3 Michael Stapelberg <michael@i3wm.org>
6 This document contains all the information you need to configure and use the i3
7 window manager. If it does not, please check http://faq.i3wm.org/ first, then
8 contact us on IRC (preferred) or post your question(s) on the mailing list.
10 == Default keybindings
12 For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here is an overview of the default
13 keybindings (click to see the full size image):
15 *Keys to use with $mod (Alt):*
17 image:keyboard-layer1.png["Keys to use with $mod (Alt)",width=600,link="keyboard-layer1.png"]
19 *Keys to use with Shift+$mod:*
21 image:keyboard-layer2.png["Keys to use with Shift+$mod",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]
23 The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
28 Throughout this guide, the keyword +$mod+ will be used to refer to the
29 configured modifier. This is the Alt key (Mod1) by default, with the Windows
30 key (Mod4) being a popular alternative.
32 === Opening terminals and moving around
34 One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
35 for this is $mod+Enter, that is Alt+Enter in the default configuration. By
36 pressing $mod+Enter, a new terminal will be opened. It will fill the whole
37 space available on your screen.
39 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
41 If you now open another terminal, i3 will place it next to the current one,
42 splitting the screen size in half. Depending on your monitor, i3 will put the
43 created window beside the existing window (on wide displays) or below the
44 existing window (rotated displays).
46 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
48 To move the focus between the two terminals, you can use the direction keys
49 which you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used
50 for these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for
51 compatibility with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +$mod+J+ is left, +$mod+K+
52 is down, +$mod+L+ is up and `$mod+;` is right. So, to switch between the
53 terminals, use +$mod+K+ or +$mod+L+. Of course, you can also use the arrow keys.
55 At the moment, your workspace is split (it contains two terminals) in a
56 specific direction (horizontal by default). Every window can be split
57 horizontally or vertically again, just like the workspace. The terminology is
58 "window" for a container that actually contains an X11 window (like a terminal
59 or browser) and "split container" for containers that consist of one or more
62 TODO: picture of the tree
64 To split a window vertically, press +$mod+v+ before you create the new window.
65 To split it horizontally, press +$mod+h+.
67 === Changing the container layout
69 A split container can have one of the following layouts:
72 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
73 container. splith distributes the windows horizontally (windows are right next
74 to each other), splitv distributes them vertically (windows are on top of each
77 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
78 windows at the top of the container.
80 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
81 a single line which is vertically split.
83 To switch modes, press +$mod+e+ for splith/splitv (it toggles), +$mod+s+ for
84 stacking and +$mod+w+ for tabbed.
86 image:modes.png[Container modes]
88 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
90 To display a window in fullscreen mode or to go out of fullscreen mode again,
93 There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will span all
94 available outputs (the command is +fullscreen toggle global+).
96 === Opening other applications
98 Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
99 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +$mod+d+ by default. Just type the name
100 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The corresponding
101 application has to be in your +$PATH+ for this to work.
103 Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
104 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
105 <<configuring>> for details.
109 If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
110 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
111 can press +$mod+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
112 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
113 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
114 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
115 depends on the application.
119 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
120 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
121 another workspace, press +$mod+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
122 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
124 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
125 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one, and the ones with which you
126 work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
128 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
129 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
130 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
131 focus to that screen.
133 === Moving windows to workspaces
135 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +$mod+Shift+num+ where
136 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
137 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
138 it does not yet exist.
142 The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
143 and move it to the wanted size.
145 See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
146 columns/rows with your keyboard.
148 === Restarting i3 inplace
150 To restart i3 in place (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
151 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +$mod+Shift+r+.
155 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +$mod+Shift+e+.
156 By default, a dialog will ask you to confirm if you really want to quit.
160 Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of
161 a window are not managed automatically by i3, but manually by
162 you. Using this mode violates the tiling paradigm but can be useful
163 for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog windows, or toolbar
164 windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the appropriate
165 hint and are opened in floating mode by default.
167 You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing +$mod+Shift+Space+. By
168 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
169 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
170 can also do that by using the <<floating_modifier>>. Another way to resize
171 floating windows using the mouse is to right-click on the titlebar and drag.
173 For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see <<resizingconfig>>.
175 Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.
179 i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
180 windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
181 the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
182 finally the windows themselves. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
183 (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
184 out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.
186 === The tree consists of Containers
188 The building blocks of our tree are so called +Containers+. A +Container+ can
189 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
190 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more +Containers+. A
191 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
192 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
195 image::tree-layout2.png["layout2",float="right"]
196 image::tree-shot4.png["shot4",title="Two terminals on standard workspace"]
198 === Orientation and Split Containers
202 It is only natural to use so-called +Split Containers+ in order to build a
203 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every +Container+ has an
204 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified) and the orientation depends
205 on the layout the container is in (vertical for splitv and stacking, horizontal
206 for splith and tabbed). So, in our example with the workspace, the default
207 layout of the workspace +Container+ is splith (most monitors are widescreen
208 nowadays). If you change the layout to splitv (+$mod+v+ in the default config)
209 and *then* open two terminals, i3 will configure your windows like this:
211 image::tree-shot2.png["shot2",title="Vertical Workspace Orientation"]
213 An interesting new feature of i3 since version 4 is the ability to split anything:
214 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with splith layout, that is
215 horizontal orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open
216 another terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new
217 terminal window, it would show up to the right due to the splith layout.
218 Instead, press +$mod+v+ to split the container with the splitv layout (to
219 open a +Horizontal Split Container+, use +$mod+h+). Now you can open a new
220 terminal and it will open below the current one:
222 image::tree-layout1.png["Layout",float="right"]
223 image::tree-shot1.png["shot",title="Vertical Split Container"]
227 You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
232 Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
233 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
234 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.
236 So, how can you open a new terminal window to the *right* of the current one?
237 The solution is to use +focus parent+, which will focus the +Parent Container+ of
238 the current +Container+. In this case, you would focus the +Vertical Split
239 Container+ which is *inside* the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
240 windows will be opened to the right of the +Vertical Split Container+:
242 image::tree-shot3.png["shot3",title="Focus parent, then open new terminal"]
244 === Implicit containers
246 In some cases, i3 needs to implicitly create a container to fulfill your
249 One example is the following scenario: You start i3 with a single monitor and a
250 single workspace on which you open three terminal windows. All these terminal
251 windows are directly attached to one node inside i3’s layout tree, the
252 workspace node. By default, the workspace node’s orientation is +horizontal+.
