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+$mod",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]
23 The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
26 Note that when starting i3 without a config file, i3-config-wizard will offer
27 you to create a config file in which the key positions (!) match what you see
28 in the image above, regardless of the keyboard layout you are using. If you
29 prefer to use a config file where the key letters match what you are seeing
30 above, just decline i3-config-wizard’s offer and base your config on
35 Throughout this guide, the keyword +$mod+ will be used to refer to the
36 configured modifier. This is the Alt key (Mod1) by default, with the Windows
37 key (Mod4) being a popular alternative.
39 === Opening terminals and moving around
41 One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
42 for this is $mod+Enter, that is Alt+Enter in the default configuration. By
43 pressing $mod+Enter, a new terminal will be opened. It will fill the whole
44 space available on your screen.
46 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
48 If you now open another terminal, i3 will place it next to the current one,
49 splitting the screen size in half. Depending on your monitor, i3 will put the
50 created window beside the existing window (on wide displays) or below the
51 existing window (rotated displays).
53 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
55 To move the focus between the two terminals, you can use the direction keys
56 which you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used
57 for these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for
58 compatibility with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +$mod+J+ is left, +$mod+K+
59 is down, +$mod+L+ is up and `$mod+;` is right. So, to switch between the
60 terminals, use +$mod+K+ or +$mod+L+. Of course, you can also use the arrow keys.
62 At the moment, your workspace is split (it contains two terminals) in a
63 specific direction (horizontal by default). Every window can be split
64 horizontally or vertically again, just like the workspace. The terminology is
65 "window" for a container that actually contains an X11 window (like a terminal
66 or browser) and "split container" for containers that consist of one or more
69 TODO: picture of the tree
71 To split a window vertically, press +$mod+v+ before you create the new window.
72 To split it horizontally, press +$mod+h+.
74 === Changing the container layout
76 A split container can have one of the following layouts:
79 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
80 container. splith distributes the windows horizontally (windows are right next
81 to each other), splitv distributes them vertically (windows are on top of each
84 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
85 windows at the top of the container.
87 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
88 a single line which is vertically split.
90 To switch modes, press +$mod+e+ for splith/splitv (it toggles), +$mod+s+ for
91 stacking and +$mod+w+ for tabbed.
93 image:modes.png[Container modes]
95 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
97 To display a window in fullscreen mode or to go out of fullscreen mode again,
100 There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will span all
101 available outputs (the command is +fullscreen toggle global+).
103 === Opening other applications
105 Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
106 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +$mod+d+ by default. Just type the name
107 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The corresponding
108 application has to be in your +$PATH+ for this to work.
110 Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
111 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
112 <<configuring>> for details.
116 If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
117 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
118 can press +$mod+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
119 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
120 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
121 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
122 depends on the application.
126 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
127 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
128 another workspace, press +$mod+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
129 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
131 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
132 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one, and the ones with which you
133 work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
135 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
136 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
137 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
138 focus to that screen.
140 === Moving windows to workspaces
142 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +$mod+Shift+num+ where
143 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
144 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
145 it does not yet exist.
149 The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
150 and move it to the wanted size.
152 See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
153 columns/rows with your keyboard.
155 === Restarting i3 inplace
157 To restart i3 in place (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
158 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +$mod+Shift+r+.
162 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +$mod+Shift+e+.
163 By default, a dialog will ask you to confirm if you really want to quit.
167 Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of
168 a window are not managed automatically by i3, but manually by
169 you. Using this mode violates the tiling paradigm but can be useful
170 for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog windows, or toolbar
171 windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the appropriate
172 hint and are opened in floating mode by default.
174 You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing +$mod+Shift+Space+. By
175 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
176 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
177 can also do that by using the <<floating_modifier>>. Another way to resize
178 floating windows using the mouse is to right-click on the titlebar and drag.
180 For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see <<resizingconfig>>.
182 Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.
186 i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
187 windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
188 the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
189 finally the windows themselves. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
190 (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
191 out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.
193 === The tree consists of Containers
195 The building blocks of our tree are so called +Containers+. A +Container+ can
196 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
197 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more +Containers+. A
198 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
199 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
202 image::tree-layout2.png["layout2",float="right"]
203 image::tree-shot4.png["shot4",title="Two terminals on standard workspace"]
205 === Orientation and Split Containers
209 It is only natural to use so-called +Split Containers+ in order to build a
210 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every +Container+ has an
211 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified) and the orientation depends
212 on the layout the container is in (vertical for splitv and stacking, horizontal
213 for splith and tabbed). So, in our example with the workspace, the default
214 layout of the workspace +Container+ is splith (most monitors are widescreen
215 nowadays). If you change the layout to splitv (+$mod+v+ in the default config)
216 and *then* open two terminals, i3 will configure your windows like this:
218 image::tree-shot2.png["shot2",title="Vertical Workspace Orientation"]
220 An interesting new feature of i3 since version 4 is the ability to split anything:
221 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with splith layout, that is
222 horizontal orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open
223 another terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new
224 terminal window, it would show up to the right due to the splith layout.
225 Instead, press +$mod+v+ to split the container with the splitv layout (to
226 open a +Horizontal Split Container+, use +$mod+h+). Now you can open a new
227 terminal and it will open below the current one:
229 image::tree-layout1.png["Layout",float="right"]
230 image::tree-shot1.png["shot",title="Vertical Split Container"]
234 You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
239 Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
240 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
241 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.
243 So, how can you open a new terminal window to the *right* of the current one?
244 The solution is to use +focus parent+, which will focus the +Parent Container+ of
245 the current +Container+. In this case, you would focus the +Vertical Split
246 Container+ which is *inside* the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
247 windows will be opened to the right of the +Vertical Split Container+:
249 image::tree-shot3.png["shot3",title="Focus parent, then open new terminal"]
251 === Implicit containers
253 In some cases, i3 needs to implicitly create a container to fulfill your
256 One example is the following scenario: You start i3 with a single monitor and a
257 single workspace on which you open three terminal windows. All these terminal
258 windows are directly attached to one node inside i3’s layout tree, the
259 workspace node. By default, the workspace node’s orientation is +horizontal+.
