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 xft:<a FreeType font description>
320 ------------------------------
323 --------------------------------------------------------------
324 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
325 font xft:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
326 --------------------------------------------------------------
330 === Keyboard bindings
332 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
333 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
334 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
336 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
337 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
338 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
339 mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+. To interactively enter a key and
340 see what keysym it is configured to, use +xev+.
342 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
343 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
344 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
346 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
347 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
348 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
351 Some tools (such as +import+ or +xdotool+) might be unable to run upon a
352 KeyPress event, because the keyboard/pointer is still grabbed. For these
353 situations, the +--release+ flag can be used, which will execute the command
354 after the keys have been released.
357 ----------------------------------
358 bindsym [--release] [Modifiers+]keysym command
359 bindcode [--release] [Modifiers+]keycode command
360 ----------------------------------
363 --------------------------------
365 bindsym mod+f fullscreen
368 bindsym mod+Shift+r restart
370 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
371 bindcode 214 exec --no-startup-id /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
373 # Simulate ctrl+v upon pressing $mod+x
374 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v
376 # Take a screenshot upon pressing $mod+x (select an area)
377 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id import /tmp/latest-screenshot.png
378 --------------------------------
382 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
383 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
386 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
387 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
388 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
389 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
390 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
392 [[floating_modifier]]
394 === The floating modifier
396 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
397 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
398 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
399 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
400 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
401 it to the position you want.
403 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
404 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
405 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
406 ratio will be preserved).
409 --------------------------------
410 floating_modifier <Modifiers>
411 --------------------------------
414 --------------------------------
415 floating_modifier Mod1
416 --------------------------------
418 === Constraining floating window size
420 The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
421 either dimension of +floating_maximum_size+ is specified as -1, that dimension
422 will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
423 +floating_maximum_size+ is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
424 value to constrain the maximum size. +floating_minimum_size+ is treated in a
425 manner analogous to +floating_maximum_size+.
428 ----------------------------------------
429 floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
430 floating_maximum_size <width> x <height>
431 ----------------------------------------
434 --------------------------------------
435 floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
436 floating_maximum_size -1 x -1
437 --------------------------------------
439 === Orientation for new workspaces
441 New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
442 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
443 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.
445 With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
449 ----------------------------------------------
450 default_orientation <horizontal|vertical|auto>
451 ----------------------------------------------
454 ----------------------------
455 default_orientation vertical
456 ----------------------------
458 === Layout mode for new containers
460 This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
462 ///////////////////////////////
463 See also <<stack-limit>>.
464 //////////////////////////////
467 ---------------------------------------------
468 workspace_layout <default|stacking|tabbed>
469 ---------------------------------------------
470 /////////////////////////////////////////////
471 new_container stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
472 /////////////////////////////////////////////
475 ---------------------
476 workspace_layout tabbed
477 ---------------------
479 === Border style for new windows
481 This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
485 ---------------------------------------------
486 new_window <normal|1pixel|none|pixel>
487 ---------------------------------------------
489 ---------------------
491 ---------------------
493 The "normal" and "pixel" border styles support an optional border width in
497 ---------------------
498 # The same as new_window none
503 ---------------------
506 === Hiding vertical borders
508 You can hide vertical borders adjacent to the screen edges using
509 +hide_edge_borders+. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
510 to waste even two pixels in displayspace. Default is none.
513 ----------------------------
514 hide_edge_borders <none|vertical|horizontal|both>
515 ----------------------------
518 ----------------------
519 hide_edge_borders vertical
520 ----------------------
522 === Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)
524 With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
525 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
526 change their border style, for example.
529 -----------------------------
530 for_window <criteria> command
531 -----------------------------
534 ------------------------------------------------
535 # enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
536 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
538 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
539 for_window [class="urxvt"] border 1pixel
541 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
542 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
543 # directory to ~/work
544 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
545 ------------------------------------------------
547 The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.
551 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
552 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
553 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
554 variables can be handy.
