight,
309 a variant, a stretch and a size.
310 FreeType fonts support right-to-left rendering and contain often more
311 Unicode glyphs than X core fonts.
313 If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
314 and fall back to a working font.
317 ------------------------------
318 font <X core font description>
319 font pango:[family list] [style options] [size]
320 ------------------------------
323 --------------------------------------------------------------
324 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
325 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
326 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono, Terminus Bold Semi-Condensed 11
327 font pango:Terminus 11px
328 --------------------------------------------------------------
332 === Keyboard bindings
334 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
335 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
336 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
338 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
339 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
340 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
341 mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+. To interactively enter a key and
342 see what keysym it is configured to, use +xev+.
344 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
345 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
346 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
348 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
349 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
350 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
353 Some tools (such as +import+ or +xdotool+) might be unable to run upon a
354 KeyPress event, because the keyboard/pointer is still grabbed. For these
355 situations, the +--release+ flag can be used, which will execute the command
356 after the keys have been released.
359 ----------------------------------
360 bindsym [--release] [Modifiers+]keysym command
361 bindcode [--release] [Modifiers+]keycode command
362 ----------------------------------
365 --------------------------------
367 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen
370 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
372 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
373 bindcode 214 exec --no-startup-id /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
375 # Simulate ctrl+v upon pressing $mod+x
376 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v
378 # Take a screenshot upon pressing $mod+x (select an area)
379 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id import /tmp/latest-screenshot.png
380 --------------------------------
384 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
385 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
388 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
389 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
390 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
391 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
392 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
394 [[floating_modifier]]
396 === The floating modifier
398 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
399 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
400 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
401 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
402 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
403 it to the position you want.
405 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
406 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
407 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
408 ratio will be preserved).
411 --------------------------------
412 floating_modifier <Modifiers>
413 --------------------------------
416 --------------------------------
417 floating_modifier Mod1
418 --------------------------------
420 === Constraining floating window size
422 The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
423 either dimension of +floating_maximum_size+ is specified as -1, that dimension
424 will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
425 +floating_maximum_size+ is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
426 value to constrain the maximum size. +floating_minimum_size+ is treated in a
427 manner analogous to +floating_maximum_size+.
430 ----------------------------------------
431 floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
432 floating_maximum_size <width> x <height>
433 ----------------------------------------
436 --------------------------------------
437 floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
438 floating_maximum_size -1 x -1
439 --------------------------------------
441 === Orientation for new workspaces
443 New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
444 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
445 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.
447 With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
451 ----------------------------------------------
452 default_orientation <horizontal|vertical|auto>
453 ----------------------------------------------
456 ----------------------------
457 default_orientation vertical
458 ----------------------------
460 === Layout mode for new containers
462 This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
464 ///////////////////////////////
465 See also <<stack-limit>>.
466 //////////////////////////////
469 ---------------------------------------------
470 workspace_layout <default|stacking|tabbed>
471 ---------------------------------------------
472 /////////////////////////////////////////////
473 new_container stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
474 /////////////////////////////////////////////
477 ---------------------
478 workspace_layout tabbed
479 ---------------------
481 === Border style for new windows
483 This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
484 "normal". Note that new_float applies only to windows which are starting out as
485 floating windows, e.g. dialog windows.
488 ---------------------------------------------
489 new_window <normal|1pixel|none|pixel>
490 new_float <normal|1pixel|none|pixel>
491 ---------------------------------------------
494 ---------------------
496 ---------------------
498 The "normal" and "pixel" border styles support an optional border width in
502 ---------------------
503 # The same as new_window none
508 ---------------------
511 === Hiding vertical borders
513 You can hide vertical borders adjacent to the screen edges using
514 +hide_edge_borders+. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
515 to waste even two pixels in displayspace. Default is none.
518 ----------------------------
519 hide_edge_borders <none|vertical|horizontal|both>
520 ----------------------------
523 ----------------------
524 hide_edge_borders vertical
525 ----------------------
527 === Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)
529 With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
530 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
531 change their border style, for example.