261 Now you move one of these terminals down (+$mod+Shift+k+ by default). The
262 workspace node’s orientation will be changed to +vertical+. The terminal window
263 you moved down is directly attached to the workspace and appears on the bottom
264 of the screen. A new (horizontal) container was created to accommodate the
265 other two terminal windows. You will notice this when switching to tabbed mode
266 (for example). You would end up having one tab with a representation of the split
267 container (e.g., "H[urxvt firefox]") and the other one being the terminal window
273 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependent on your
274 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
276 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
277 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
280 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
281 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
282 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
283 can bind your keys to do useful things.
285 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
286 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
289 On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
290 file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
291 wizard to use either Alt (Mod1) or Windows (Mod4) as modifier in the config
292 file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
293 keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command +i3-config-wizard+.
294 Please note that you must not have +~/.i3/config+, otherwise the wizard will
299 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
300 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
301 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:
312 i3 has support for both X core fonts and FreeType fonts (through Pango) to
313 render window titles.
315 To generate an X core font description, you can use +xfontsel(1)+. To see
316 special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the
319 A FreeType font description is composed by a font family, a style, a weight,
320 a variant, a stretch and a size.
321 FreeType fonts support right-to-left rendering and contain often more
322 Unicode glyphs than X core fonts.
324 If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
325 and fall back to a working font.
328 ------------------------------
329 font <X core font description>
330 font pango:<family list> [<style options>] <size>
331 ------------------------------
334 --------------------------------------------------------------
335 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
336 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
337 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono, Terminus Bold Semi-Condensed 11
338 font pango:Terminus 11px
339 --------------------------------------------------------------
343 === Keyboard bindings
345 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
346 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
347 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
349 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
350 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
351 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
352 mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+. To interactively enter a key and
353 see what keysym it is configured to, use +xev+.
355 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
356 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
357 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
359 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
360 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
361 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
364 Some tools (such as +import+ or +xdotool+) might be unable to run upon a
365 KeyPress event, because the keyboard/pointer is still grabbed. For these
366 situations, the +--release+ flag can be used, which will execute the command
367 after the keys have been released.
370 ----------------------------------
371 bindsym [--release] [<Modifiers>+]<keysym> command
372 bindcode [--release] [<Modifiers>+]<keycode> command
373 ----------------------------------
376 --------------------------------
378 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
381 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
383 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
384 bindcode 214 exec --no-startup-id /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
386 # Simulate ctrl+v upon pressing $mod+x
387 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v
389 # Take a screenshot upon pressing $mod+x (select an area)
390 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id import /tmp/latest-screenshot.png
391 --------------------------------
395 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
396 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
399 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
400 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
401 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
402 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
403 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
409 A mouse binding makes i3 execute a command upon pressing a specific mouse
410 button in the scope of the clicked container (see <<command_criteria>>). You
411 can configure mouse bindings in a similar way to key bindings.
414 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
415 bindsym [--release] [--border] [--whole-window] [<Modifiers>+]button<n> command
416 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
418 By default, the binding will only run when you click on the titlebar of the
419 window. If the +--release+ flag is given, it will run when the mouse button
422 If the +--whole-window+ flag is given, the binding will also run when any part
423 of the window is clicked, with the exception of the border. To have a bind run
424 when the border is clicked, specify the +--border+ flag.
427 --------------------------------
428 # The middle button over a titlebar kills the window
429 bindsym --release button2 kill
431 # The middle button and a modifer over any part of the window kills the window
432 bindsym --whole-window $mod+button2 kill
434 # The right button toggles floating
435 bindsym button3 floating toggle
436 bindsym $mod+button3 floating toggle
438 # The side buttons move the window around
439 bindsym button9 move left
440 bindsym button8 move right
441 --------------------------------
443 [[floating_modifier]]
445 === The floating modifier
447 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
448 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
449 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
450 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
451 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
452 it to the position you want.
454 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
455 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
456 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
457 ratio will be preserved).
460 --------------------------------
461 floating_modifier <Modifier>
462 --------------------------------
465 --------------------------------
466 floating_modifier Mod1
467 --------------------------------
469 === Constraining floating window size
471 The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
472 either dimension of +floating_maximum_size+ is specified as -1, that dimension
473 will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
474 +floating_maximum_size+ is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
475 value to constrain the maximum size. +floating_minimum_size+ is treated in a
476 manner analogous to +floating_maximum_size+.
479 ----------------------------------------
480 floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
481 floating_maximum_size <width> x <height>
482 ----------------------------------------
485 --------------------------------------
486 floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
487 floating_maximum_size -1 x -1
488 --------------------------------------
490 === Orientation for new workspaces
492 New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
493 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
494 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.
496 With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
500 --------------------------------------------
501 default_orientation horizontal|vertical|auto
502 --------------------------------------------
505 ----------------------------
506 default_orientation vertical
507 ----------------------------
509 === Layout mode for new containers
511 This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
515 ---------------------------------------------
516 workspace_layout default|stacking|tabbed
517 ---------------------------------------------
520 ---------------------
521 workspace_layout tabbed
522 ---------------------
524 === Border style for new windows
526 This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
527 +normal+. Note that new_float applies only to windows which are starting out as
528 floating windows, e.g., dialog windows, but not windows that are floated later on.
531 ---------------------------------------------
532 new_window normal|none|pixel
533 new_window normal|pixel <px>
534 new_float normal|none|pixel
535 new_float normal|pixel <px>
536 ---------------------------------------------
539 ---------------------
541 ---------------------
543 The "normal" and "pixel" border styles support an optional border width in
547 ---------------------
548 # The same as new_window none
553 ---------------------
556 === Hiding vertical borders
558 You can hide vertical borders adjacent to the screen edges using
559 +hide_edge_borders+. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
560 to waste even two pixels in displayspace. Default is none.
563 -----------------------------------------------
564 hide_edge_borders none|vertical|horizontal|both
565 -----------------------------------------------
568 ----------------------
569 hide_edge_borders vertical
570 ----------------------
572 === Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)
576 With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
577 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
578 change their border style, for example.