254 Now you move one of these terminals down (+$mod+Shift+k+ by default). The
255 workspace node’s orientation will be changed to +vertical+. The terminal window
256 you moved down is directly attached to the workspace and appears on the bottom
257 of the screen. A new (horizontal) container was created to accommodate the
258 other two terminal windows. You will notice this when switching to tabbed mode
259 (for example). You would end up having one tab with a representation of the split
260 container (e.g., "H[urxvt firefox]") and the other one being the terminal window
266 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependent on your
267 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
269 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
270 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
273 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
274 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
275 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
276 can bind your keys to do useful things.
278 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
279 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
282 On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
283 file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
284 wizard to use either Alt (Mod1) or Windows (Mod4) as modifier in the config
285 file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
286 keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command +i3-config-wizard+.
287 Please note that you must not have +~/.i3/config+, otherwise the wizard will
292 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
293 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
294 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:
305 i3 has support for both X core fonts and FreeType fonts (through Pango) to
306 render window titles.
308 To generate an X core font description, you can use +xfontsel(1)+. To see
309 special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the
312 A FreeType font description is composed by a font family, a style, a weight,
313 a variant, a stretch and a size.
314 FreeType fonts support right-to-left rendering and contain often more
315 Unicode glyphs than X core fonts.
317 If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
318 and fall back to a working font.
321 ------------------------------
322 font <X core font description>
323 font pango:<family list> [<style options>] <size>
324 ------------------------------
327 --------------------------------------------------------------
328 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
329 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
330 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono, Terminus Bold Semi-Condensed 11
331 font pango:Terminus 11px
332 --------------------------------------------------------------
336 === Keyboard bindings
338 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
339 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
340 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
342 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
343 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
344 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
345 mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+. To interactively enter a key and
346 see what keysym it is configured to, use +xev+.
348 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
349 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
350 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
352 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
353 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
354 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
357 Some tools (such as +import+ or +xdotool+) might be unable to run upon a
358 KeyPress event, because the keyboard/pointer is still grabbed. For these
359 situations, the +--release+ flag can be used, which will execute the command
360 after the keys have been released.
363 ----------------------------------
364 bindsym [--release] [<Modifiers>+]<keysym> command
365 bindcode [--release] [<Modifiers>+]<keycode> command
366 ----------------------------------
369 --------------------------------
371 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
374 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
376 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
377 bindcode 214 exec --no-startup-id /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
379 # Simulate ctrl+v upon pressing $mod+x
380 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v
382 # Take a screenshot upon pressing $mod+x (select an area)
383 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id import /tmp/latest-screenshot.png
384 --------------------------------
388 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
389 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
392 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
393 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
394 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
395 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
396 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
402 A mouse binding makes i3 execute a command upon pressing a specific mouse
403 button in the scope of the clicked container (see <<command_criteria>>). You
404 can configure mouse bindings in a similar way to key bindings.
407 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
408 bindsym [--release] [--border] [--whole-window] [<Modifiers>+]button<n> command
409 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
411 By default, the binding will only run when you click on the titlebar of the
412 window. If the +--release+ flag is given, it will run when the mouse button
415 If the +--whole-window+ flag is given, the binding will also run when any part
416 of the window is clicked, with the exception of the border. To have a bind run
417 when the border is clicked, specify the +--border+ flag.
420 --------------------------------
421 # The middle button over a titlebar kills the window
422 bindsym --release button2 kill
424 # The middle button and a modifer over any part of the window kills the window
425 bindsym --whole-window $mod+button2 kill
427 # The right button toggles floating
428 bindsym button3 floating toggle
429 bindsym $mod+button3 floating toggle
431 # The side buttons move the window around
432 bindsym button9 move left
433 bindsym button8 move right
434 --------------------------------
436 [[floating_modifier]]
438 === The floating modifier
440 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
441 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
442 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
443 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
444 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
445 it to the position you want.
447 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
448 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
449 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
450 ratio will be preserved).
453 --------------------------------
454 floating_modifier <Modifier>
455 --------------------------------
458 --------------------------------
459 floating_modifier Mod1
460 --------------------------------
462 === Constraining floating window size
464 The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
465 either dimension of +floating_maximum_size+ is specified as -1, that dimension
466 will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
467 +floating_maximum_size+ is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
468 value to constrain the maximum size. +floating_minimum_size+ is treated in a
469 manner analogous to +floating_maximum_size+.
472 ----------------------------------------
473 floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
474 floating_maximum_size <width> x <height>
475 ----------------------------------------
478 --------------------------------------
479 floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
480 floating_maximum_size -1 x -1
481 --------------------------------------
483 === Orientation for new workspaces
485 New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
486 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
487 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.
489 With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
493 --------------------------------------------
494 default_orientation horizontal|vertical|auto
495 --------------------------------------------
498 ----------------------------
499 default_orientation vertical
500 ----------------------------
502 === Layout mode for new containers
504 This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
508 ---------------------------------------------
509 workspace_layout default|stacking|tabbed
510 ---------------------------------------------
513 ---------------------
514 workspace_layout tabbed
515 ---------------------
517 === Border style for new windows
519 This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
520 +normal+. Note that new_float applies only to windows which are starting out as
521 floating windows, e.g., dialog windows, but not windows that are floated later on.
524 ---------------------------------------------
525 new_window normal|none|pixel
526 new_window normal|pixel <px>
527 new_float normal|none|pixel
528 new_float normal|pixel <px>
529 ---------------------------------------------
532 ---------------------
534 ---------------------
536 The "normal" and "pixel" border styles support an optional border width in
540 ---------------------
541 # The same as new_window none
546 ---------------------
549 === Hiding vertical borders
551 You can hide vertical borders adjacent to the screen edges using
552 +hide_edge_borders+. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
553 to waste even two pixels in displayspace. Default is none.
556 -----------------------------------------------
557 hide_edge_borders none|vertical|horizontal|both
558 -----------------------------------------------
561 ----------------------
562 hide_edge_borders vertical
563 ----------------------
565 === Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)
569 With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
570 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
571 change their border style, for example.