534 -----------------------------
535 for_window <criteria> command
536 -----------------------------
539 ------------------------------------------------
540 # enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
541 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
543 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
544 for_window [class="urxvt"] border 1pixel
546 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
547 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
548 # directory to ~/work
549 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
550 ------------------------------------------------
552 The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.
556 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
557 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
558 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
559 variables can be handy.
567 ------------------------
569 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
570 ------------------------
572 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. There is no fancy
573 handling and there are absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more
574 dynamic configuration you should create a little script which generates a
575 configuration file and run it before starting i3 (for example in your
578 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
582 To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
583 can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
584 see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
585 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
586 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
587 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
588 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
589 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
590 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
591 to match on 'Firefox' in this case.
593 Assignments are processed by i3 in the order in which they appear in the config
594 file. The first one which matches the window wins and later assignments are not
598 ------------------------------------------------------------
599 assign <criteria> [→] workspace
600 ------------------------------------------------------------
603 ----------------------
604 # Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
605 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
607 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
608 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
610 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
611 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
613 # Assignment to a named workspace
614 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
616 # Start urxvt -name irssi
617 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
618 ----------------------
620 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
621 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
623 To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
624 window, you will see the following output:
627 -----------------------------------
628 WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
629 -----------------------------------
631 The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
632 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).
634 Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
635 logfile first (see http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
636 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
637 title when starting up.
639 Note that if you want to start an application just once on a specific
640 workspace, but you don’t want to assign all instances of it permanently, you
641 can make use of i3’s startup-notification support (see <<exec>>) in your config
642 file in the following way:
644 *Start iceweasel on workspace 3 (once)*:
645 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
646 # Start iceweasel on workspace 3, then switch back to workspace 1
647 # (Being a command-line utility, i3-msg does not support startup notifications,
648 # hence the exec --no-startup-id.)
649 # (Starting iceweasel with i3’s exec command is important in order to make i3
650 # create a startup notification context, without which the iceweasel window(s)
651 # cannot be matched onto the workspace on which the command was started.)
652 exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 3; exec iceweasel; workspace 1'
653 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
655 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
657 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
658 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
659 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
660 also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
661 keyword. These commands will be run in order.
665 exec [--no-startup-id] command
666 exec_always [--no-startup-id] command
670 --------------------------------
672 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
674 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
675 exec --no-startup-id urxvt
676 --------------------------------
678 The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <<exec>>.
682 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
684 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
685 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
686 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
687 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
688 the second screen and so on).
691 ----------------------------------
692 workspace <workspace> output <output>
693 ----------------------------------
695 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
696 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
697 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
699 If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:
702 ---------------------------
703 workspace 1 output LVDS1
704 workspace 5 output VGA1
705 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1
706 ---------------------------
710 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.
713 --------------------------------------------
714 colorclass border background text indicator
715 --------------------------------------------
717 Where colorclass can be one of:
720 A client which currently has the focus.
721 client.focused_inactive::
722 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
723 the focus at the moment.
725 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
727 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
729 You can also specify the color to be used to paint the background of the client
730 windows. This color will be used to paint the window on top of which the client
734 -----------------------
735 client.background color
736 -----------------------
738 Only clients that do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color
741 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
743 *Examples (default colors)*:
744 ---------------------------------------------------------
745 # class border backgr. text indicator
746 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff #2e9ef4
747 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff #484e50
748 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888 #292d2e
749 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff #900000
750 ---------------------------------------------------------
752 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
753 background color, and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
756 The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
757 For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
758 color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
759 single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
760 from single windows outside of a split container.
762 === Interprocess communication
764 i3 uses unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
765 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
766 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
768 The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
769 +/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username, +%p+ is
770 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
771 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).
773 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
774 by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
775 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
776 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
777 user can create that directory.