581 -------------------------------
582 for_window <criteria> <command>
583 -------------------------------
586 ------------------------------------------------
587 # enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
588 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
590 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
591 for_window [class="urxvt"] border pixel 1
593 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
594 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
595 # directory to ~/work
596 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
597 ------------------------------------------------
599 The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.
601 === Don't focus window upon opening
605 When a new window appears, it will be focused. The +no_focus+ directive allows preventing
606 this from happening and can be used in combination with <<command_criteria>>.
608 Note that this does not apply to all cases, e.g., when feeding data into a running application
609 causing it to request being focused. To configure the behavior in such cases, refer to
610 <<focus_on_window_activation>>.
618 -------------------------------
619 no_focus [window_role="pop-up"]
620 -------------------------------
624 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
625 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
626 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
627 variables can be handy.
635 ------------------------
637 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
638 ------------------------
640 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. Variables expansion
641 is not recursive so it is not possible to define a variable with a value
642 containing another variable. There is no fancy handling and there are
643 absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more dynamic configuration
644 you should create a little script which generates a configuration file and run
645 it before starting i3 (for example in your +~/.xsession+ file).
647 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
651 To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
652 can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
653 see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
654 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
655 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
656 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
657 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
658 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
659 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
660 to match on 'Firefox' in this case.
662 Assignments are processed by i3 in the order in which they appear in the config
663 file. The first one which matches the window wins and later assignments are not
667 ------------------------------------------------------------
668 assign <criteria> [→] [workspace] <workspace>
669 ------------------------------------------------------------
672 ----------------------
673 # Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
674 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
676 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
677 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
679 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
680 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
682 # Assignment to a named workspace
683 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
685 # Start urxvt -name irssi
686 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
687 ----------------------
689 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
690 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
692 To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
693 window, you will see the following output:
696 -----------------------------------
697 WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
698 -----------------------------------
700 The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
701 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).
703 Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
704 logfile first (see http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
705 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
706 title when starting up.
708 Note that if you want to start an application just once on a specific
709 workspace, but you don’t want to assign all instances of it permanently, you
710 can make use of i3’s startup-notification support (see <<exec>>) in your config
711 file in the following way:
713 *Start iceweasel on workspace 3 (once)*:
714 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
715 # Start iceweasel on workspace 3, then switch back to workspace 1
716 # (Being a command-line utility, i3-msg does not support startup notifications,
717 # hence the exec --no-startup-id.)
718 # (Starting iceweasel with i3’s exec command is important in order to make i3
719 # create a startup notification context, without which the iceweasel window(s)
720 # cannot be matched onto the workspace on which the command was started.)
721 exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 3; exec iceweasel; workspace 1'
722 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
724 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
726 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
727 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
728 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
729 also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
730 keyword. These commands will be run in order.
732 See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
733 and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
734 strings if they appear in your command.
737 ---------------------------------------
738 exec [--no-startup-id] <command>
739 exec_always [--no-startup-id] <command>
740 ---------------------------------------
743 --------------------------------
745 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
747 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
748 exec --no-startup-id urxvt
749 --------------------------------
751 The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <<exec>>.
755 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
757 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
758 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
759 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
760 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
761 the second screen and so on).
764 -------------------------------------
765 workspace <workspace> output <output>
766 -------------------------------------
768 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
769 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
770 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
772 If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:
775 ---------------------------
776 workspace 1 output LVDS1
777 workspace 5 output VGA1
778 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1
779 ---------------------------
783 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.
786 ------------------------------------------------------
787 <colorclass> <border> <background> <text> <indicator>
788 ------------------------------------------------------
790 Where colorclass can be one of:
793 A client which currently has the focus.
794 client.focused_inactive::
795 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
796 the focus at the moment.
798 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
800 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
802 Background and text color are used to draw placeholder window contents
803 (when restoring layouts). Border and indicator are ignored.
805 Background color which will be used to paint the background of the
806 client window on top of which the client will be rendered. Only clients
807 which do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color. Note
808 that this colorclass only takes a single 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
821 client.background #ffffff
822 ---------------------------------------------------------
824 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
825 background color, and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
828 The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
829 For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
830 color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
831 single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
832 from single windows outside of a split container.
834 === Interprocess communication
836 i3 uses Unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
837 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
838 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
840 The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
841 +/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username, +%p+ is
842 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
843 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).
845 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
846 by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
847 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
848 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
849 user can create that directory.
852 ----------------------------
853 ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock
854 ----------------------------
856 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
859 === Focus follows mouse
861 By default, window focus follows your mouse movements. However, if you have a
862 setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad on your laptop
863 which you do not want to disable completely), you might want to disable 'focus
864 follows mouse' and control focus only by using your keyboard. The mouse will
865 still be useful inside the currently active window (for example to click on
866 links in your browser window).
869 --------------------------
870 focus_follows_mouse yes|no
871 --------------------------
874 ----------------------
875 focus_follows_mouse no
876 ----------------------
880 By default, when switching focus to a window on a different output (e.g.
881 focusing a window on workspace 3 on output VGA-1, coming from workspace 2 on
882 LVDS-1), the mouse cursor is warped to the center of that window.
884 With the +mouse_warping+ option, you can control when the mouse cursor should
885 be warped. +none+ disables warping entirely, whereas +output+ is the default
886 behavior described above.
889 -------------------------
890 mouse_warping output|none
891 -------------------------
898 === Popups during fullscreen mode
900 When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
901 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
902 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
903 There are three things which are possible to do in this situation:
905 1. Display the popup if it belongs to the fullscreen application only. This is
906 the default and should be reasonable behavior for most users.
907 2. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
908 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
909 you go out of fullscreen).
910 3. Leave fullscreen mode.
913 -----------------------------------------------------
914 popup_during_fullscreen smart|ignore|leave_fullscreen
915 -----------------------------------------------------
918 ------------------------------
919 popup_during_fullscreen smart
920 ------------------------------
924 When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
925 focused when you use +focus down+ on the last container -- the focus wraps. If
926 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
927 be set on that container. This is the default behavior so you can navigate to
928 all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.