574 -------------------------------
575 for_window <criteria> <command>
576 -------------------------------
579 ------------------------------------------------
580 # enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
581 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
583 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
584 for_window [class="urxvt"] border pixel 1
586 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
587 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
588 # directory to ~/work
589 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
590 ------------------------------------------------
592 The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.
594 === Don't focus window upon opening
598 When a new window appears, it will be focused. The +no_focus+ directive allows preventing
599 this from happening and can be used in combination with <<command_criteria>>.
601 Note that this does not apply to all cases, e.g., when feeding data into a running application
602 causing it to request being focused. To configure the behavior in such cases, refer to
603 <<focus_on_window_activation>>.
611 -------------------------------
612 no_focus [window_role="pop-up"]
613 -------------------------------
617 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
618 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
619 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
620 variables can be handy.
628 ------------------------
630 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
631 ------------------------
633 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. Variables expansion
634 is not recursive so it is not possible to define a variable with a value
635 containing another variable. There is no fancy handling and there are
636 absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more dynamic configuration
637 you should create a little script which generates a configuration file and run
638 it before starting i3 (for example in your +~/.xsession+ file).
640 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
644 To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
645 can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
646 see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
647 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
648 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
649 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
650 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
651 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
652 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
653 to match on 'Firefox' in this case.
655 Assignments are processed by i3 in the order in which they appear in the config
656 file. The first one which matches the window wins and later assignments are not
660 ------------------------------------------------------------
661 assign <criteria> [→] [workspace] <workspace>
662 ------------------------------------------------------------
665 ----------------------
666 # Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
667 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
669 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
670 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
672 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
673 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
675 # Assignment to a named workspace
676 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
678 # Start urxvt -name irssi
679 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
680 ----------------------
682 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
683 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
685 To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
686 window, you will see the following output:
689 -----------------------------------
690 WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
691 -----------------------------------
693 The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
694 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).
696 Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
697 logfile first (see http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
698 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
699 title when starting up.
701 Note that if you want to start an application just once on a specific
702 workspace, but you don’t want to assign all instances of it permanently, you
703 can make use of i3’s startup-notification support (see <<exec>>) in your config
704 file in the following way:
706 *Start iceweasel on workspace 3 (once)*:
707 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
708 # Start iceweasel on workspace 3, then switch back to workspace 1
709 # (Being a command-line utility, i3-msg does not support startup notifications,
710 # hence the exec --no-startup-id.)
711 # (Starting iceweasel with i3’s exec command is important in order to make i3
712 # create a startup notification context, without which the iceweasel window(s)
713 # cannot be matched onto the workspace on which the command was started.)
714 exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 3; exec iceweasel; workspace 1'
715 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
717 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
719 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
720 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
721 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
722 also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
723 keyword. These commands will be run in order.
725 See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
726 and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
727 strings if they appear in your command.
730 ---------------------------------------
731 exec [--no-startup-id] <command>
732 exec_always [--no-startup-id] <command>
733 ---------------------------------------
736 --------------------------------
738 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
740 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
741 exec --no-startup-id urxvt
742 --------------------------------
744 The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <<exec>>.
748 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
750 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
751 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
752 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
753 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
754 the second screen and so on).
757 -------------------------------------
758 workspace <workspace> output <output>
759 -------------------------------------
761 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
762 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
763 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
765 If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:
768 ---------------------------
769 workspace 1 output LVDS1
770 workspace 5 output VGA1
771 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1
772 ---------------------------
776 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.
779 ------------------------------------------------------
780 <colorclass> <border> <background> <text> <indicator>
781 ------------------------------------------------------
783 Where colorclass can be one of:
786 A client which currently has the focus.
787 client.focused_inactive::
788 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
789 the focus at the moment.
791 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
793 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
795 Background and text color are used to draw placeholder window contents
796 (when restoring layouts). Border and indicator are ignored.
798 You can also specify the color to be used to paint the background of the client
799 windows. This color will be used to paint the window on top of which the client
803 -------------------------
804 client.background <color>
805 -------------------------
807 Only clients that do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color
810 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
812 *Examples (default colors)*:
813 ---------------------------------------------------------
814 # class border backgr. text indicator
815 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff #2e9ef4
816 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff #484e50
817 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888 #292d2e
818 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff #900000
819 client.placeholder #000000 #0c0c0c #ffffff #000000
820 ---------------------------------------------------------
822 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
823 background color, and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
826 The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
827 For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
828 color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
829 single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
830 from single windows outside of a split container.
832 === Interprocess communication
834 i3 uses Unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
835 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
836 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
838 The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
839 +/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username, +%p+ is
840 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
841 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).
843 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
844 by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
845 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
846 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
847 user can create that directory.
850 ----------------------------
851 ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock
852 ----------------------------
854 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
857 === Focus follows mouse
859 By default, window focus follows your mouse movements. However, if you have a
860 setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad on your laptop
861 which you do not want to disable completely), you might want to disable 'focus
862 follows mouse' and control focus only by using your keyboard. The mouse will
863 still be useful inside the currently active window (for example to click on
864 links in your browser window).
867 --------------------------
868 focus_follows_mouse yes|no
869 --------------------------
872 ----------------------
873 focus_follows_mouse no
874 ----------------------
878 By default, when switching focus to a window on a different output (e.g.
879 focusing a window on workspace 3 on output VGA-1, coming from workspace 2 on
880 LVDS-1), the mouse cursor is warped to the center of that window.
882 With the +mouse_warping+ option, you can control when the mouse cursor should
883 be warped. +none+ disables warping entirely, whereas +output+ is the default
884 behavior described above.
887 -------------------------
888 mouse_warping output|none
889 -------------------------
896 === Popups during fullscreen mode
898 When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
899 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
900 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
901 There are three things which are possible to do in this situation:
903 1. Display the popup if it belongs to the fullscreen application only. This is
904 the default and should be reasonable behavior for most users.
905 2. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
906 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
907 you go out of fullscreen).
908 3. Leave fullscreen mode.
911 -----------------------------------------------------
912 popup_during_fullscreen smart|ignore|leave_fullscreen
913 -----------------------------------------------------
916 ------------------------------
917 popup_during_fullscreen smart
918 ------------------------------
922 When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
923 focused when you use +focus down+ on the last container -- the focus wraps. If
924 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
925 be set on that container. This is the default behavior so you can navigate to
926 all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.