780 ----------------------------
781 ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock
782 ----------------------------
784 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
787 === Focus follows mouse
789 By default, window focus follows your mouse movements. However, if you have a
790 setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad on your laptop
791 which you do not want to disable completely), you might want to disable 'focus
792 follows mouse' and control focus only by using your keyboard. The mouse will
793 still be useful inside the currently active window (for example to click on
794 links in your browser window).
797 ----------------------------
798 focus_follows_mouse <yes|no>
799 ----------------------------
802 ----------------------
803 focus_follows_mouse no
804 ----------------------
806 === Popups during fullscreen mode
808 When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
809 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
810 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
811 There are three things which are possible to do in this situation:
813 1. Display the popup if it belongs to the fullscreen application only. This is
814 the default and should be reasonable behavior for most users.
815 2. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
816 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
817 you go out of fullscreen).
818 3. Leave fullscreen mode.
821 -------------------------------------------------
822 popup_during_fullscreen <smart|ignore|leave_fullscreen>
823 -------------------------------------------------
826 ------------------------------
827 popup_during_fullscreen smart
828 ------------------------------
832 When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
833 focused when you use +focus down+ on the last container -- the focus wraps. If
834 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
835 be set on that container. This is the default behaviour so you can navigate to
836 all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.
838 If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
839 parent+ to switch to different containers, you can use the
840 +force_focus_wrapping+ configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
844 -----------------------------
845 force_focus_wrapping <yes|no>
846 -----------------------------
849 ------------------------
850 force_focus_wrapping yes
851 ------------------------
855 As explained in-depth in <http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html>, some X11
856 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
857 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
858 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
859 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
862 For people who do cannot modify their +~/.xsession+ to add the
863 +--force-xinerama+ commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:
866 -----------------------
867 force_xinerama <yes|no>
868 -----------------------
875 Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like +HDMI1+) when using
876 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: +xinerama-0+, +xinerama-1+, …
878 === Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace
880 This configuration directive enables automatic +workspace back_and_forth+ (see
881 <<back_and_forth>>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.
883 For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
884 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
885 came from now, you can just press $mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".
888 --------------------------------------
889 workspace_auto_back_and_forth <yes|no>
890 --------------------------------------
893 ---------------------------------
894 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes
895 ---------------------------------
897 === Delaying urgency hint reset on workspace change
899 If an application on another workspace sets an urgency hint, switching to this
900 workspace may lead to immediate focus of the application, which also means the
901 window decoration color would be immediately resetted to +client.focused+. This
902 may make it unnecessarily hard to tell which window originally raised the
905 In order to prevent this, you can tell i3 to delay resetting the urgency state
906 by a certain time using the +force_display_urgency_hint+ directive. Setting the
907 value to 0 disables this feature.
909 The default is 500ms.
912 ---------------------------------------
913 force_display_urgency_hint <timeout> ms
914 ---------------------------------------
917 ---------------------------------
918 force_display_urgency_hint 500 ms
919 ---------------------------------
923 The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
924 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
927 1. It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
928 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
929 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
930 2. It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
931 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
932 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
933 3. It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
934 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
936 That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
937 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
938 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
939 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
940 configuration infrastructure in place.
942 Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a +bar+ block. You can have
943 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):
946 ---------------------------
948 status_command i3status
950 ---------------------------
954 By default i3 will just pass +i3bar+ and let your shell handle the execution,
955 searching your +$PATH+ for a correct version.
956 If you have a different +i3bar+ somewhere or the binary is not in your +$PATH+ you can
957 tell i3 what to execute.
959 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
960 have to have correct quoting etc.
963 ----------------------
964 i3bar_command command
965 ----------------------
968 -------------------------------------------------
970 i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
972 -------------------------------------------------
975 === Statusline command
977 i3bar can run a program and display every line of its +stdout+ output on the
978 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
979 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.
981 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
982 have to have correct quoting etc.
985 ----------------------
986 status_command command
987 ----------------------
990 -------------------------------------------------
992 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
994 -------------------------------------------------
998 You can have i3bar either be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
999 (+dock+ mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (+hide+
1000 mode). The modifier key can be configured using the +modifier+ option.