930 If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
931 parent+ to switch to different containers, you can use the
932 +force_focus_wrapping+ configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
936 ---------------------------
937 force_focus_wrapping yes|no
938 ---------------------------
941 ------------------------
942 force_focus_wrapping yes
943 ------------------------
947 As explained in-depth in <http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html>, some X11
948 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
949 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
950 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
951 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
954 For people who cannot modify their +~/.xsession+ to add the
955 +--force-xinerama+ commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:
958 ---------------------
959 force_xinerama yes|no
960 ---------------------
967 Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like +HDMI1+) when using
968 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: +xinerama-0+, +xinerama-1+, …
970 === Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace
972 This configuration directive enables automatic +workspace back_and_forth+ (see
973 <<back_and_forth>>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.
975 For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
976 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
977 came from now, you can just press $mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".
980 ------------------------------------
981 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes|no
982 ------------------------------------
985 ---------------------------------
986 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes
987 ---------------------------------
989 === Delaying urgency hint reset on workspace change
991 If an application on another workspace sets an urgency hint, switching to this
992 workspace may lead to immediate focus of the application, which also means the
993 window decoration color would be immediately reset to +client.focused+. This
994 may make it unnecessarily hard to tell which window originally raised the
997 In order to prevent this, you can tell i3 to delay resetting the urgency state
998 by a certain time using the +force_display_urgency_hint+ directive. Setting the
999 value to 0 disables this feature.
1001 The default is 500ms.
1004 ---------------------------------------
1005 force_display_urgency_hint <timeout> ms
1006 ---------------------------------------
1009 ---------------------------------
1010 force_display_urgency_hint 500 ms
1011 ---------------------------------
1013 === Delaying exiting on zero displays
1015 Outputs may disappear momentarily and come back later. For example,
1016 using a docking station that does not announce the undock (e.g. ACPI Undock
1017 event triggered through manually pushing a button before actually ejecting
1018 the notebook). During the removal of the notebook from the docking station,
1019 all outputs disappear momentarily.
1021 To prevent i3 from exiting when no output is available momentarily, you can
1022 tell i3 to delay a certain time first and check available outputs again using
1023 the +delay_exit_on_zero_displays+ directive. Setting the value to 0 disables
1026 The default is 500ms.
1029 ----------------------------------------
1030 delay_exit_on_zero_displays <timeout> ms
1031 ----------------------------------------
1034 ----------------------------------
1035 delay_exit_on_zero_displays 500 ms
1036 ----------------------------------
1038 === Focus on window activation
1040 [[focus_on_window_activation]]
1042 If a window is activated, e.g., via +google-chrome www.google.com+, it may request
1043 to take focus. Since this may not preferable, different reactions can be configured.
1045 Note that this may not affect windows that are being opened. To prevent new windows
1046 from being focused, see <<no_focus>>.
1049 --------------------------------------------------
1050 focus_on_window_activation smart|urgent|focus|none
1051 --------------------------------------------------
1053 The different modes will act as follows:
1056 This is the default behavior. If the window requesting focus is on an active
1057 workspace, it will receive the focus. Otherwise, the urgency hint will be set.
1059 The window will always be marked urgent, but the focus will not be stolen.
1061 The window will always be focused and not be marked urgent.
1063 The window will neither be focused, nor be marked urgent.
1065 === Drawing marks on window decoration
1067 If activated, marks on windows are drawn in their window decoration. However,
1068 any mark starting with an underscore in its name (+_+) will not be drawn even if
1069 this option is activated.
1071 The default for this option is +yes+.
1083 [[line_continuation]]
1085 === Line continuation
1087 Config files support line continuation, meaning when you end a line in a
1088 backslash character (`\`), the line-break will be ignored by the parser. This
1089 feature can be used to create more readable configuration files.
1097 == Configuring i3bar
1099 The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
1100 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
1103 1. It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
1104 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
1105 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
1106 2. It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
1107 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
1108 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
1109 3. It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
1110 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
1112 That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
1113 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
1114 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
1115 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
1116 configuration infrastructure in place.
1118 Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a +bar+ block. You can have
1119 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):
1122 ---------------------------
1124 status_command i3status
1126 ---------------------------
1130 By default i3 will just pass +i3bar+ and let your shell handle the execution,
1131 searching your +$PATH+ for a correct version.
1132 If you have a different +i3bar+ somewhere or the binary is not in your +$PATH+ you can
1133 tell i3 what to execute.
1135 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1136 have to have correct quoting etc.
1139 -----------------------
1140 i3bar_command <command>
1141 -----------------------
1144 -------------------------------------------------
1146 i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
1148 -------------------------------------------------
1151 === Statusline command
1153 i3bar can run a program and display every line of its +stdout+ output on the
1154 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
1155 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.
1157 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1158 have to have correct quoting etc. Note that for signal handling, depending on
1159 your shell (users of dash(1) are known to be affected), you have to use the
1160 shell’s exec command so that signals are passed to your program, not to the
1164 ------------------------
1165 status_command <command>
1166 ------------------------
1169 -------------------------------------------------
1171 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
1173 # For dash(1) users who want signal handling to work:
1174 status_command exec ~/.bin/my_status_command
1176 -------------------------------------------------
1180 You can either have i3bar be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
1181 (+dock+ mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (+hide+ mode).
1182 It is also possible to force i3bar to always stay hidden (+invisible+
1183 mode). The modifier key can be configured using the +modifier+ option.
1185 The mode option can be changed during runtime through the +bar mode+ command.
1186 On reload the mode will be reverted to its configured value.
1188 The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
1189 i3bar sends the +SIGSTOP+ and +SIGCONT+ signals to the statusline process to
1192 Invisible mode allows to permanently maximize screen space, as the bar is never
1193 shown. Thus, you can configure i3bar to not disturb you by popping up because
1194 of an urgency hint or because the modifier key is pressed.
1196 In order to control whether i3bar is hidden or shown in hide mode, there exists
1197 the hidden_state option, which has no effect in dock mode or invisible mode. It
1198 indicates the current hidden_state of the bar: (1) The bar acts like in normal
1199 hide mode, it is hidden and is only unhidden in case of urgency hints or by
1200 pressing the modifier key (+hide+ state), or (2) it is drawn on top of the
1201 currently visible workspace (+show+ state).
1203 Like the mode, the hidden_state can also be controlled through i3, this can be
1204 done by using the +bar hidden_state+ command.
1206 The default mode is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
1207 the windows key). The default value for the hidden_state is hide.