928 If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
929 parent+ to switch to different containers, you can use the
930 +force_focus_wrapping+ configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
934 ---------------------------
935 force_focus_wrapping yes|no
936 ---------------------------
939 ------------------------
940 force_focus_wrapping yes
941 ------------------------
945 As explained in-depth in <http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html>, some X11
946 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
947 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
948 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
949 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
952 For people who cannot modify their +~/.xsession+ to add the
953 +--force-xinerama+ commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:
956 ---------------------
957 force_xinerama yes|no
958 ---------------------
965 Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like +HDMI1+) when using
966 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: +xinerama-0+, +xinerama-1+, …
968 === Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace
970 This configuration directive enables automatic +workspace back_and_forth+ (see
971 <<back_and_forth>>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.
973 For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
974 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
975 came from now, you can just press $mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".
978 ------------------------------------
979 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes|no
980 ------------------------------------
983 ---------------------------------
984 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes
985 ---------------------------------
987 === Delaying urgency hint reset on workspace change
989 If an application on another workspace sets an urgency hint, switching to this
990 workspace may lead to immediate focus of the application, which also means the
991 window decoration color would be immediately reset to +client.focused+. This
992 may make it unnecessarily hard to tell which window originally raised the
995 In order to prevent this, you can tell i3 to delay resetting the urgency state
996 by a certain time using the +force_display_urgency_hint+ directive. Setting the
997 value to 0 disables this feature.
999 The default is 500ms.
1002 ---------------------------------------
1003 force_display_urgency_hint <timeout> ms
1004 ---------------------------------------
1007 ---------------------------------
1008 force_display_urgency_hint 500 ms
1009 ---------------------------------
1011 === Delaying exiting on zero displays
1013 Outputs may disappear momentarily and come back later. For example,
1014 using a docking station that does not announce the undock (e.g. ACPI Undock
1015 event triggered through manually pushing a button before actually ejecting
1016 the notebook). During the removal of the notebook from the docking station,
1017 all outputs disappear momentarily.
1019 To prevent i3 from exiting when no output is available momentarily, you can
1020 tell i3 to delay a certain time first and check available outputs again using
1021 the +delay_exit_on_zero_displays+ directive. Setting the value to 0 disables
1024 The default is 500ms.
1027 ----------------------------------------
1028 delay_exit_on_zero_displays <timeout> ms
1029 ----------------------------------------
1032 ----------------------------------
1033 delay_exit_on_zero_displays 500 ms
1034 ----------------------------------
1036 === Focus on window activation
1038 [[focus_on_window_activation]]
1040 If a window is activated, e.g., via +google-chrome www.google.com+, it may request
1041 to take focus. Since this may not preferable, different reactions can be configured.
1043 Note that this may not affect windows that are being opened. To prevent new windows
1044 from being focused, see <<no_focus>>.
1047 --------------------------------------------------
1048 focus_on_window_activation smart|urgent|focus|none
1049 --------------------------------------------------
1051 The different modes will act as follows:
1054 This is the default behavior. If the window requesting focus is on an active
1055 workspace, it will receive the focus. Otherwise, the urgency hint will be set.
1057 The window will always be marked urgent, but the focus will not be stolen.
1059 The window will always be focused and not be marked urgent.
1061 The window will neither be focused, nor be marked urgent.
1063 === Drawing marks on window decoration
1065 If activated, marks on windows are drawn in their window decoration. However,
1066 any mark starting with an underscore in its name (+_+) will not be drawn even if
1067 this option is activated.
1069 The default for this option is +yes+.
1081 [[line_continuation]]
1083 === Line continuation
1085 Config files support line continuation, meaning when you end a line in a
1086 backslash character (`\`), the line-break will be ignored by the parser. This
1087 feature can be used to create more readable configuration files.
1095 == Configuring i3bar
1097 The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
1098 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
1101 1. It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
1102 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
1103 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
1104 2. It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
1105 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
1106 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
1107 3. It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
1108 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
1110 That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
1111 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
1112 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
1113 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
1114 configuration infrastructure in place.
1116 Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a +bar+ block. You can have
1117 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):
1120 ---------------------------
1122 status_command i3status
1124 ---------------------------
1128 By default i3 will just pass +i3bar+ and let your shell handle the execution,
1129 searching your +$PATH+ for a correct version.
1130 If you have a different +i3bar+ somewhere or the binary is not in your +$PATH+ you can
1131 tell i3 what to execute.
1133 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1134 have to have correct quoting etc.
1137 -----------------------
1138 i3bar_command <command>
1139 -----------------------
1142 -------------------------------------------------
1144 i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
1146 -------------------------------------------------
1149 === Statusline command
1151 i3bar can run a program and display every line of its +stdout+ output on the
1152 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
1153 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.
1155 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1156 have to have correct quoting etc. Note that for signal handling, depending on
1157 your shell (users of dash(1) are known to be affected), you have to use the
1158 shell’s exec command so that signals are passed to your program, not to the
1162 ------------------------
1163 status_command <command>
1164 ------------------------
1167 -------------------------------------------------
1169 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
1171 # For dash(1) users who want signal handling to work:
1172 status_command exec ~/.bin/my_status_command
1174 -------------------------------------------------
1178 You can either have i3bar be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
1179 (+dock+ mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (+hide+ mode).
1180 It is also possible to force i3bar to always stay hidden (+invisible+
1181 mode). The modifier key can be configured using the +modifier+ option.
1183 The mode option can be changed during runtime through the +bar mode+ command.
1184 On reload the mode will be reverted to its configured value.
1186 The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
1187 i3bar sends the +SIGSTOP+ and +SIGCONT+ signals to the statusline process to
1190 Invisible mode allows to permanently maximize screen space, as the bar is never
1191 shown. Thus, you can configure i3bar to not disturb you by popping up because
1192 of an urgency hint or because the modifier key is pressed.
1194 In order to control whether i3bar is hidden or shown in hide mode, there exists
1195 the hidden_state option, which has no effect in dock mode or invisible mode. It
1196 indicates the current hidden_state of the bar: (1) The bar acts like in normal
1197 hide mode, it is hidden and is only unhidden in case of urgency hints or by
1198 pressing the modifier key (+hide+ state), or (2) it is drawn on top of the
1199 currently visible workspace (+show+ state).