562 ------------------------
564 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
565 ------------------------
567 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. There is no fancy
568 handling and there are absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more
569 dynamic configuration you should create a little script which generates a
570 configuration file and run it before starting i3 (for example in your
573 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
577 To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
578 can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
579 see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
580 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
581 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
582 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
583 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
584 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
585 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
586 to match on 'Firefox' in this case.
589 ------------------------------------------------------------
590 assign <criteria> [→] workspace
591 ------------------------------------------------------------
594 ----------------------
595 # Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
596 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
598 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
599 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
601 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
602 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
604 # Assignment to a named workspace
605 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
607 # Start urxvt -name irssi
608 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
609 ----------------------
611 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
612 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
614 To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
615 window, you will see the following output:
618 -----------------------------------
619 WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
620 -----------------------------------
622 The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
623 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).
625 Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
626 logfile first (see http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
627 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
628 title when starting up.
630 Note that if you want to start an application just once on a specific
631 workspace, but you don’t want to assign all instances of it permanently, you
632 can make use of i3’s startup-notification support (see <<exec>>) in your config
633 file in the following way:
635 *Start iceweasel on workspace 3 (once)*:
636 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
637 # Start iceweasel on workspace 3, then switch back to workspace 1
638 # (Being a command-line utility, i3-msg does not support startup notifications,
639 # hence the exec --no-startup-id.)
640 # (Starting iceweasel with i3’s exec command is important in order to make i3
641 # create a startup notification context, without which the iceweasel window(s)
642 # cannot be matched onto the workspace on which the command was started.)
643 exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 3; exec iceweasel; workspace 1'
644 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
646 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
648 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
649 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
650 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
651 also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
652 keyword. These commands will be run in order.
656 exec [--no-startup-id] command
657 exec_always [--no-startup-id] command
661 --------------------------------
663 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
665 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
666 exec --no-startup-id urxvt
667 --------------------------------
669 The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <<exec>>.
673 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
675 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
676 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
677 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
678 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
679 the second screen and so on).
682 ----------------------------------
683 workspace <workspace> output <output>
684 ----------------------------------
686 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
687 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
688 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
690 If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:
693 ---------------------------
694 workspace 1 output LVDS1
695 workspace 5 output VGA1
696 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1
697 ---------------------------
701 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.
704 --------------------------------------------
705 colorclass border background text indicator
706 --------------------------------------------
708 Where colorclass can be one of:
711 A client which currently has the focus.
712 client.focused_inactive::
713 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
714 the focus at the moment.
716 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
718 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
720 You can also specify the color to be used to paint the background of the client
721 windows. This color will be used to paint the window on top of which the client
725 -----------------------
726 client.background color
727 -----------------------
729 Only clients that do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color
730 used to paint it. If you use a color other than black for your terminals, you
731 most likely want to set the client background color to the same color as your
732 terminal program's background color to avoid black gaps between the rendered
733 area of the terminal and the i3 border.
735 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
737 *Examples (default colors)*:
738 ---------------------------------------------------------
739 # class border backgr. text indicator
740 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff #2e9ef4
741 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff #484e50
742 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888 #292d2e
743 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff #900000
744 ---------------------------------------------------------
746 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
747 background color, and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
750 The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
751 For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
752 color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
753 single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
754 from single windows outside of a split container.
756 === Interprocess communication
758 i3 uses unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
759 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
760 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
762 The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
763 +/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username, +%p+ is
764 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
765 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).
767 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
768 by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
769 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
770 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
771 user can create that directory.
774 ----------------------------
775 ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock
776 ----------------------------
778 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
781 === Focus follows mouse
783 By default, window focus follows your mouse movements. However, if you have a
784 setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad on your laptop
785 which you do not want to disable completely), you might want to disable 'focus
786 follows mouse' and control focus only by using your keyboard. The mouse will
787 still be useful inside the currently active window (for example to click on
788 links in your browser window).