1210 -------------------------
1211 mode dock|hide|invisible
1212 hidden_state hide|show
1214 ------------------------
1225 Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see +xmodmap(1)+).
1227 === Mouse button commands
1229 Specifies a command to run when a button was pressed on i3bar to override the
1230 default behavior. This is useful, e.g., for disabling the scroll wheel action
1231 or running scripts that implement custom behavior for these buttons.
1233 A button is always named +button<n>+, where 1 to 5 are default buttons as follows and higher
1234 numbers can be special buttons on devices offering more buttons:
1239 Middle mouse button.
1247 Please note that the old +wheel_up_cmd+ and +wheel_down_cmd+ commands are deprecated
1248 and will be removed in a future release. We strongly recommend using the more general
1249 +bindsym+ with +button4+ and +button5+ instead.
1252 ----------------------------
1253 bindsym button<n> <command>
1254 ----------------------------
1257 ---------------------------------------------------------
1259 # disable clicking on workspace buttons
1261 # execute custom script when scrolling downwards
1262 bindsym button5 exec ~/.i3/scripts/custom_wheel_down
1264 ---------------------------------------------------------
1268 Specifies the bar ID for the configured bar instance. If this option is missing,
1269 the ID is set to 'bar-x', where x corresponds to the position of the embedding
1270 bar block in the config file ('bar-0', 'bar-1', ...).
1273 ---------------------
1275 ---------------------
1278 ---------------------
1282 ---------------------
1287 This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.
1289 The default is bottom.
1297 ---------------------
1301 ---------------------
1305 You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
1306 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
1307 options for different outputs by using multiple 'bar' blocks.
1309 To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
1310 directive multiple times.
1318 -------------------------------
1319 # big monitor: everything
1321 # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
1324 status_command i3status
1327 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
1330 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
1336 -------------------------------
1340 i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
1341 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.
1343 You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
1344 you can turn off the functionality entirely.
1347 ---------------------------------
1348 tray_output none|primary|<output>
1349 ---------------------------------
1352 -------------------------
1353 # disable system tray
1358 # show tray icons on the primary monitor
1363 # show tray icons on the big monitor
1367 -------------------------
1369 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1370 -------------------------
1371 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1372 -------------------------
1376 The tray is shown on the right-hand side of the bar. By default, a padding of 2
1377 pixels is used for the upper, lower and right-hand side of the tray area and
1378 between the individual icons.
1381 -------------------------
1382 tray_padding <px> [px]
1383 -------------------------
1386 -------------------------
1389 -------------------------
1393 Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <<fonts>>.
1396 ---------------------
1398 ---------------------
1401 --------------------------------------------------------------
1403 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
1404 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
1406 --------------------------------------------------------------
1408 === Custom separator symbol
1410 Specifies a custom symbol to be used for the separator as opposed to the vertical,
1411 one pixel thick separator.
1414 -------------------------
1415 separator_symbol <symbol>
1416 -------------------------
1419 ------------------------
1421 separator_symbol ":|:"
1423 ------------------------
1425 === Workspace buttons
1427 Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
1428 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.
1430 The default is to show workspace buttons.
1433 ------------------------
1434 workspace_buttons yes|no
1435 ------------------------
1438 ------------------------
1440 workspace_buttons no
1442 ------------------------
1444 === Strip workspace numbers
1446 Specifies whether workspace numbers should be displayed within the workspace
1447 buttons. This is useful if you want to have a named workspace that stays in
1448 order on the bar according to its number without displaying the number prefix.
1450 When +strip_workspace_numbers+ is set to +yes+, any workspace that has a name of
1451 the form "[n]:[NAME]" will display only the name. You could use this, for
1452 instance, to display Roman numerals rather than digits by naming your
1453 workspaces to "1:I", "2:II", "3:III", "4:IV", ...
1455 The default is to display the full name within the workspace button.
1458 ------------------------------
1459 strip_workspace_numbers yes|no
1460 ------------------------------
1463 ----------------------------
1465 strip_workspace_numbers yes
1467 ----------------------------
1469 === Binding Mode indicator
1471 Specifies whether the current binding mode indicator should be shown or not.
1472 This is useful if you want to hide the workspace buttons but still be able
1473 to see the current binding mode indicator.
1474 For an example of a +mode+ definition, see <<resizingconfig>>.
1476 The default is to show the mode indicator.
1479 -----------------------------
1480 binding_mode_indicator yes|no
1481 -----------------------------
1484 -----------------------------
1486 binding_mode_indicator no
1488 -----------------------------
1492 As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
1493 be configured at the moment:
1496 Background color of the bar.
1498 Text color to be used for the statusline.
1500 Text color to be used for the separator.
1502 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1505 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1506 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
1507 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
1508 using multiple monitors.
1509 inactive_workspace::
1510 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1511 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
1512 will be the case for most workspaces.
1514 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1515 contains a window with the urgency hint set.
1517 Border, background and text color for the binding mode indicator. If not used,
1518 the colors will be taken from +urgent_workspace+.
1521 ----------------------------------------
1527 <colorclass> <border> <background> <text>
1529 ----------------------------------------
1531 *Example (default colors)*:
1532 --------------------------------------
1539 focused_workspace #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
1540 active_workspace #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
1541 inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
1542 urgent_workspace #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1543 binding_mode #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1546 --------------------------------------
1550 Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
1551 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
1552 do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:
1555 --------------------------
1556 # execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
1558 --------------------------
1560 [[command_chaining]]
1562 Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
1563 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
1564 the following keybinding:
1567 --------------------------------------------------------
1568 bindsym $mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3
1569 --------------------------------------------------------
1571 [[command_criteria]]
1573 Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command - that is, which containers
1574 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. The criteria
1575 are specified before any command in a pair of square brackets and are separated
1578 When using multiple commands, separate them by using a +,+ (a comma) instead of
1579 a semicolon. Criteria apply only until the next semicolon, so if you use a
1580 semicolon to separate commands, only the first one will be executed for the
1584 ------------------------------------
1585 # if you want to kill all windows which have the class Firefox, use:
1586 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
1588 # same thing, but case-insensitive
1589 bindsym $mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
1591 # kill only the About dialog from Firefox
1592 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox" window_role="About"] kill
1594 # enable floating mode and move container to workspace 4
1595 for_window [class="^evil-app$"] floating enable, move container to workspace 4
1596 ------------------------------------
1598 The criteria which are currently implemented are:
1601 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS)
1603 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS)
1605 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE).