1002 The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
1003 i3bar sends the +SIGSTOP+ and +SIGCONT+ signals to the statusline process to
1006 The default is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
1023 Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see +xmodmap(1)+).
1028 This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.
1030 The default is bottom.
1033 ---------------------
1034 position <top|bottom>
1035 ---------------------
1038 ---------------------
1042 ---------------------
1046 You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
1047 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
1048 options for different outputs by using multiple 'bar' blocks.
1050 To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
1051 directive multiple times.
1059 -------------------------------
1060 # big monitor: everything
1062 # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
1065 status_command i3status
1068 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
1071 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
1077 -------------------------------
1081 i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
1082 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.
1084 You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
1085 you can turn off the functionality entirely.
1088 -------------------------
1089 tray_output <none|primary|output>
1090 -------------------------
1093 -------------------------
1094 # disable system tray
1099 # show tray icons on the primary monitor
1102 # show tray icons on the big monitor
1106 -------------------------
1108 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1109 -------------------------
1110 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1111 -------------------------
1115 Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <<fonts>>.
1118 ---------------------
1120 ---------------------
1123 --------------------------------------------------------------
1125 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
1126 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
1128 --------------------------------------------------------------
1130 === Workspace buttons
1132 Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
1133 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.
1135 The default is to show workspace buttons.
1138 --------------------------
1139 workspace_buttons <yes|no>
1140 --------------------------
1143 --------------------
1145 workspace_buttons no
1147 --------------------
1151 As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
1152 be configured at the moment:
1155 Background color of the bar.
1157 Text color to be used for the statusline.
1159 Text color to be used for the separator.
1161 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1164 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1165 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
1166 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
1167 using multiple monitors.
1168 inactive_workspace::
1169 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1170 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
1171 will be the case for most workspaces.
1173 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1174 window with the urgency hint set.
1177 ----------------------------------------
1183 colorclass <border> <background> <text>
1185 ----------------------------------------
1187 *Example (default colors)*:
1188 --------------------------------------
1195 focused_workspace #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
1196 active_workspace #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
1197 inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
1198 urgent_workspace #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1201 --------------------------------------
1205 Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
1206 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
1207 do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:
1210 --------------------------
1211 # execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
1213 --------------------------
1215 Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
1216 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
1217 the following keybinding:
1220 --------------------------------------------------------
1221 bindsym $mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3
1222 --------------------------------------------------------
1224 [[command_criteria]]
1226 Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command, that is, which containers
1227 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. These are
1228 prefixed in square brackets to every command. If you want to kill all windows
1229 which have the class Firefox, use:
1232 ------------------------------------
1233 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
1235 # same thing, but case-insensitive
1236 bindsym $mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
1237 ------------------------------------
1239 The criteria which are currently implemented are:
1242 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS)
1244 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS)
1246 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE).
1248 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
1250 Compares the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
1252 Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
1253 Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
1254 (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
1256 Compares the mark set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>.
1258 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
1259 interface. Handy for scripting.
1261 The criteria +class+, +instance+, +role+, +title+ and +mark+ are actually
1262 regular expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for
1263 information on how to use them.
1267 === Executing applications (exec)
1269 What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
1270 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
1271 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
1272 searched in your $PATH.
1275 ------------------------------
1276 exec [--no-startup-id] command
1277 ------------------------------
1280 ------------------------------
1282 bindsym $mod+g exec gimp
1284 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
1285 bindsym $mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt
1286 ------------------------------
1288 The +--no-startup-id+ parameter disables startup-notification support for this
1289 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
1290 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
1291 will change the X11 cursor to +watch+ (a clock) while the application is
1292 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
1293 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
1294 cursor for 60 seconds.
1296 === Splitting containers
1298 The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
1299 can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
1300 new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
1301 get placed below the current one (splitv).
1303 If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
1304 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
1305 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window). Use
1306 +layout toggle split+ to change the layout of any split container from splitv
1307 to splith or vice-versa.
