3 Michael Stapelberg <michael+i3@stapelberg.de>
6 This document contains all information you need to configuring and using the i3
7 window manager. If it does not, please contact me on IRC, Jabber or E-Mail and
10 == Default keybindings
12 For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here comes an overview of the default
13 keybindings (click to see the full size image):
15 *Keys to use with Mod1 (alt):*
17 image:keyboard-layer1.png["Keys to use with Mod1 (alt)",width=600,link="keyboard-layer1.png"]
19 *Keys to use with Shift+Mod1:*
21 image:keyboard-layer2.png["Keys to use with Shift+Mod1",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]
23 As i3 uses keycodes in the default configuration, it does not mapper which
24 layout you actually use. The key positions are what matters (of course you can
25 also use keysymbols, see below).
27 The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default, you may have
28 changed which keys are which modifier), the blue keys are your homerow.
32 === Creating terminals and moving around
34 A very basic operation is to create a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
35 for that is Mod1+Enter, that is Alt+Enter in the default configuration. By
36 pressing Mod1+Enter, a new terminal will be created and it will fill the whole
37 space which is available on your screen.
39 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
41 It is important to keep in mind that i3 uses a table to manage your windows. At
42 the moment, you have exactly one column and one row which leaves you with one
43 cell. In this cell, there is a container in which your newly opened terminal is.
45 If you now open another terminal, you still have only one cell. However, the
46 container has both of your terminals. So, a container is just a group of clients
47 with a specific layout. You can resize containers as they directly resemble
48 columns/rows of the layout table.
50 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
52 To move the focus between the two terminals, you use the direction keys which
53 you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used for
54 these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for compatibility
55 with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +Mod1+J+ is left, +Mod1+K+ is down, +Mod1+L+
56 is up and `Mod1+;` is right. So, to switch between the terminals, use +Mod1+K+ or
59 To create a new row/column, you can simply move a terminal (or any other window)
60 to the direction you want to expand your table. So, let’s expand the table to
61 the right by pressing `Mod1+Shift+;`.
63 image:two_columns.png[Two columns]
65 === Changing mode of containers
67 A container can be in different modes:
70 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space of the
73 Only the focused client of the container is displayed and you get a list of
74 windows at the top of the container.
76 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
77 a single line which will be vertically split.
79 To switch the mode, press +Mod1+e+ for default, +Mod1+h+ for stacking and
82 image:modes.png[Container modes]
84 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
86 To display a window fullscreen or to go out of fullscreen mode again, press
89 === Opening other applications
91 Aside from opening applicatios from a terminal, you can also use the handy
92 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +Mod1+v+ by default. Just type the name
93 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. It has to be in
94 your +$PATH+ for that to work.
96 Furthermore, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can also
97 create a keybinding for it. See the section "Configuring i3" for details.
101 If an application does not provide a mechanism to close (most applications
102 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
103 can press +Mod1+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
104 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
105 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
106 it, your X server will kill the window and the behaviour depends on the
111 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
112 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
113 another workspace, press +Mod1+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
114 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
116 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
117 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one and the ones with which you
118 work on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
120 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen. If
121 you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you created it on.
122 When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set focus to this
125 === Moving windows to workspaces
127 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +Mod1+Shift+num+ where
128 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
129 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
130 it does not yet exist.
132 === Resizing columns/rows
134 To resize columns or rows just grab the border between the two columns/rows
135 and move it to the wanted size. Please keep in mind that each cell of the table
136 holds a +container+ and thus you cannot horizontally resize single windows.
138 See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
139 columns/rows with your keyboard.
141 === Restarting i3 inplace
143 To restart i3 inplace (and thus get it into a clean state if it has a bug, to
144 reload your configuration or even to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you
145 can use +Mod1+Shift+r+. Be aware, though, that this kills your current layout
146 and all the windows you have opened will be put in a default container in only
147 one cell. Saving the layout will be implemented in a later version.
151 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +Mod1+Shift+e+.
155 Snapping is a mechanism to increase/decrease the colspan/rowspan of a container.
156 Colspan/rowspan is the amount of columns/rows a specific cell of the table
157 consumes. This is easier explained by giving an example, so take the following
160 image:snapping.png[Snapping example]
162 To use the full size of your screen, you can now snap container 3 downwards
163 by pressing +Mod1+Control+k+ (or snap container 2 rightwards).
167 Floating is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of a window
168 are then not managed by i3, but by you. Using this mode violates the tiling
169 paradigm but can be useful for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog
170 windows or toolbar windows (GIMP or similar).
172 You can enable floating for a window by pressing +Mod1+Shift+Space+. By
173 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse, you can move the window
174 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window.