1607 Compare the window type (_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE). Possible values are
1608 +normal+, +dialog+, +utility+, +toolbar+, +splash+, +menu+, +dropdown_menu+,
1609 +popup_menu+ and +toolti+.
1611 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
1613 Compares the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
1615 Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
1616 Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
1617 (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
1619 Compares the workspace name of the workspace the window belongs to.
1621 Compares the mark set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>.
1623 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
1624 interface. Handy for scripting.
1626 The criteria +class+, +instance+, +role+, +title+, +workspace+ and +mark+ are
1627 actually regular expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for
1628 information on how to use them.
1632 === Executing applications (exec)
1634 What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
1635 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
1636 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
1637 searched in your +$PATH+.
1639 See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
1640 and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
1641 strings if they appear in your command.
1644 --------------------------------
1645 exec [--no-startup-id] <command>
1646 --------------------------------
1649 ------------------------------
1651 bindsym $mod+g exec gimp
1653 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
1654 bindsym $mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt
1655 ------------------------------
1657 The +--no-startup-id+ parameter disables startup-notification support for this
1658 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
1659 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
1660 will change the X11 cursor to +watch+ (a clock) while the application is
1661 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
1662 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
1663 cursor for 60 seconds.
1665 === Splitting containers
1667 The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
1668 can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
1669 new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
1670 get placed below the current one (splitv).
1672 If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
1673 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
1674 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window). Use
1675 +layout toggle split+ to change the layout of any split container from splitv
1676 to splith or vice-versa.
1679 -------------------------
1680 split vertical|horizontal
1681 -------------------------
1684 ------------------------------
1685 bindsym $mod+v split vertical
1686 bindsym $mod+h split horizontal
1687 ------------------------------
1689 === Manipulating layout
1691 Use +layout toggle split+, +layout stacking+, +layout tabbed+, +layout splitv+
1692 or +layout splith+ to change the current container layout to splith/splitv,
1693 stacking, tabbed layout, splitv or splith, respectively.
1695 To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen enable+ (or
1696 +fullscreen enable global+ for the global mode), to leave either fullscreen
1697 mode use +fullscreen disable+, and to toggle between these two states use
1698 +fullscreen toggle+ (or +fullscreen toggle global+).
1700 Likewise, to make the current window floating (or tiling again) use +floating
1701 enable+ respectively +floating disable+ (or +floating toggle+):
1704 --------------------------------------------
1705 layout default|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith
1706 layout toggle [split|all]
1707 --------------------------------------------
1711 bindsym $mod+s layout stacking
1712 bindsym $mod+l layout toggle split
1713 bindsym $mod+w layout tabbed
1715 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
1716 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle
1718 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
1719 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle all
1722 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
1724 # Toggle floating/tiling
1725 bindsym $mod+t floating toggle
1728 [[_focusing_moving_containers]]
1730 === Focusing containers
1732 To change focus, you can use the +focus+ command. The following options are
1735 left|right|up|down::
1736 Sets focus to the nearest container in the given direction.
1738 Sets focus to the parent container of the current container.
1740 The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
1743 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
1745 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
1747 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
1749 Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
1750 corresponding output.
1753 ----------------------------------------------
1754 focus left|right|down|up
1755 focus parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle
1756 focus output left|right|up|down|<output>
1757 ----------------------------------------------
1760 -------------------------------------------------
1761 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right
1762 bindsym $mod+j focus left
1763 bindsym $mod+k focus down
1764 bindsym $mod+l focus up
1765 bindsym $mod+semicolon focus right
1767 # Focus parent container
1768 bindsym $mod+u focus parent
1770 # Focus last floating/tiling container
1771 bindsym $mod+g focus mode_toggle
1773 # Focus the output right to the current one
1774 bindsym $mod+x focus output right
1776 # Focus the big output
1777 bindsym $mod+x focus output HDMI-2
1778 -------------------------------------------------
1780 === Moving containers
1782 Use the +move+ command to move a container.
1785 -----------------------------------------------------
1786 # Moves the container into the given direction.
1787 # The optional pixel argument specifies how far the
1788 # container should be moved if it is floating and
1789 # defaults to 10 pixels.
1790 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
1792 # Moves the container either to a specific location
1793 # or to the center of the screen. If 'absolute' is
1794 # used, it is moved to the center of all outputs.
1795 move [absolute] position [[<px> px] [<px> px]|center]
1797 # Moves the container to the current position of the
1798 # mouse cursor. Only affects floating containers.
1800 -----------------------------------------------------
1803 -------------------------------------------------------
1804 # Move container to the left, bottom, top, right
1805 bindsym $mod+j move left
1806 bindsym $mod+k move down
1807 bindsym $mod+l move up
1808 bindsym $mod+semicolon move right
1810 # Move container, but make floating containers
1811 # move more than the default
1812 bindsym $mod+j move left 20 px
1814 # Move floating container to the center of all outputs
1815 bindsym $mod+c move absolute position center
1817 # Move container to the current position of the cursor
1818 bindsym $mod+m move position mouse
1819 -------------------------------------------------------
1821 === Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces
1823 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
1824 number or name of the workspace. To move containers to specific workspaces, use
1825 +move container to workspace+.
1827 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
1828 +workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
1829 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
1830 combination. To restrict those to the current output, use +workspace
1831 next_on_output+ and +workspace prev_on_output+. Similarly, you can use +move
1832 container to workspace next+, +move container to workspace prev+ to move a
1833 container to the next/previous workspace and +move container to workspace current+
1834 (the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).
1836 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
1839 Workspace names are parsed as
1840 https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
1844 To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use +workspace
1845 back_and_forth+; likewise, you can move containers to the previously focused
1846 workspace using +move container to workspace back_and_forth+.