791 ----------------------------
792 focus_follows_mouse <yes|no>
793 ----------------------------
796 ----------------------
797 focus_follows_mouse no
798 ----------------------
800 === Popups during fullscreen mode
802 When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
803 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
804 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
805 There are two things which are possible to do in this situation:
807 1. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
808 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
809 you go out of fullscreen).
810 2. Leave fullscreen mode. This is the default.
813 -------------------------------------------------
814 popup_during_fullscreen <ignore|leave_fullscreen>
815 -------------------------------------------------
818 ------------------------------
819 popup_during_fullscreen ignore
820 ------------------------------
824 When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
825 focused when you use +focus down+ on the last container -- the focus wraps. If
826 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
827 be set on that container. This is the default behaviour so you can navigate to
828 all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.
830 If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
831 parent+ to switch to different containers, you can use the
832 +force_focus_wrapping+ configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
836 -----------------------------
837 force_focus_wrapping <yes|no>
838 -----------------------------
841 ------------------------
842 force_focus_wrapping yes
843 ------------------------
847 As explained in-depth in <http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html>, some X11
848 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
849 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
850 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
851 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
854 For people who do cannot modify their +~/.xsession+ to add the
855 +--force-xinerama+ commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:
858 -----------------------
859 force_xinerama <yes|no>
860 -----------------------
867 Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like +HDMI1+) when using
868 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: +xinerama-0+, +xinerama-1+, …
870 === Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace
872 This configuration directive enables automatic +workspace back_and_forth+ (see
873 <<back_and_forth>>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.
875 For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
876 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
877 came from now, you can just press mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".
880 --------------------------------------
881 workspace_auto_back_and_forth <yes|no>
882 --------------------------------------
885 ---------------------------------
886 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes
887 ---------------------------------
889 === Delaying urgency hint reset on workspace change
891 If an application on another workspace sets an urgency hint, switching to this
892 workspace may lead to immediate focus of the application, which also means the
893 window decoration color would be immediately resetted to +client.focused+. This
894 may make it unnecessarily hard to tell which window originally raised the
897 In order to prevent this, you can tell i3 to delay resetting the urgency state
898 by a certain time using the +force_display_urgency_hint+ directive. Setting the
899 value to 0 disables this feature.
901 The default is 500ms.
904 ---------------------------------------
905 force_display_urgency_hint <timeout> ms
906 ---------------------------------------
909 ---------------------------------
910 force_display_urgency_hint 500 ms
911 ---------------------------------
915 The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
916 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
919 1. It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
920 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
921 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
922 2. It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
923 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
924 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
925 3. It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
926 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
928 That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
929 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
930 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
931 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
932 configuration infrastructure in place.
934 Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a +bar+ block. You can have
935 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):
938 ---------------------------
940 status_command i3status
942 ---------------------------
946 By default i3 will just pass +i3bar+ and let your shell handle the execution,
947 searching your +$PATH+ for a correct version.
948 If you have a different +i3bar+ somewhere or the binary is not in your +$PATH+ you can
949 tell i3 what to execute.
951 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
952 have to have correct quoting etc.
955 ----------------------
956 i3bar_command command
957 ----------------------
960 -------------------------------------------------
962 i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
964 -------------------------------------------------
967 === Statusline command
969 i3bar can run a program and display every line of its +stdout+ output on the
970 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
971 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.
973 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
974 have to have correct quoting etc.
977 ----------------------
978 status_command command
979 ----------------------
982 -------------------------------------------------
984 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
986 -------------------------------------------------
990 You can have i3bar either be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
991 (+dock+ mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (+hide+
992 mode). The modifier key can be configured using the +modifier+ option.
994 The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
995 i3bar sends the +SIGSTOP+ and +SIGCONT+ signals to the statusline process to
998 The default is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
1015 Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see +xmodmap(1)+).