1310 ---------------------------
1311 split <vertical|horizontal>
1312 ---------------------------
1315 ------------------------------
1316 bindsym $mod+v split vertical
1317 bindsym $mod+h split horizontal
1318 ------------------------------
1320 === Manipulating layout
1322 Use +layout toggle split+, +layout stacking+, +layout tabbed+, +layout splitv+
1323 or +layout splith+ to change the current container layout to splith/splitv,
1324 stacking, tabbed layout, splitv or splith, respectively.
1326 To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen+, to make
1327 it floating (or tiling again) use +floating enable+ respectively +floating disable+
1328 (or +floating toggle+):
1332 layout <default|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith>
1333 layout toggle [split|all]
1338 bindsym $mod+s layout stacking
1339 bindsym $mod+l layout toggle split
1340 bindsym $mod+w layout tabbed
1342 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
1343 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle
1345 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
1346 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle all
1349 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen
1351 # Toggle floating/tiling
1352 bindsym $mod+t floating toggle
1355 === Focusing/Moving containers
1357 To change the focus, use the focus command: +focus left+, +focus right+, +focus
1358 down+ and +focus up+.
1360 There are a few special parameters you can use for the focus command:
1363 Sets focus to the +Parent Container+ of the current +Container+.
1365 The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
1368 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
1370 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
1372 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
1374 Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
1375 corresponding output.
1377 For moving, use +move left+, +move right+, +move down+ and +move up+.
1380 -----------------------------------
1381 focus <left|right|down|up>
1382 focus <parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle>
1383 focus output <<left|right|down|up>|output>
1384 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
1385 move [absolute] position [[<px> px] [<px> px]|center]
1386 -----------------------------------
1388 Note that the amount of pixels you can specify for the +move+ command is only
1389 relevant for floating containers. The default amount is 10 pixels.
1392 ----------------------
1393 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right:
1394 bindsym $mod+j focus left
1395 bindsym $mod+k focus down
1396 bindsym $mod+l focus up
1397 bindsym $mod+semicolon focus right
1399 # Focus parent container
1400 bindsym $mod+u focus parent
1402 # Focus last floating/tiling container
1403 bindsym $mod+g focus mode_toggle
1405 # Focus the output right to the current one
1406 bindsym $mod+x focus output right
1408 # Focus the big output
1409 bindsym $mod+x focus output HDMI-2
1411 # Move container to the left, bottom, top, right:
1412 bindsym $mod+j move left
1413 bindsym $mod+k move down
1414 bindsym $mod+l move up
1415 bindsym $mod+semicolon move right
1417 # Move container, but make floating containers
1418 # move more than the default
1419 bindsym $mod+j move left 20 px
1421 # Move floating container to the center
1423 bindsym $mod+c move absolute position center
1424 ----------------------
1426 === Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces
1428 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
1429 number or name of the workspace. To move containers to specific workspaces, use
1430 +move container to workspace+.
1432 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
1433 +workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
1434 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
1435 combination. To restrict those to the current output, use +workspace
1436 next_on_output+ and +workspace prev_on_output+. Similarly, you can use +move
1437 container to workspace next+, +move container to workspace prev+ to move a
1438 container to the next/previous workspace and +move container to workspace current+
1439 (the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).
1441 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
1445 To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use +workspace
1446 back_and_forth+; likewise, you can move containers to the previously focused
1447 workspace using +move container to workspace back_and_forth+.
1450 -----------------------------------
1451 workspace <next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output>
1452 workspace back_and_forth
1454 workspace number <name>
1456 move [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
1457 move [window|container] [to] workspace number <name>
1458 move [window|container] [to] workspace <prev|next|current>
1459 -----------------------------------
1462 -------------------------
1463 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1
1464 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2
1467 bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
1468 bindsym $mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
1471 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
1472 bindsym $mod+b workspace back_and_forth
1473 bindsym $mod+Shift+b move container to workspace back_and_forth
1475 # move the whole workspace to the next output
1476 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
1478 # move firefox to current workspace
1479 bindsym $mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current
1480 -------------------------
1482 ==== Named workspaces
1484 Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
1485 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:
1488 -------------------------
1489 bindsym $mod+1 workspace mail
1491 -------------------------
1493 If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
1497 -------------------------
1498 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1: mail
1499 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2: www
1501 -------------------------
1503 Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
1504 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
1505 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
1506 will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use +workspace number 1+
1507 to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
1508 it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
1509 dynamically. To combine both commands you can use +workspace number 1: mail+ to
1510 specify a default name if there's currently no workspace starting with a "1".