1849 -----------------------------------
1850 workspace next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output
1851 workspace back_and_forth
1853 workspace number <name>
1855 move [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
1856 move [window|container] [to] workspace number <name>
1857 move [window|container] [to] workspace prev|next|current
1858 -----------------------------------
1861 -------------------------
1862 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1
1863 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2
1864 bindsym $mod+3 workspace 3:<span foreground="red">vim</span>
1867 bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
1868 bindsym $mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
1871 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
1872 bindsym $mod+b workspace back_and_forth
1873 bindsym $mod+Shift+b move container to workspace back_and_forth
1875 # move the whole workspace to the next output
1876 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
1878 # move firefox to current workspace
1879 bindsym $mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current
1880 -------------------------
1882 ==== Named workspaces
1884 Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
1885 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:
1888 -------------------------
1889 bindsym $mod+1 workspace mail
1891 -------------------------
1893 If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
1897 -------------------------
1898 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1: mail
1899 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2: www
1901 -------------------------
1903 Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
1904 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
1905 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
1906 will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use +workspace number 1+
1907 to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
1908 it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
1909 dynamically. To combine both commands you can use +workspace number 1: mail+ to
1910 specify a default name if there's currently no workspace starting with a "1".
1912 ==== Renaming workspaces
1914 You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
1915 numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
1916 reflect what’s actually on them. You can also omit the old name to rename
1917 the currently focused workspace. This is handy if you want to use the
1918 rename command with +i3-input+.
1921 ----------------------------------------------------
1922 rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
1923 rename workspace to <new_name>
1924 ----------------------------------------------------
1927 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
1928 i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
1929 i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
1930 i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
1931 i3-msg 'rename workspace to "2: mail"
1932 bindsym $mod+r exec i3-input -F 'rename workspace to "%s"' -P 'New name: '
1933 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
1935 === Moving workspaces to a different screen
1937 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
1940 === Moving containers/workspaces to RandR outputs
1944 To move a container to another RandR output (addressed by names like +LVDS1+ or
1945 +VGA1+) or to a RandR output identified by a specific direction (like +left+,
1946 +right+, +up+ or +down+), there are two commands:
1949 ----------------------------------------------------
1950 move container to output left|right|down|up|<output>
1951 move workspace to output left|right|down|up|<output>
1952 ----------------------------------------------------
1955 --------------------------------------------------------
1956 # Move the current workspace to the next output
1957 # (effectively toggles when you only have two outputs)
1958 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
1960 # Put this window on the presentation output.
1961 bindsym $mod+x move container to output VGA1
1962 --------------------------------------------------------
1964 === Moving containers/workspaces to marks
1966 To move a container to another container with a specific mark (see <<vim_like_marks>>),
1967 you can use the following command.
1969 The window will be moved right after the marked container in the tree, i.e., it ends up
1970 in the same position as if you had opened a new window when the marked container was
1971 focused. If the mark is on a split container, the window will appear as a new child
1972 after the currently focused child within that container.
1975 ------------------------------------
1976 move window|container to mark <mark>
1977 ------------------------------------
1980 --------------------------------------------------------
1981 for_window [instance="tabme"] move window to mark target
1982 --------------------------------------------------------
1986 === Resizing containers/windows
1988 If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
1992 -------------------------------------------------------
1993 resize grow|shrink <direction> [<px> px [or <ppt> ppt]]
1994 -------------------------------------------------------
1996 Direction can either be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. Or you can be
1997 less specific and use +width+ or +height+, in which case i3 will take/give
1998 space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
1999 how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or shrunk (the default
2000 is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
2001 many percentage points a *tiling container* should be grown or shrunk (the
2002 default is 10 percentage points).
2004 I recommend using the resize command inside a so called +mode+:
2006 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
2007 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
2009 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
2011 # Pressing left will shrink the window’s width.
2012 # Pressing right will grow the window’s width.
2013 # Pressing up will shrink the window’s height.
2014 # Pressing down will grow the window’s height.
2015 bindsym j resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
2016 bindsym k resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
2017 bindsym l resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
2018 bindsym semicolon resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
2020 # same bindings, but for the arrow keys
2021 bindsym Left resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
2022 bindsym Down resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
2023 bindsym Up resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
2024 bindsym Right resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
2026 # back to normal: Enter or Escape
2027 bindsym Return mode "default"
2028 bindsym Escape mode "default"
2032 bindsym $mod+r mode "resize"
2033 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
2035 === Jumping to specific windows
2037 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
2038 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
2039 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
2040 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mail client,
2041 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
2042 with criteria for that.
2045 ----------------------------------------------------
2046 [class="class"] focus
2047 [title="title"] focus
2048 ----------------------------------------------------
2051 ------------------------------------------------
2052 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
2053 bindsym $mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
2054 ------------------------------------------------
2056 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
2060 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
2061 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
2062 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
2063 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You can unmark the label in the same
2064 way, using the unmark command. If you don't specify a label, unmark removes all
2065 marks. You do not need to ensure that your windows have unique classes or
2066 titles, and you do not need to change your configuration file.
2068 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
2069 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
2070 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
2071 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
2073 The additional +--toggle+ option will remove the mark if the window already has
2074 this mark, add it if the window has none or replace the current mark if it has
2077 Refer to +show_marks+ if you don't want marks to be shown in the window decoration.
2080 ------------------------------
2081 mark [--toggle] <identifier>
2082 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
2084 ------------------------------
2086 *Example (in a terminal)*:
2087 ------------------------------
2089 $ i3-msg '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
2090 $ i3-msg unmark irssi
2091 ------------------------------
2093 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2094 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
2096 ---------------------------------------
2097 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
2098 bindsym $mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
2100 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
2101 bindsym $mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
2102 ---------------------------------------
2104 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
2105 seperate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
2106 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2108 === Window title format
2110 By default, i3 will simply print the X11 window title. Using +title_format+,
2111 this can be customized by setting the format to the desired output. This
2113 https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
2114 and the following placeholders which will be replaced:
2117 The X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
2119 Using the <<for_window>> directive, you can set the title format for any window
2120 based on <<command_criteria>>.