1020 This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.
1022 The default is bottom.
1025 ---------------------
1026 position <top|bottom>
1027 ---------------------
1030 ---------------------
1034 ---------------------
1038 You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
1039 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
1040 options for different outputs by using multiple 'bar' blocks.
1042 To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
1043 directive multiple times.
1051 -------------------------------
1052 # big monitor: everything
1054 # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
1057 status_command i3status
1060 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
1063 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
1069 -------------------------------
1073 i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
1074 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.
1076 You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
1077 you can turn off the functionality entirely.
1080 -------------------------
1081 tray_output <none|primary|output>
1082 -------------------------
1085 -------------------------
1086 # disable system tray
1091 # show tray icons on the primary monitor
1094 # show tray icons on the big monitor
1098 -------------------------
1100 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1101 -------------------------
1102 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1103 -------------------------
1107 Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <<fonts>>.
1110 ---------------------
1112 ---------------------
1115 --------------------------------------------------------------
1117 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
1118 font xft:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
1120 --------------------------------------------------------------
1122 === Workspace buttons
1124 Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
1125 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.
1127 The default is to show workspace buttons.
1130 --------------------------
1131 workspace_buttons <yes|no>
1132 --------------------------
1135 --------------------
1137 workspace_buttons no
1139 --------------------
1143 As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
1144 be configured at the moment:
1147 Background color of the bar.
1149 Text color to be used for the statusline.
1151 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1154 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1155 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
1156 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
1157 using multiple monitors.
1158 inactive_workspace::
1159 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1160 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
1161 will be the case for most workspaces.
1163 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1164 window with the urgency hint set.
1167 ----------------------------------------
1172 colorclass <border> <background> <text>
1174 ----------------------------------------
1176 *Example (default colors)*:
1177 --------------------------------------
1183 focused_workspace #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
1184 active_workspace #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
1185 inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
1186 urgent_workspace #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1189 --------------------------------------
1193 Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
1194 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
1195 do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:
1198 --------------------------
1199 # execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
1201 --------------------------
1203 Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
1204 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
1205 the following keybinding:
1208 --------------------------------------------------------
1209 bindsym mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3
1210 --------------------------------------------------------
1212 [[command_criteria]]
1214 Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command, that is, which containers
1215 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. These are
1216 prefixed in square brackets to every command. If you want to kill all windows
1217 which have the class Firefox, use:
1220 ------------------------------------
1221 bindsym mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
1223 # same thing, but case-insensitive
1224 bindsym mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
1225 ------------------------------------
1227 The criteria which are currently implemented are:
1230 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS)
1232 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS)
1234 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE).
1236 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
1238 Compares the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
1240 Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
1241 Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
1242 (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
1244 Compares the mark set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>.
1246 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
1247 interface. Handy for scripting.
1249 The criteria +class+, +instance+, +role+, +title+ and +mark+ are actually
1250 regular expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for
1251 information on how to use them.
1255 === Executing applications (exec)
1257 What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
1258 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
1259 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
1260 searched in your $PATH.
1263 ------------------------------
1264 exec [--no-startup-id] command
1265 ------------------------------
1268 ------------------------------
1270 bindsym mod+g exec gimp
1272 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
1273 bindsym mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt
1274 ------------------------------
1276 The +--no-startup-id+ parameter disables startup-notification support for this
1277 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
1278 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
1279 will change the X11 cursor to +watch+ (a clock) while the application is
1280 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
1281 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
1282 cursor for 60 seconds.
1284 === Splitting containers
1286 The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
1287 can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
1288 new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
1289 get placed below the current one (splitv).
1291 If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
1292 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
1293 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window). Use
1294 +layout toggle split+ to change the layout of any split container from splitv
1295 to splith or vice-versa.