1512 ==== Renaming workspaces
1514 You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
1515 numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
1516 reflect what’s actually on them. You can also omit the old name to rename
1517 the currently focused workspace. This is handy if you wan't to use the
1518 rename command with +i3-input+.
1521 ----------------------------------------------------
1522 rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
1523 rename workspace to <new_name>
1524 ----------------------------------------------------
1527 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
1528 i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
1529 i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
1530 i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
1531 i3-msg 'rename workspace to "2: mail"
1532 bindsym $mod+r exec i3-input -F 'rename workspace to %s' -P 'New name: '
1533 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
1535 === Moving workspaces to a different screen
1537 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
1540 === Moving containers/workspaces to RandR outputs
1544 To move a container to another RandR output (addressed by names like +LVDS1+ or
1545 +VGA1+) or to a RandR output identified by a specific direction (like +left+,
1546 +right+, +up+ or +down+), there are two commands:
1549 --------------------------------------------------------
1550 move container to output <<left|right|down|up>|<output>>
1551 move workspace to output <<left|right|down|up>|<output>>
1552 --------------------------------------------------------
1555 --------------------------------------------------------
1556 # Move the current workspace to the next output
1557 # (effectively toggles when you only have two outputs)
1558 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
1560 # Put this window on the presentation output.
1561 bindsym $mod+x move container to output VGA1
1562 --------------------------------------------------------
1566 === Resizing containers/windows
1568 If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
1572 ---------------------------------------------------------
1573 resize <grow|shrink> <direction> [<px> px [or <ppt> ppt]]
1574 ---------------------------------------------------------
1576 Direction can either be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. Or you can be
1577 less specific and use +width+ or +height+, in which case i3 will take/give
1578 space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
1579 how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or shrunk (the default
1580 is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
1581 many percentage points a *tiling container* should be grown or shrunk (the
1582 default is 10 percentage points).
1584 I recommend using the resize command inside a so called +mode+:
1586 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
1587 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1589 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
1591 # Pressing left will shrink the window’s width.
1592 # Pressing right will grow the window’s width.
1593 # Pressing up will shrink the window’s height.
1594 # Pressing down will grow the window’s height.
1595 bindsym j resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
1596 bindsym k resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
1597 bindsym l resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
1598 bindsym semicolon resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
1600 # same bindings, but for the arrow keys
1601 bindsym Left resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
1602 bindsym Down resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
1603 bindsym Up resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
1604 bindsym Right resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
1606 # back to normal: Enter or Escape
1607 bindsym Return mode "default"
1608 bindsym Escape mode "default"
1612 bindsym $mod+r mode "resize"
1613 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1615 === Jumping to specific windows
1617 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
1618 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
1619 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
1620 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mail client,
1621 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
1622 with criteria for that.
1625 ----------------------------------------------------
1626 [class="class"] focus
1627 [title="title"] focus
1628 ----------------------------------------------------
1631 ------------------------------------------------
1632 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
1633 bindsym $mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
1634 ------------------------------------------------
1636 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
1640 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
1641 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
1642 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
1643 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You do not need to ensure that your
1644 windows have unique classes or titles, and you do not need to change your
1647 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
1648 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
1649 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
1650 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
1653 ------------------------------
1655 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
1656 ------------------------------
1658 *Example (in a terminal)*:
1659 ------------------------------
1661 $ i3-msg '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
1662 ------------------------------
1664 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1665 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
1667 ---------------------------------------
1668 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
1669 bindsym $mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
1671 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
1672 bindsym $mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
1673 ---------------------------------------
1675 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
1676 seperate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
1677 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1679 === Changing border style
1681 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
1682 border (including window title), +border 1pixel+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
1683 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
1685 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
1688 ----------------------------
1689 bindsym $mod+t border normal
1690 bindsym $mod+y border 1pixel
1691 bindsym $mod+u border none
1692 ----------------------------
1696 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1697 TODO: not yet implemented
1698 === Changing the stack-limit of a container
1700 If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside it (say, more than
1701 10), the default layout of a stacking container can get a little unhandy.