1201 Like the mode, the hidden_state can also be controlled through i3, this can be
1202 done by using the +bar hidden_state+ command.
1204 The default mode is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
1205 the windows key). The default value for the hidden_state is hide.
1208 -------------------------
1209 mode dock|hide|invisible
1210 hidden_state hide|show
1212 ------------------------
1223 Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see +xmodmap(1)+).
1225 === Mouse button commands
1227 Specifies a command to run when a button was pressed on i3bar to override the
1228 default behavior. This is useful, e.g., for disabling the scroll wheel action
1229 or running scripts that implement custom behavior for these buttons.
1231 A button is always named +button<n>+, where 1 to 5 are default buttons as follows and higher
1232 numbers can be special buttons on devices offering more buttons:
1237 Middle mouse button.
1245 Please note that the old +wheel_up_cmd+ and +wheel_down_cmd+ commands are deprecated
1246 and will be removed in a future release. We strongly recommend using the more general
1247 +bindsym+ with +button4+ and +button5+ instead.
1250 ----------------------------
1251 bindsym button<n> <command>
1252 ----------------------------
1255 ---------------------------------------------------------
1257 # disable clicking on workspace buttons
1259 # execute custom script when scrolling downwards
1260 bindsym button5 exec ~/.i3/scripts/custom_wheel_down
1262 ---------------------------------------------------------
1266 Specifies the bar ID for the configured bar instance. If this option is missing,
1267 the ID is set to 'bar-x', where x corresponds to the position of the embedding
1268 bar block in the config file ('bar-0', 'bar-1', ...).
1271 ---------------------
1273 ---------------------
1276 ---------------------
1280 ---------------------
1285 This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.
1287 The default is bottom.
1295 ---------------------
1299 ---------------------
1303 You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
1304 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
1305 options for different outputs by using multiple 'bar' blocks.
1307 To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
1308 directive multiple times.
1316 -------------------------------
1317 # big monitor: everything
1319 # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
1322 status_command i3status
1325 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
1328 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
1334 -------------------------------
1338 i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
1339 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.
1341 You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
1342 you can turn off the functionality entirely.
1345 ---------------------------------
1346 tray_output none|primary|<output>
1347 ---------------------------------
1350 -------------------------
1351 # disable system tray
1356 # show tray icons on the primary monitor
1361 # show tray icons on the big monitor
1365 -------------------------
1367 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1368 -------------------------
1369 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1370 -------------------------
1374 The tray is shown on the right-hand side of the bar. By default, a padding of 2
1375 pixels is used for the upper, lower and right-hand side of the tray area and
1376 between the individual icons.
1379 -------------------------
1380 tray_padding <px> [px]
1381 -------------------------
1384 -------------------------
1387 -------------------------
1391 Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <<fonts>>.
1394 ---------------------
1396 ---------------------
1399 --------------------------------------------------------------
1401 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
1402 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
1404 --------------------------------------------------------------
1406 === Custom separator symbol
1408 Specifies a custom symbol to be used for the separator as opposed to the vertical,
1409 one pixel thick separator.
1412 -------------------------
1413 separator_symbol <symbol>
1414 -------------------------
1417 ------------------------
1419 separator_symbol ":|:"
1421 ------------------------
1423 === Workspace buttons
1425 Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
1426 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.
1428 The default is to show workspace buttons.
1431 ------------------------
1432 workspace_buttons yes|no
1433 ------------------------
1436 ------------------------
1438 workspace_buttons no
1440 ------------------------
1442 === Strip workspace numbers
1444 Specifies whether workspace numbers should be displayed within the workspace
1445 buttons. This is useful if you want to have a named workspace that stays in
1446 order on the bar according to its number without displaying the number prefix.
1448 When +strip_workspace_numbers+ is set to +yes+, any workspace that has a name of
1449 the form "[n]:[NAME]" will display only the name. You could use this, for
1450 instance, to display Roman numerals rather than digits by naming your
1451 workspaces to "1:I", "2:II", "3:III", "4:IV", ...
1453 The default is to display the full name within the workspace button.
1456 ------------------------------
1457 strip_workspace_numbers yes|no
1458 ------------------------------
1461 ----------------------------
1463 strip_workspace_numbers yes
1465 ----------------------------
1467 === Binding Mode indicator
1469 Specifies whether the current binding mode indicator should be shown or not.
1470 This is useful if you want to hide the workspace buttons but still be able
1471 to see the current binding mode indicator.
1472 For an example of a +mode+ definition, see <<resizingconfig>>.
1474 The default is to show the mode indicator.
1477 -----------------------------
1478 binding_mode_indicator yes|no
1479 -----------------------------
1482 -----------------------------
1484 binding_mode_indicator no
1486 -----------------------------
1490 As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
1491 be configured at the moment:
1494 Background color of the bar.
1496 Text color to be used for the statusline.
1498 Text color to be used for the separator.
1500 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1503 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1504 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
1505 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
1506 using multiple monitors.
1507 inactive_workspace::
1508 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1509 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
1510 will be the case for most workspaces.
1512 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1513 contains a window with the urgency hint set.
1515 Border, background and text color for the binding mode indicator. If not used,
1516 the colors will be taken from +urgent_workspace+.
1519 ----------------------------------------
1525 <colorclass> <border> <background> <text>
1527 ----------------------------------------
1529 *Example (default colors)*:
1530 --------------------------------------
1537 focused_workspace #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
1538 active_workspace #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
1539 inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
1540 urgent_workspace #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1541 binding_mode #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1544 --------------------------------------
1548 Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
1549 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
1550 do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:
1553 --------------------------
1554 # execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
1556 --------------------------
1558 [[command_chaining]]
1560 Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
1561 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
1562 the following keybinding:
1565 --------------------------------------------------------
1566 bindsym $mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3
1567 --------------------------------------------------------
1569 [[command_criteria]]
1571 Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command - that is, which containers
1572 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. The criteria
1573 are specified before any command in a pair of square brackets and are separated
1576 When using multiple commands, separate them by using a +,+ (a comma) instead of
1577 a semicolon. Criteria apply only until the next semicolon, so if you use a
1578 semicolon to separate commands, only the first one will be executed for the
1582 ------------------------------------
1583 # if you want to kill all windows which have the class Firefox, use:
1584 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
1586 # same thing, but case-insensitive
1587 bindsym $mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
1589 # kill only the About dialog from Firefox
1590 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox" window_role="About"] kill
1592 # enable floating mode and move container to workspace 4
1593 for_window [class="^evil-app$"] floating enable, move container to workspace 4
1594 ------------------------------------
1596 The criteria which are currently implemented are:
1599 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS)
1601 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS)
1603 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE).