1298 ---------------------------
1299 split <vertical|horizontal>
1300 ---------------------------
1303 ------------------------------
1304 bindsym mod+v split vertical
1305 bindsym mod+h split horizontal
1306 ------------------------------
1308 === Manipulating layout
1310 Use +layout toggle split+, +layout stacking+ or +layout tabbed+ to change the
1311 current container layout to splith/splitv, stacking or tabbed layout,
1314 To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen+, to make
1315 it floating (or tiling again) use +floating enable+ respectively +floating disable+
1316 (or +floating toggle+):
1320 layout <tabbed|stacking>
1321 layout toggle [split|all]
1326 bindsym mod+s layout stacking
1327 bindsym mod+l layout toggle split
1328 bindsym mod+w layout tabbed
1330 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
1331 bindsym mod+x layout toggle
1333 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
1334 bindsym mod+x layout toggle all
1337 bindsym mod+f fullscreen
1339 # Toggle floating/tiling
1340 bindsym mod+t floating toggle
1343 === Focusing/Moving containers
1345 To change the focus, use the focus command: +focus left+, +focus right+, +focus
1346 down+ and +focus up+.
1348 There are a few special parameters you can use for the focus command:
1351 Sets focus to the +Parent Container+ of the current +Container+.
1353 The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
1356 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
1358 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
1360 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
1362 Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
1363 corresponding output.
1365 For moving, use +move left+, +move right+, +move down+ and +move up+.
1368 -----------------------------------
1369 focus <left|right|down|up>
1370 focus <parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle>
1371 focus output <<left|right|down|up>|output>
1372 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
1373 move [absolute] position [[<px> px] [<px> px]|center]
1374 -----------------------------------
1376 Note that the amount of pixels you can specify for the +move+ command is only
1377 relevant for floating containers. The default amount is 10 pixels.
1380 ----------------------
1381 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right:
1382 bindsym mod+j focus left
1383 bindsym mod+k focus down
1384 bindsym mod+l focus up
1385 bindsym mod+semicolon focus right
1387 # Focus parent container
1388 bindsym mod+u focus parent
1390 # Focus last floating/tiling container
1391 bindsym mod+g focus mode_toggle
1393 # Focus the output right to the current one
1394 bindsym mod+x focus output right
1396 # Focus the big output
1397 bindsym mod+x focus output HDMI-2
1399 # Move container to the left, bottom, top, right:
1400 bindsym mod+j move left
1401 bindsym mod+k move down
1402 bindsym mod+l move up
1403 bindsym mod+semicolon move right
1405 # Move container, but make floating containers
1406 # move more than the default
1407 bindsym mod+j move left 20 px
1409 # Move floating container to the center
1411 bindsym mod+c move absolute position center
1412 ----------------------
1414 === Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces
1416 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
1417 number or name of the workspace. To move containers to specific workspaces, use
1418 +move container to workspace+.
1420 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
1421 +workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
1422 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
1423 combination. To restrict those to the current output, use +workspace
1424 next_on_output+ and +workspace prev_on_output+. Similarly, you can use +move
1425 container to workspace next+, +move container to workspace prev+ to move a
1426 container to the next/previous workspace and +move container to workspace current+
1427 (the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).
1429 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
1433 To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use +workspace
1434 back_and_forth+; likewise, you can move containers to the previously focused
1435 workspace using +move container to workspace back_and_forth+.
1438 -----------------------------------
1439 workspace <next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output>
1440 workspace back_and_forth
1442 workspace number <name>
1444 move [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
1445 move [window|container] [to] workspace number <name>
1446 move [window|container] [to] workspace <prev|next|current>
1447 -----------------------------------
1450 -------------------------
1451 bindsym mod+1 workspace 1
1452 bindsym mod+2 workspace 2
1455 bindsym mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
1456 bindsym mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
1459 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
1460 bindsym mod+b workspace back_and_forth
1461 bindsym mod+Shift+b move container to workspace back_and_forth
1463 # move the whole workspace to the next output
1464 bindsym mod+x move workspace to output right
1466 # move firefox to current workspace
1467 bindsym mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current
1468 -------------------------
1470 ==== Named workspaces
1472 Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
1473 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:
1476 -------------------------
1477 bindsym mod+1 workspace mail
1479 -------------------------
1481 If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
1485 -------------------------
1486 bindsym mod+1 workspace 1: mail
1487 bindsym mod+2 workspace 2: www
1489 -------------------------
1491 Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
1492 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
1493 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
1494 will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use +workspace number 1+
1495 to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
1496 it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
1497 dynamically. To combine both commands you can use +workspace number 1: mail+ to
1498 specify a default name if there's currently no workspace starting with a "1".