1702 Depending on your screen’s size, you might end up with only half of the title
1703 lines being actually used, wasting a lot of screen space.
1705 Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the number of rows or columns
1706 in a stacking container. i3 will create columns or rows (depending on what
1707 you limited) automatically as needed.
1710 --------------------------------
1711 stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
1712 --------------------------------
1716 # I always want to have two window titles in one line
1719 # Not more than 5 rows in this stacking container
1723 image:stacklimit.png[Container limited to two columns]
1724 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1726 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
1728 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
1729 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
1730 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
1731 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
1732 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
1735 ----------------------------
1736 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
1737 bindsym $mod+Shift+w reload
1738 bindsym $mod+Shift+e exit
1739 ----------------------------
1743 There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. +move
1744 scratchpad+ will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
1745 invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
1746 Instead, when using +scratchpad show+, the window will be shown again, as a
1747 floating window, centered on your current workspace (using +scratchpad show+ on
1748 a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
1749 keybinding to toggle). Note that this is just a normal floating window, so if
1750 you want to "remove it from scratchpad", you can simple make it tiling again
1751 (+floating toggle+).
1753 As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
1754 editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
1755 running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
1756 player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?
1766 ------------------------------------------------
1767 # Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
1768 bindsym $mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad
1770 # Show the first scratchpad window
1771 bindsym $mod+minus scratchpad show
1773 # Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
1774 bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show
1775 ------------------------------------------------
1779 == Multiple monitors
1781 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
1782 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
1783 handle multiple monitors.
1785 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
1786 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
1788 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
1789 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
1790 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
1791 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
1792 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
1793 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
1794 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
1796 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
1797 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
1798 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
1799 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
1800 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
1801 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
1802 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
1803 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
1805 === Configuring your monitors
1807 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
1808 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
1809 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
1810 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
1811 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1813 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
1814 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
1815 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
1816 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
1817 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
1819 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1820 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
1824 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1826 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
1827 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
1828 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
1829 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
1831 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
1832 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
1833 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
1835 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
1836 -------------------------------------------
1837 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
1838 -------------------------------------------
1839 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
1840 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
1841 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
1842 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1844 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
1845 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
1846 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
1849 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
1851 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1852 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
1854 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
1855 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
1856 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
1858 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1859 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
1863 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1864 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
1865 only what you can see in xrandr.
1867 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
1869 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
1871 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
1872 have more than one monitor:
1874 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
1875 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
1876 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
1877 <<workspace_screen>>.
1878 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
1879 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
1880 <<assign_workspace>>.
1881 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
1882 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
1883 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
1884 4. For information on how to move existing workspaces between monitors,
1885 see <<_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs>>.
1887 == i3 and the rest of your software world
1889 === Displaying a status line
1891 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
1892 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
1893 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
1895 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
1896 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
1897 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
1898 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
1899 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
1900 i3bar. See <<status_command>> for how to display i3status in i3bar.
1902 Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
1903 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
1904 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
1905 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
1906 see <<i3bar_position>>.
1908 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
1910 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
1911 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
1912 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
1913 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
1917 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
1918 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
1919 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
1920 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
1921 -----------------------------------------------------
1922 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
1923 -----------------------------------------------------
1924 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
1925 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
1926 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
1928 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
1929 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
1930 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
1931 -----------------------------------------------------
1932 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
1933 -----------------------------------------------------
1934 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
1935 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
1937 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
1938 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
1939 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).