176 Bindings for doing this with your keyboard will follow.
178 Floating clients are always on top of tiling clients.
182 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependant on your
183 ideal working environment, so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
185 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
186 quite flexible regarding to the things you usually want your window manager
189 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
190 you can set specific applications to start on a specific workspace, you can
191 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3 or bind
192 your keys to do useful stuff.
194 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
195 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
200 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
201 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
202 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line, like this:
211 i3 uses X core fonts (not Xft) for rendering window titles and the internal
212 workspace bar. You can use +xfontsel(1)+ to generate such a font description.
215 ------------------------------
216 font <X core font description>
217 ------------------------------
220 --------------------------------------------------------------
221 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
222 --------------------------------------------------------------
224 === Keyboard bindings
226 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
227 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
228 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
230 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a" or "b",
231 but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These are the ones
232 you also use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current mapping of your
233 keys, use +xmodmap -pke+.
235 * Keycodes however do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for some hotkeys
236 on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you switch to a
237 different keyboard layout.
239 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts because you try to
240 learn a different one, but you want to keep your bindings at the same place,
241 use keycodes. If you don’t switch layouts and like a clean and simple config
245 ----------------------------------
246 bindsym [Modifiers+]keysym command
247 bind [Modifiers+]keycode command
248 ----------------------------------
251 --------------------------------
256 bind Mod1+Shift+r restart
258 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
259 bind 214 exec /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
260 --------------------------------
264 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
265 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
268 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
269 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
270 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
271 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
272 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
274 === The floating modifier
276 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
277 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
278 click anywhere in the window itself. The most common setup is to configure
279 it as the same one you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Afterwards,
280 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button and drag
281 it to the position you want it at.
284 --------------------------------
285 floating_modifier <Modifiers>
286 --------------------------------
289 --------------------------------
290 floating_modifier Mod1
291 --------------------------------
293 === Layout mode for new containers
295 This option is only available when using the new lexer/parser (pass +-l+ to i3
296 when starting). It determines in which mode new containers will start. See also
300 ---------------------------------------------
301 new_container <default|stacking|tabbed>
302 new_container stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
303 ---------------------------------------------
306 ---------------------
308 ---------------------
310 === Border style for new windows
312 This option is only available when using the new lexer/parser (pass +-l+ to i3
313 when starting). It determines which border new windows will have.
316 ---------------------------------------------
317 new_window <bp|bn|bb>
318 ---------------------------------------------
321 ---------------------
323 ---------------------
327 As you learned in the previous section about keyboard bindings, you will have
328 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
329 yourself some typing and have the possibility to change the modifier you want
330 to use later, variables can be handy.
338 ------------------------
340 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
341 ------------------------
343 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing, there is no fancy
344 handling and there are absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more
345 dynamic configuration, you should create a little script, like when configuring
348 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
352 It is recommended that you match on window classes whereever possible because
353 some applications first create their window and then care about setting the
354 correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind, as the window starts up
355 being named Firefox and only when Vimperator is loaded, the title changes. As
356 i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the window (mapping means
357 actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have to match on Firefox
360 You can prefix or suffix workspaces with a `~` to specify that matching clients
361 should be put into floating mode. If you specify only a `~`, the client will
362 not be put onto any workspace, but will be set floating on the current one.
365 ------------------------------------------------------------
366 assign ["]window class[/window title]["] [→] [~ | workspace]
367 ------------------------------------------------------------
370 ----------------------
374 assign "urxvt/VIM" → 3
376 assign "xv/MPlayer" → ~
377 ----------------------
379 === Automatically starting applications on startup
381 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure which
382 commands will be performed by i3 on the first start (not when reloading inplace
383 however). The commands will be run in order.
391 --------------------------------
392 exec sudo i3status | dzen2 -dock
393 --------------------------------
395 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
399 If you use the assigning of clients to workspaces and start some clients
400 automatically, it might be handy to put the workspaces on specific screens.
401 Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens will determine the workspace
402 which i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens or when starting (e.g., by
403 default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for the second screen and so on).
406 ----------------------------------
407 workspace <number> output <output>
408 ----------------------------------
410 The output is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
411 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
412 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
415 ---------------------------
416 workspace 1 output LVDS1
417 workspace 5 output VGA1
418 ---------------------------
422 If you always have a certain arrangement of workspaces, you might want to give
423 them names (of course UTF-8 is supported):
426 ---------------------------------------
427 workspace <number> <name>
428 workspace <number> output <output> name
429 ---------------------------------------
431 For more details about the output-part of this command, see above.
434 --------------------------
437 workspace 3 i ♥ workspaces
438 --------------------------
442 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations and the
446 --------------------------------------------
447 colorclass border background text
448 --------------------------------------------
450 Where colorclass can be one of:
453 A client which currently has the focus.
454 client.focused_inactive::
455 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
456 the focus at the moment.