1605 Compare the window type (_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE). Possible values are
1606 +normal+, +dialog+, +utility+, +toolbar+, +splash+, +menu+, +dropdown_menu+,
1607 +popup_menu+ and +toolti+.
1609 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
1611 Compares the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
1613 Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
1614 Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
1615 (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
1617 Compares the workspace name of the workspace the window belongs to.
1619 Compares the mark set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>.
1621 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
1622 interface. Handy for scripting.
1624 The criteria +class+, +instance+, +role+, +title+, +workspace+ and +mark+ are
1625 actually regular expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for
1626 information on how to use them.
1630 === Executing applications (exec)
1632 What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
1633 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
1634 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
1635 searched in your +$PATH+.
1637 See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
1638 and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
1639 strings if they appear in your command.
1642 --------------------------------
1643 exec [--no-startup-id] <command>
1644 --------------------------------
1647 ------------------------------
1649 bindsym $mod+g exec gimp
1651 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
1652 bindsym $mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt
1653 ------------------------------
1655 The +--no-startup-id+ parameter disables startup-notification support for this
1656 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
1657 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
1658 will change the X11 cursor to +watch+ (a clock) while the application is
1659 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
1660 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
1661 cursor for 60 seconds.
1663 === Splitting containers
1665 The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
1666 can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
1667 new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
1668 get placed below the current one (splitv).
1670 If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
1671 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
1672 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window). Use
1673 +layout toggle split+ to change the layout of any split container from splitv
1674 to splith or vice-versa.
1677 -------------------------
1678 split vertical|horizontal
1679 -------------------------
1682 ------------------------------
1683 bindsym $mod+v split vertical
1684 bindsym $mod+h split horizontal
1685 ------------------------------
1687 === Manipulating layout
1689 Use +layout toggle split+, +layout stacking+, +layout tabbed+, +layout splitv+
1690 or +layout splith+ to change the current container layout to splith/splitv,
1691 stacking, tabbed layout, splitv or splith, respectively.
1693 To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen enable+ (or
1694 +fullscreen enable global+ for the global mode), to leave either fullscreen
1695 mode use +fullscreen disable+, and to toggle between these two states use
1696 +fullscreen toggle+ (or +fullscreen toggle global+).
1698 Likewise, to make the current window floating (or tiling again) use +floating
1699 enable+ respectively +floating disable+ (or +floating toggle+):
1702 --------------------------------------------
1703 layout default|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith
1704 layout toggle [split|all]
1705 --------------------------------------------
1709 bindsym $mod+s layout stacking
1710 bindsym $mod+l layout toggle split
1711 bindsym $mod+w layout tabbed
1713 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
1714 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle
1716 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
1717 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle all
1720 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
1722 # Toggle floating/tiling
1723 bindsym $mod+t floating toggle
1726 [[_focusing_moving_containers]]
1728 === Focusing containers
1730 To change focus, you can use the +focus+ command. The following options are
1733 left|right|up|down::
1734 Sets focus to the nearest container in the given direction.
1736 Sets focus to the parent container of the current container.
1738 The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
1741 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
1743 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
1745 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
1747 Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
1748 corresponding output.
1751 ----------------------------------------------
1752 focus left|right|down|up
1753 focus parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle
1754 focus output left|right|up|down|<output>
1755 ----------------------------------------------
1758 -------------------------------------------------
1759 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right
1760 bindsym $mod+j focus left
1761 bindsym $mod+k focus down
1762 bindsym $mod+l focus up
1763 bindsym $mod+semicolon focus right
1765 # Focus parent container
1766 bindsym $mod+u focus parent
1768 # Focus last floating/tiling container
1769 bindsym $mod+g focus mode_toggle
1771 # Focus the output right to the current one
1772 bindsym $mod+x focus output right
1774 # Focus the big output
1775 bindsym $mod+x focus output HDMI-2
1776 -------------------------------------------------
1778 === Moving containers
1780 Use the +move+ command to move a container.
1783 -----------------------------------------------------
1784 # Moves the container into the given direction.
1785 # The optional pixel argument specifies how far the
1786 # container should be moved if it is floating and
1787 # defaults to 10 pixels.
1788 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
1790 # Moves the container either to a specific location
1791 # or to the center of the screen. If 'absolute' is
1792 # used, it is moved to the center of all outputs.
1793 move [absolute] position [[<px> px] [<px> px]|center]
1795 # Moves the container to the current position of the
1796 # mouse cursor. Only affects floating containers.
1798 -----------------------------------------------------
1801 -------------------------------------------------------
1802 # Move container to the left, bottom, top, right
1803 bindsym $mod+j move left
1804 bindsym $mod+k move down
1805 bindsym $mod+l move up
1806 bindsym $mod+semicolon move right
1808 # Move container, but make floating containers
1809 # move more than the default
1810 bindsym $mod+j move left 20 px
1812 # Move floating container to the center of all outputs
1813 bindsym $mod+c move absolute position center
1815 # Move container to the current position of the cursor
1816 bindsym $mod+m move position mouse
1817 -------------------------------------------------------
1819 === Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces
1821 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
1822 number or name of the workspace. To move containers to specific workspaces, use
1823 +move container to workspace+.
1825 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
1826 +workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
1827 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
1828 combination. To restrict those to the current output, use +workspace
1829 next_on_output+ and +workspace prev_on_output+. Similarly, you can use +move
1830 container to workspace next+, +move container to workspace prev+ to move a
1831 container to the next/previous workspace and +move container to workspace current+
1832 (the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).
1834 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
1837 Workspace names are parsed as
1838 https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
1842 To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use +workspace
1843 back_and_forth+; likewise, you can move containers to the previously focused
1844 workspace using +move container to workspace back_and_forth+.