1500 ==== Renaming workspaces
1502 You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
1503 numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
1504 reflect what’s actually on them.
1507 ----------------------------------------------------
1508 rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
1509 ----------------------------------------------------
1512 ------------------------------------------------
1513 i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
1514 i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
1515 i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
1516 ------------------------------------------------
1518 === Moving containers/workspaces to RandR outputs
1522 To move a container to another RandR output (addressed by names like +LVDS1+ or
1523 +VGA1+) or to a RandR output identified by a specific direction (like +left+,
1524 +right+, +up+ or +down+), there are two commands:
1527 --------------------------------------------------------
1528 move container to output <<left|right|down|up>|<output>>
1529 move workspace to output <<left|right|down|up>|<output>>
1530 --------------------------------------------------------
1533 --------------------------------------------------------
1534 # Move the current workspace to the next output
1535 # (effectively toggles when you only have two outputs)
1536 bindsym mod+x move workspace to output right
1538 # Put this window on the presentation output.
1539 bindsym mod+x move container to output VGA1
1540 --------------------------------------------------------
1544 === Resizing containers/windows
1546 If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
1550 ---------------------------------------------------------
1551 resize <grow|shrink> <direction> [<px> px] [or <ppt> ppt]
1552 ---------------------------------------------------------
1554 Direction can either be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. Or you can be
1555 less specific and use +width+ or +height+, in which case i3 will take/give
1556 space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
1557 how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or shrunk (the default
1558 is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
1559 many percentage points a *tiling container* should be grown or shrunk (the
1560 default is 10 percentage points).
1562 I recommend using the resize command inside a so called +mode+:
1564 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
1565 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1567 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
1569 # Pressing left will shrink the window’s width.
1570 # Pressing right will grow the window’s width.
1571 # Pressing up will shrink the window’s height.
1572 # Pressing down will grow the window’s height.
1573 bindsym j resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
1574 bindsym k resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
1575 bindsym l resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
1576 bindsym semicolon resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
1578 # same bindings, but for the arrow keys
1579 bindsym Left resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
1580 bindsym Down resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
1581 bindsym Up resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
1582 bindsym Right resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
1584 # back to normal: Enter or Escape
1585 bindsym Return mode "default"
1586 bindsym Escape mode "default"
1590 bindsym mod+r mode "resize"
1591 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1593 === Jumping to specific windows
1595 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
1596 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
1597 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
1598 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mailclient,
1599 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
1600 with criteria for that.
1603 ----------------------------------------------------
1604 [class="class"] focus
1605 [title="title"] focus
1606 ----------------------------------------------------
1609 ------------------------------------------------
1610 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
1611 bindsym mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
1612 ------------------------------------------------
1614 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
1618 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
1619 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
1620 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
1621 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You do not need to ensure that your
1622 windows have unique classes or titles, and you do not need to change your
1625 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
1626 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
1627 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
1628 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
1631 ------------------------------
1633 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
1634 ------------------------------
1636 *Example (in a terminal)*:
1637 ------------------------------
1639 $ i3-msg '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
1640 ------------------------------
1642 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1643 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
1645 ---------------------------------------
1646 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
1647 bindsym mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
1649 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
1650 bindsym mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
1651 ---------------------------------------
1653 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
1654 seperate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
1655 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1657 === Changing border style
1659 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
1660 border (including window title), +border 1pixel+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
1661 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
1663 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
1666 ----------------------------
1667 bindsym mod+t border normal
1668 bindsym mod+y border 1pixel
1669 bindsym mod+u border none
1670 ----------------------------
1674 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1675 TODO: not yet implemented
1676 === Changing the stack-limit of a container
1678 If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside it (say, more than
1679 10), the default layout of a stacking container can get a little unhandy.