458 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
460 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
462 The current workspace in the bottom bar.
464 All other workspaces in the bottom bar.
466 A workspace which has at least one client with an activated urgency hint.
468 Colors are in HTML hex format, see below.
471 --------------------------------------
472 # class border backgr. text
473 client.focused #2F343A #900000 #FFFFFF
474 --------------------------------------
476 Note that for the window decorations the color around the child window is the
477 background color and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
480 === Interprocess communication
482 i3 uses unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. At the moment, this interface
483 is only useful for sending commands. To enable it, you have to configure a path
484 where the unix socket will be stored. The default path is +/tmp/i3-ipc.sock+.
487 ----------------------------
488 ipc-socket /tmp/i3-ipc.sock
489 ----------------------------
491 You can then use the i3-msg command to perform any command listed in the next
494 === Disable focus follows mouse
496 If you have a setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad
497 on your laptop which you do not want to disable completely), you might want
498 to disable focus follows mouse and control focus only by using your keyboard.
499 The mouse will still be useful inside the currently active window (for example
500 to click on links in your browser window).
503 ----------------------------
504 focus_follows_mouse <yes|no>
505 ----------------------------
508 ----------------------
509 focus_follows_mouse no
510 ----------------------
514 === Manipulating layout
516 To change the layout of the current container to stacking, use +s+, for default
517 use +d+ and for tabbed, use +T+. To make the current client (!) fullscreen,
518 use +f+, to make it floating (or tiling again) use +t+:
529 # Toggle floating/tiling
533 === Focussing/Moving/Snapping clients/containers/screens
535 To change the focus, use one of the +h+, +j+, +k+ and +l+ commands, meaning
536 respectively left, down, up, right. To focus a container, prefix it with +wc+,
537 to focus a screen, prefix it with +ws+.
539 The same principle applies for moving and snapping, just prefix the command
540 with +m+ when moving and with +s+ when snapping:
543 ----------------------
544 # Focus clients on the left, bottom, top, right:
548 bindsym Mod1+semicolon l
550 # Move client to the left, bottom, top, right:
554 bindsym Mod1+semicolon ml
556 # Snap client to the left, bottom, top, right:
560 bindsym Mod1+semicolon sl
562 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right:
565 ----------------------
567 === Changing workspaces/moving clients to workspaces
569 To change to a specific workspace, the command is just the number of the
570 workspace, e.g. +1+ or +3+. To move the current client to a specific workspace,
571 prefix the number with an +m+.
573 Furthermore, you can switch to the next and previous workspace with the
574 commands +nw+ and +pw+, which is handy for example if you have workspace
575 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key combination.
578 -------------------------
583 bindsym Mod1+Shift+1 m1
584 bindsym Mod1+Shift+2 m2
589 -------------------------
593 === Resizing columns/rows
595 If you want to resize columns/rows using your keyboard, you can use the
596 +resize+ command, I recommend using it inside a so called +mode+ (you need to
597 use the new lexer/parser for that, so pass +-l+ to i3 when starting):
599 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
600 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
602 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
604 # They resize the border in the direction you pressed, e.g.
605 # when pressing left, the window is resized so that it has
606 # more space on its left
608 bindsym n resize left -10
609 bindsym Shift+n resize left +10
611 bindsym r resize bottom +10
612 bindsym Shift+r resize bottom -10
614 bindsym t resize top -10
615 bindsym Shift+t resize top +10
617 bindsym d resize right +10
618 bindsym Shift+d resize right -10
624 bindsym Mod1+r mode resize
625 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
627 === Jumping to specific windows
629 Especially when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a specific
630 window, for example while currently working on workspace 3 you may want to jump to
631 your mailclient to mail your boss that you’ve achieved some important goal. Instead
632 of figuring out how to navigate to your mailclient, it would be more convenient to
636 ----------------------------------------------------
637 jump ["]window class[/window title]["]
638 jump workspace [ column row ]
639 ----------------------------------------------------
641 You can either use the same matching algorithm as in the +assign+ command (see above)
642 or you can specify the position of the client if you always use the same layout.
645 --------------------------------------
646 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
647 bindsym Mod1+a jump "urxvt/VIM"
648 --------------------------------------
650 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
654 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
655 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
656 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
657 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards, that is, you do not need to ensure
658 that your windows have unique classes or titles and you do not need to change
659 your configuration file.
661 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
662 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key (or, you could bind it to a key and
663 only use the set of labels for which you created bindings). +i3-input+ is a
664 tool created for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the
665 command to i3. It can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for
675 ---------------------------------------
676 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
677 bindsym Mod1+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
679 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
680 bindsym Mod1+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
681 ---------------------------------------
683 === Traveling the focus stack
685 This mechanism can be thought of as the opposite of the +jump+ command. It travels
686 the focus stack and jumps to the window you focused before.