1847 -----------------------------------
1848 workspace next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output
1849 workspace back_and_forth
1851 workspace number <name>
1853 move [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
1854 move [window|container] [to] workspace number <name>
1855 move [window|container] [to] workspace prev|next|current
1856 -----------------------------------
1859 -------------------------
1860 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1
1861 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2
1862 bindsym $mod+3 workspace 3:<span foreground="red">vim</span>
1865 bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
1866 bindsym $mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
1869 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
1870 bindsym $mod+b workspace back_and_forth
1871 bindsym $mod+Shift+b move container to workspace back_and_forth
1873 # move the whole workspace to the next output
1874 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
1876 # move firefox to current workspace
1877 bindsym $mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current
1878 -------------------------
1880 ==== Named workspaces
1882 Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
1883 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:
1886 -------------------------
1887 bindsym $mod+1 workspace mail
1889 -------------------------
1891 If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
1895 -------------------------
1896 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1: mail
1897 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2: www
1899 -------------------------
1901 Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
1902 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
1903 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
1904 will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use +workspace number 1+
1905 to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
1906 it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
1907 dynamically. To combine both commands you can use +workspace number 1: mail+ to
1908 specify a default name if there's currently no workspace starting with a "1".
1910 ==== Renaming workspaces
1912 You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
1913 numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
1914 reflect what’s actually on them. You can also omit the old name to rename
1915 the currently focused workspace. This is handy if you want to use the
1916 rename command with +i3-input+.
1919 ----------------------------------------------------
1920 rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
1921 rename workspace to <new_name>
1922 ----------------------------------------------------
1925 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
1926 i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
1927 i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
1928 i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
1929 i3-msg 'rename workspace to "2: mail"
1930 bindsym $mod+r exec i3-input -F 'rename workspace to "%s"' -P 'New name: '
1931 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
1933 === Moving workspaces to a different screen
1935 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
1938 === Moving containers/workspaces to RandR outputs
1942 To move a container to another RandR output (addressed by names like +LVDS1+ or
1943 +VGA1+) or to a RandR output identified by a specific direction (like +left+,
1944 +right+, +up+ or +down+), there are two commands:
1947 ----------------------------------------------------
1948 move container to output left|right|down|up|<output>
1949 move workspace to output left|right|down|up|<output>
1950 ----------------------------------------------------
1953 --------------------------------------------------------
1954 # Move the current workspace to the next output
1955 # (effectively toggles when you only have two outputs)
1956 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
1958 # Put this window on the presentation output.
1959 bindsym $mod+x move container to output VGA1
1960 --------------------------------------------------------
1962 === Moving containers/workspaces to marks
1964 To move a container to another container with a specific mark (see <<vim_like_marks>>),
1965 you can use the following command.
1967 The window will be moved right after the marked container in the tree, i.e., it ends up
1968 in the same position as if you had opened a new window when the marked container was
1969 focused. If the mark is on a split container, the window will appear as a new child
1970 after the currently focused child within that container.
1973 ------------------------------------
1974 move window|container to mark <mark>
1975 ------------------------------------
1978 --------------------------------------------------------
1979 for_window [instance="tabme"] move window to mark target
1980 --------------------------------------------------------
1984 === Resizing containers/windows
1986 If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
1990 -------------------------------------------------------
1991 resize grow|shrink <direction> [<px> px [or <ppt> ppt]]
1992 -------------------------------------------------------
1994 Direction can either be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. Or you can be
1995 less specific and use +width+ or +height+, in which case i3 will take/give
1996 space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
1997 how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or shrunk (the default
1998 is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
1999 many percentage points a *tiling container* should be grown or shrunk (the
2000 default is 10 percentage points).
2002 I recommend using the resize command inside a so called +mode+:
2004 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
2005 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
2007 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
2009 # Pressing left will shrink the window’s width.
2010 # Pressing right will grow the window’s width.
2011 # Pressing up will shrink the window’s height.
2012 # Pressing down will grow the window’s height.
2013 bindsym j resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
2014 bindsym k resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
2015 bindsym l resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
2016 bindsym semicolon resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
2018 # same bindings, but for the arrow keys
2019 bindsym Left resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
2020 bindsym Down resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
2021 bindsym Up resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
2022 bindsym Right resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
2024 # back to normal: Enter or Escape
2025 bindsym Return mode "default"
2026 bindsym Escape mode "default"
2030 bindsym $mod+r mode "resize"
2031 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
2033 === Jumping to specific windows
2035 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
2036 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
2037 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
2038 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mail client,
2039 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
2040 with criteria for that.
2043 ----------------------------------------------------
2044 [class="class"] focus
2045 [title="title"] focus
2046 ----------------------------------------------------
2049 ------------------------------------------------
2050 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
2051 bindsym $mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
2052 ------------------------------------------------
2054 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
2058 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
2059 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
2060 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
2061 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You can unmark the label in the same
2062 way, using the unmark command. If you don't specify a label, unmark removes all
2063 marks. You do not need to ensure that your windows have unique classes or
2064 titles, and you do not need to change your configuration file.
2066 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
2067 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
2068 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
2069 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
2071 The additional +--toggle+ option will remove the mark if the window already has
2072 this mark, add it if the window has none or replace the current mark if it has
2075 Refer to +show_marks+ if you don't want marks to be shown in the window decoration.
2078 ------------------------------
2079 mark [--toggle] <identifier>
2080 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
2082 ------------------------------
2084 *Example (in a terminal)*:
2085 ------------------------------
2087 $ i3-msg '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
2088 $ i3-msg unmark irssi
2089 ------------------------------
2091 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2092 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
2094 ---------------------------------------
2095 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
2096 bindsym $mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
2098 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
2099 bindsym $mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
2100 ---------------------------------------
2102 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
2103 seperate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
2104 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2106 === Window title format
2108 By default, i3 will simply print the X11 window title. Using +title_format+,
2109 this can be customized by setting the format to the desired output. This
2111 https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
2112 and the following placeholders which will be replaced:
2115 The X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
2117 Using the <<for_window>> directive, you can set the title format for any window
2118 based on <<command_criteria>>.