2123 ---------------------
2124 title_format <format>
2125 ---------------------
2128 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2129 # give the focused window a prefix
2130 bindsym $mod+p title_format "Important | %title"
2132 # print all window titles bold
2133 for_window [class=".*"] title_format "<b>%title</b>"
2135 # print window titles of firefox windows red
2136 for_window [class="(?i)firefox"] title_format "<span foreground='red'>%title</span>"
2137 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2139 === Changing border style
2141 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
2142 border (including window title), +border pixel 1+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
2143 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
2145 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
2148 -----------------------------------------------
2149 border normal|pixel [<n>]
2152 # legacy syntax, equivalent to "border pixel 1"
2154 -----------------------------------------------
2157 ----------------------------------------------
2158 # use window title, but no border
2159 bindsym $mod+t border normal 0
2160 # use no window title and a thick border
2161 bindsym $mod+y border pixel 3
2162 # use neither window title nor border
2163 bindsym $mod+u border none
2164 ----------------------------------------------
2168 === Enabling shared memory logging
2170 As described in http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html, i3 can log to a shared
2171 memory buffer, which you can dump using +i3-dump-log+. The +shmlog+ command
2172 allows you to enable or disable the shared memory logging at runtime.
2174 Note that when using +shmlog <size_in_bytes>+, the current log will be
2175 discarded and a new one will be started.
2178 ------------------------------
2179 shmlog <size_in_bytes>
2180 shmlog on|off|toggle
2181 ------------------------------
2185 # Enable/disable logging
2186 bindsym $mod+x shmlog toggle
2188 # or, from a terminal:
2189 # increase the shared memory log buffer to 50 MiB
2190 i3-msg shmlog $((50*1024*1024))
2193 === Enabling debug logging
2195 The +debuglog+ command allows you to enable or disable debug logging at
2196 runtime. Debug logging is much more verbose than non-debug logging. This
2197 command does not activate shared memory logging (shmlog), and as such is most
2198 likely useful in combination with the above-described <<shmlog>> command.
2201 ----------------------
2202 debuglog on|off|toggle
2203 ----------------------
2206 ------------------------
2207 # Enable/disable logging
2208 bindsym $mod+x debuglog toggle
2209 ------------------------
2211 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
2213 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
2214 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
2215 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
2216 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
2217 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
2220 ----------------------------
2221 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
2222 bindsym $mod+Shift+w reload
2223 bindsym $mod+Shift+e exit
2224 ----------------------------
2228 There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. +move
2229 scratchpad+ will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
2230 invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
2231 Instead, when using +scratchpad show+, the window will be shown again, as a
2232 floating window, centered on your current workspace (using +scratchpad show+ on
2233 a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
2234 keybinding to toggle). Note that this is just a normal floating window, so if
2235 you want to "remove it from scratchpad", you can simple make it tiling again
2236 (+floating toggle+).
2238 As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
2239 editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
2240 running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
2241 player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?
2251 ------------------------------------------------
2252 # Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
2253 bindsym $mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad
2255 # Show the first scratchpad window
2256 bindsym $mod+minus scratchpad show
2258 # Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
2259 bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show
2260 ------------------------------------------------
2264 There is a no operation command +nop+ which allows you to override default
2265 behavior. This can be useful for, e.g., disabling a focus change on clicks with
2266 the middle mouse button.
2268 The optional +comment+ argument is ignored, but will be printed to the log file
2269 for debugging purposes.
2277 ----------------------------------------------
2278 # Disable focus change for clicks on titlebars
2279 # with the middle mouse button
2281 ----------------------------------------------
2285 There are two options in the configuration of each i3bar instance that can be
2286 changed during runtime by invoking a command through i3. The commands +bar
2287 hidden_state+ and +bar mode+ allow setting the current hidden_state
2288 respectively mode option of each bar. It is also possible to toggle between
2289 hide state and show state as well as between dock mode and hide mode. Each
2290 i3bar instance can be controlled individually by specifying a bar_id, if none
2291 is given, the command is executed for all bar instances.
2295 bar hidden_state hide|show|toggle [<bar_id>]
2297 bar mode dock|hide|invisible|toggle [<bar_id>]
2301 ------------------------------------------------
2302 # Toggle between hide state and show state
2303 bindsym $mod+m bar hidden_state toggle
2305 # Toggle between dock mode and hide mode
2306 bindsym $mod+n bar mode toggle
2308 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to switch to hide mode
2309 bindsym $mod+b bar mode hide bar-1
2311 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to always stay hidden
2312 bindsym $mod+Shift+b bar mode invisible bar-1
2313 ------------------------------------------------
2317 == Multiple monitors
2319 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
2320 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
2321 handle multiple monitors.
2323 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
2324 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
2326 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
2327 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
2328 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
2329 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
2330 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
2331 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
2332 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
2334 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
2335 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
2336 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
2337 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
2338 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
2339 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
2340 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
2341 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
2343 === Configuring your monitors
2345 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
2346 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
2347 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
2348 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
2349 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2351 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
2352 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
2353 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2354 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2355 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2357 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2358 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2362 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2364 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
2365 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
2366 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
2367 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
2369 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
2370 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
2371 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
2373 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
2374 -------------------------------------------
2375 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
2376 -------------------------------------------
2377 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
2378 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
2379 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
2380 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2382 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
2383 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
2384 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
2387 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
2389 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2390 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
2392 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2393 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2394 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2396 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2397 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2401 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2402 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
2403 only what you can see in xrandr.
2405 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
2407 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
2409 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
2410 have more than one monitor:
2412 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
2413 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
2414 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
2415 <<workspace_screen>>.
2416 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
2417 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
2418 <<assign_workspace>>.
2419 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
2420 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
2421 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
2422 4. For information on how to move existing workspaces between monitors,
2423 see <<_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs>>.
2425 == i3 and the rest of your software world
2427 === Displaying a status line
2429 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
2430 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
2431 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
2433 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
2434 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
2435 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
2436 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
2437 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
2438 i3bar. See <<status_command>> for how to display i3status in i3bar.
2440 Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
2441 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
2442 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
2443 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
2444 see <<i3bar_position>>.
2446 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
2448 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
2449 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
2450 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
2451 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
2455 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
2456 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
2457 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
2458 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
2459 -----------------------------------------------------
2460 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
2461 -----------------------------------------------------
2462 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
2463 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
2464 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
2466 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
2467 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
2468 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
2469 -----------------------------------------------------
2470 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
2471 -----------------------------------------------------
2472 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
2473 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
2475 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
2476 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
2477 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).