690 focus [number] | floating | tilling | ft
693 Where +number+ by default is 1 meaning that the next client in the focus stack will
696 The special values have the following meaning:
699 The next floating window is selected.
701 The next tiling window is selected.
703 If the current window is floating, the next tiling window will be selected
706 === Changing border style
708 To change the border of the current client, you can use +bn+ to use the normal
709 border (including window title), +bp+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
710 and +bb+ to make the client borderless. There also is +bt+ which will toggle
711 the different border styles.
722 === Changing the stack-limit of a container
724 If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside (say, more than
725 10), the default layout of a stacking container can get a little unhandy.
726 Depending on your screen’s size, you might end up only using half of the
727 titlebars of each window in the container.
729 Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the amount of rows or columns
730 in a stacking container. i3 will create columns or rows (depending on what
731 you limited) automatically as needed.
734 --------------------------------
735 stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
736 --------------------------------
740 # I always want to have two window titles in one line
743 # Not more than 5 rows in this stacking container
747 image:stacklimit.png[Container limited to two columns]
749 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
751 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
752 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
753 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
754 your X session. However, your layout is not preserved at the moment, meaning
755 that all open windows will be in a single container in default layout. To exit
756 i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command, however you don’t need to (e.g.,
757 simply killing your X session is fine aswell).
760 ----------------------------
761 bindsym Mod1+Shift+r restart
762 bindsym Mod1+Shift+w reload
763 bindsym Mod1+Shift+e exit
764 ----------------------------
770 As you can read in the goal list on its website, i3 was specifically developed
771 with Xinerama (support for multiple monitors) in mind. This section will
772 explain how to handle multiple monitors.
774 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
775 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
777 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
778 workspace, say the first gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third would
779 get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different screen, i3 will switch
780 to that screen and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t need
781 shortcuts to switch to a specific screen and remember where you put which
782 workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the screen you currently are on.
783 There is no possiblity to have a screen without workspaces.
785 The idea to make workspaces global is due to the observation that most users
786 have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors, often
787 using them for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring several
788 things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor and
789 "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
790 create unlimited workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific screens, you can
791 have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per screen by
792 changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
794 === Configuring your monitors
796 To help you get going if you never did multiple monitors before, here comes a
797 short overview of the xrandr options which are probably of interest for you.
798 It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration, so
799 just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
800 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
802 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
803 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
804 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
806 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
808 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
809 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
813 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
815 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
816 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have connected
817 a monitor to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
818 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
820 Furthermore, the maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line
821 is the maximum combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually
822 too low and has to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
824 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
825 -------------------------------------------
826 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
827 -------------------------------------------
828 This command lets xrandr try to find out the native resolution of the device
829 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
830 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
831 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
833 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
834 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
835 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
838 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
840 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
841 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
843 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
845 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
847 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
848 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
852 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
853 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
854 only what you can see in xrandr.
856 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
858 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
860 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
861 have more than one monitor:
863 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This will
864 allow you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
865 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
866 <<workspace_screen>>.
867 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
868 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
869 <<assign_workspace>>.
870 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
871 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
872 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
874 == i3 and the rest of your software world
876 === Displaying a status line
878 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
879 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement of the widget
880 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
882 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
883 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
884 this task. It was written in C with the goal to have as little syscalls as
885 possible to reduce the time your CPU is waken up from sleep states.
887 Regardless of which application you use to generate the status line, you
888 want to make sure that the application does one of the following things:
890 1. Register as a dock window using EWMH hints. This will make i3 position the
891 window above the workspace bar but below every other client. This is the
892 recommended way, but for example in case of dzen2 you need to check out
893 the source of dzen2 from subversion, because the -dock option is not present
894 in the released versions.
895 2. Overlay the internal workspace bar. This method will not waste any space
896 in the workspace bar. However, it is a rather hackish way. Just configure
897 the output window to be over your workspace bar (say -x 200 and -y 780 if
898 your screen is 800 px height).
900 The planned solution for this problem is to make the workspace bar optional
901 and switch to dzen2 (for example) completely (it will contain the workspaces
904 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
906 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
907 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
908 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
909 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
913 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
914 This is the rather easy case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
915 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
916 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
917 -----------------------------------------------------
918 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
919 -----------------------------------------------------
920 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
921 your screen will be left untouched (so it will show the X background). So, in
922 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
924 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
925 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
926 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
927 -----------------------------------------------------
928 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
929 -----------------------------------------------------
930 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
931 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
933 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no possibility to
934 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, you presentation
935 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen with the