2121 ---------------------
2122 title_format <format>
2123 ---------------------
2126 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2127 # give the focused window a prefix
2128 bindsym $mod+p title_format "Important | %title"
2130 # print all window titles bold
2131 for_window [class=".*"] title_format "<b>%title</b>"
2133 # print window titles of firefox windows red
2134 for_window [class="(?i)firefox"] title_format "<span foreground='red'>%title</span>"
2135 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2137 === Changing border style
2139 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
2140 border (including window title), +border pixel 1+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
2141 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
2143 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
2146 -----------------------------------------------
2147 border normal|pixel [<n>]
2150 # legacy syntax, equivalent to "border pixel 1"
2152 -----------------------------------------------
2155 ----------------------------------------------
2156 # use window title, but no border
2157 bindsym $mod+t border normal 0
2158 # use no window title and a thick border
2159 bindsym $mod+y border pixel 3
2160 # use neither window title nor border
2161 bindsym $mod+u border none
2162 ----------------------------------------------
2166 === Enabling shared memory logging
2168 As described in http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html, i3 can log to a shared
2169 memory buffer, which you can dump using +i3-dump-log+. The +shmlog+ command
2170 allows you to enable or disable the shared memory logging at runtime.
2172 Note that when using +shmlog <size_in_bytes>+, the current log will be
2173 discarded and a new one will be started.
2176 ------------------------------
2177 shmlog <size_in_bytes>
2178 shmlog on|off|toggle
2179 ------------------------------
2183 # Enable/disable logging
2184 bindsym $mod+x shmlog toggle
2186 # or, from a terminal:
2187 # increase the shared memory log buffer to 50 MiB
2188 i3-msg shmlog $((50*1024*1024))
2191 === Enabling debug logging
2193 The +debuglog+ command allows you to enable or disable debug logging at
2194 runtime. Debug logging is much more verbose than non-debug logging. This
2195 command does not activate shared memory logging (shmlog), and as such is most
2196 likely useful in combination with the above-described <<shmlog>> command.
2199 ----------------------
2200 debuglog on|off|toggle
2201 ----------------------
2204 ------------------------
2205 # Enable/disable logging
2206 bindsym $mod+x debuglog toggle
2207 ------------------------
2209 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
2211 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
2212 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
2213 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
2214 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
2215 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
2218 ----------------------------
2219 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
2220 bindsym $mod+Shift+w reload
2221 bindsym $mod+Shift+e exit
2222 ----------------------------
2226 There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. +move
2227 scratchpad+ will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
2228 invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
2229 Instead, when using +scratchpad show+, the window will be shown again, as a
2230 floating window, centered on your current workspace (using +scratchpad show+ on
2231 a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
2232 keybinding to toggle). Note that this is just a normal floating window, so if
2233 you want to "remove it from scratchpad", you can simple make it tiling again
2234 (+floating toggle+).
2236 As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
2237 editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
2238 running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
2239 player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?
2249 ------------------------------------------------
2250 # Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
2251 bindsym $mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad
2253 # Show the first scratchpad window
2254 bindsym $mod+minus scratchpad show
2256 # Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
2257 bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show
2258 ------------------------------------------------
2262 There is a no operation command +nop+ which allows you to override default
2263 behavior. This can be useful for, e.g., disabling a focus change on clicks with
2264 the middle mouse button.
2266 The optional +comment+ argument is ignored, but will be printed to the log file
2267 for debugging purposes.
2275 ----------------------------------------------
2276 # Disable focus change for clicks on titlebars
2277 # with the middle mouse button
2279 ----------------------------------------------
2283 There are two options in the configuration of each i3bar instance that can be
2284 changed during runtime by invoking a command through i3. The commands +bar
2285 hidden_state+ and +bar mode+ allow setting the current hidden_state
2286 respectively mode option of each bar. It is also possible to toggle between
2287 hide state and show state as well as between dock mode and hide mode. Each
2288 i3bar instance can be controlled individually by specifying a bar_id, if none
2289 is given, the command is executed for all bar instances.
2293 bar hidden_state hide|show|toggle [<bar_id>]
2295 bar mode dock|hide|invisible|toggle [<bar_id>]
2299 ------------------------------------------------
2300 # Toggle between hide state and show state
2301 bindsym $mod+m bar hidden_state toggle
2303 # Toggle between dock mode and hide mode
2304 bindsym $mod+n bar mode toggle
2306 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to switch to hide mode
2307 bindsym $mod+b bar mode hide bar-1
2309 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to always stay hidden
2310 bindsym $mod+Shift+b bar mode invisible bar-1
2311 ------------------------------------------------
2315 == Multiple monitors
2317 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
2318 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
2319 handle multiple monitors.
2321 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
2322 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
2324 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
2325 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
2326 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
2327 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
2328 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
2329 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
2330 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
2332 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
2333 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
2334 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
2335 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
2336 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
2337 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
2338 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
2339 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
2341 === Configuring your monitors
2343 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
2344 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
2345 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
2346 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
2347 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2349 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
2350 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
2351 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2352 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2353 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2355 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2356 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2360 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2362 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
2363 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
2364 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
2365 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
2367 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
2368 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
2369 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
2371 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
2372 -------------------------------------------
2373 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
2374 -------------------------------------------
2375 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
2376 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
2377 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
2378 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2380 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
2381 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
2382 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
2385 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
2387 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2388 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
2390 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2391 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2392 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2394 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2395 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2399 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2400 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
2401 only what you can see in xrandr.
2403 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
2405 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
2407 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
2408 have more than one monitor:
2410 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
2411 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
2412 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
2413 <<workspace_screen>>.
2414 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
2415 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
2416 <<assign_workspace>>.
2417 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
2418 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
2419 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
2420 4. For information on how to move existing workspaces between monitors,
2421 see <<_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs>>.
2423 == i3 and the rest of your software world
2425 === Displaying a status line
2427 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
2428 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
2429 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
2431 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
2432 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
2433 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
2434 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
2435 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
2436 i3bar. See <<status_command>> for how to display i3status in i3bar.
2438 Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
2439 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
2440 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
2441 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
2442 see <<i3bar_position>>.
2444 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
2446 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
2447 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
2448 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
2449 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
2453 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
2454 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
2455 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
2456 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
2457 -----------------------------------------------------
2458 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
2459 -----------------------------------------------------
2460 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
2461 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
2462 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
2464 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
2465 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
2466 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
2467 -----------------------------------------------------
2468 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
2469 -----------------------------------------------------
2470 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
2471 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
2473 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
2474 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
2475 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).