1680 Depending on your screen’s size, you might end up with only half of the title
1681 lines being actually used, wasting a lot of screen space.
1683 Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the number of rows or columns
1684 in a stacking container. i3 will create columns or rows (depending on what
1685 you limited) automatically as needed.
1688 --------------------------------
1689 stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
1690 --------------------------------
1694 # I always want to have two window titles in one line
1697 # Not more than 5 rows in this stacking container
1701 image:stacklimit.png[Container limited to two columns]
1702 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1704 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
1706 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
1707 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
1708 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
1709 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
1710 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
1713 ----------------------------
1714 bindsym mod+Shift+r restart
1715 bindsym mod+Shift+w reload
1716 bindsym mod+Shift+e exit
1717 ----------------------------
1721 There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. +move
1722 scratchpad+ will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
1723 invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
1724 Instead, when using +scratchpad show+, the window will be shown again, as a
1725 floating window, centered on your current workspace (using +scratchpad show+ on
1726 a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
1727 keybinding to toggle). Note that this is just a normal floating window, so if
1728 you want to "remove it from scratchpad", you can simple make it tiling again
1729 (+floating toggle+).
1731 As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
1732 editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
1733 running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
1734 player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?
1744 ------------------------------------------------
1745 # Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
1746 bindsym mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad
1748 # Show the first scratchpad window
1749 bindsym mod+minus scratchpad show
1751 # Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
1752 bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show
1753 ------------------------------------------------
1757 == Multiple monitors
1759 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
1760 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
1761 handle multiple monitors.
1763 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
1764 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
1766 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
1767 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
1768 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
1769 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
1770 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
1771 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
1772 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
1774 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
1775 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
1776 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
1777 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
1778 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
1779 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
1780 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
1781 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
1783 === Configuring your monitors
1785 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
1786 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
1787 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
1788 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
1789 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1791 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
1792 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
1793 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
1794 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
1795 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
1797 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1798 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
1802 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1804 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
1805 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
1806 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
1807 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
1809 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
1810 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
1811 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
1813 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
1814 -------------------------------------------
1815 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
1816 -------------------------------------------
1817 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
1818 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
1819 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
1820 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1822 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
1823 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
1824 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
1827 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
1829 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1830 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
1832 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
1833 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
1834 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
1836 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1837 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
1841 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1842 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
1843 only what you can see in xrandr.
1845 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
1847 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
1849 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
1850 have more than one monitor:
1852 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
1853 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
1854 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
1855 <<workspace_screen>>.
1856 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
1857 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
1858 <<assign_workspace>>.
1859 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
1860 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
1861 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
1862 4. For information on how to move existing workspaces between monitors,
1863 see <<_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs>>.
1865 == i3 and the rest of your software world
1867 === Displaying a status line
1869 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
1870 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
1871 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
1873 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
1874 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
1875 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
1876 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
1877 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
1878 i3bar. See <<status_command>> for how to display i3status in i3bar.
1880 Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
1881 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
1882 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
1883 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
1884 see <<i3bar_position>>.
1886 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
1888 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
1889 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
1890 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
1891 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
1895 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
1896 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
1897 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
1898 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
1899 -----------------------------------------------------
1900 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
1901 -----------------------------------------------------
1902 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
1903 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
1904 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
1906 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
1907 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
1908 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
1909 -----------------------------------------------------
1910 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
1911 -----------------------------------------------------
1912 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
1913 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
1915 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
1916 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
1917 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).