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 contact us on IRC (preferred) or post your
8 question(s) on the mailing list.
10 == Default keybindings
12 For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here is an overview of the default
13 keybindings (click to see the full size image):
15 *Keys to use with mod (alt):*
17 image:keyboard-layer1.png["Keys to use with mod (alt)",width=600,link="keyboard-layer1.png"]
19 *Keys to use with Shift+mod:*
21 image:keyboard-layer2.png["Keys to use with Shift+mod",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]
23 The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
28 Throughout this guide, the keyword +mod+ will be used to refer to the
29 configured modifier. This is the alt key (Mod1) by default, with windows (Mod4)
30 being a popular alternative.
32 === Opening terminals and moving around
34 One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
35 for this is mod+Enter, that is Alt+Enter in the default configuration. By
36 pressing mod+Enter, a new terminal will be opened. It will fill the whole
37 space available on your screen.
39 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
41 If you now open another terminal, i3 will place it next to the current one,
42 splitting the screen size in half. Depending on your monitor, i3 will put the
43 created window beside the existing window (on wide displays) or below the
44 existing window (rotated displays).
46 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
48 To move the focus between the two terminals, you can use the direction keys
49 which you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used
50 for these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for
51 compatibility with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +mod+J+ is left, +mod+K+
52 is down, +mod+L+ is up and `mod+;` is right. So, to switch between the
53 terminals, use +mod+K+ or +mod+L+. Of course, you can also use the arrow keys.
55 At the moment, your workspace is split (it contains two terminals) in a
56 specific direction (horizontal by default). Every window can be split
57 horizontally or vertically again, just like the workspace. The terminology is
58 "window" for a container that actually contains an X11 window (like a terminal
59 or browser) and "split container" for containers that consist of one or more
62 TODO: picture of the tree
64 To split a window vertically, press +mod+v+ before you create the new window.
65 To split it horizontally, press +mod+h+.
67 === Changing the container layout
69 A split container can have one of the following layouts:
72 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
73 container. splith distributes the windows horizontally (windows are right next
74 to each other), splitv distributes them vertically (windows are on top of each
77 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
78 windows at the top of the container.
80 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
81 a single line which is vertically split.
83 To switch modes, press +mod+e+ for splith/splitv (it toggles), +mod+s+ for
84 stacking and +mod+w+ for tabbed.
86 image:modes.png[Container modes]
88 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
90 To display a window in fullscreen mode or to go out of fullscreen mode again,
93 There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will span all
94 available outputs (the command is +fullscreen global+).
96 === Opening other applications
98 Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
99 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +mod+d+ by default. Just type the name
100 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The corresponding
101 application has to be in your +$PATH+ for this to work.
103 Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
104 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
105 <<configuring>> for details.
109 If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
110 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
111 can press +mod+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
112 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
113 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
114 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
115 depends on the application.
119 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
120 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
121 another workspace, press +mod+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
122 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
124 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
125 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one, and the ones with which you
126 work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
128 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
129 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
130 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
131 focus to that screen.
133 === Moving windows to workspaces
135 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +mod+Shift+num+ where
136 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
137 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
138 it does not yet exist.
142 The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
143 and move it to the wanted size.
145 See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
146 columns/rows with your keyboard.
148 === Restarting i3 inplace
150 To restart i3 inplace (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
151 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +mod+Shift+r+.
155 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +mod+Shift+e+.
159 Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of a window
160 are not managed by i3, but by you. Using this mode violates the tiling
161 paradigm but can be useful for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog
162 windows, or toolbar windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the
163 appropriate hint and are opened in floating mode by default.
165 You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing +mod+Shift+Space+. By
166 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
167 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
168 can also do that by using the <<floating_modifier>>.
170 For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see <<resizingconfig>>.
172 Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.
176 i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
177 windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
178 the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
179 finally the windows themselves. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
180 (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
181 out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.
183 === The tree consists of Containers
185 The building blocks of our tree are so called +Containers+. A +Container+ can
186 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
187 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more +Containers+. A
188 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
189 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
192 image::tree-layout2.png["layout2",float="right"]
193 image::tree-shot4.png["shot4",title="Two terminals on standard workspace"]
195 === Orientation and Split Containers
199 It is only natural to use so-called +Split Containers+ in order to build a
200 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every +Container+ has an
201 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified) and the orientation depends
202 on the layout the container is in (vertical for splitv and stacking, horizontal
203 for splith and tabbed). So, in our example with the workspace, the default
204 layout of the workspace +Container+ is splith (most monitors are widescreen
205 nowadays). If you change the layout to splitv (+mod+l+ in the default config)
206 and *then* open two terminals, i3 will configure your windows like this:
208 image::tree-shot2.png["shot2",title="Vertical Workspace Orientation"]
210 An interesting new feature of i3 since version 4 is the ability to split anything:
211 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with splith layout, that is
212 horizontal orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open
213 another terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new
214 terminal window, it would show up to the right due to the splith layout.
215 Instead, press +mod+v+ to split the container with the splitv layout (to
216 open a +Horizontal Split Container+, use +mod+h+). Now you can open a new
217 terminal and it will open below the current one:
219 image::tree-layout1.png["Layout",float="right"]
220 image::tree-shot1.png["shot",title="Vertical Split Container"]
224 You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
229 Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
230 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
231 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.
233 So, how can you open a new terminal window to the *right* of the current one?
234 The solution is to use +focus parent+, which will focus the +Parent Container+ of
235 the current +Container+. In this case, you would focus the +Vertical Split
236 Container+ which is *inside* the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
237 windows will be opened to the right of the +Vertical Split Container+:
239 image::tree-shot3.png["shot3",title="Focus parent, then open new terminal"]
241 === Implicit containers
243 In some cases, i3 needs to implicitly create a container to fulfill your
246 One example is the following scenario: You start i3 with a single monitor and a
247 single workspace on which you open three terminal windows. All these terminal
248 windows are directly attached to one node inside i3’s layout tree, the
249 workspace node. By default, the workspace node’s orientation is +horizontal+.
251 Now you move one of these terminals down (+mod+k+ by default). The workspace
252 node’s orientation will be changed to +vertical+. The terminal window you moved
253 down is directly attached to the workspace and appears on the bottom of the
254 screen. A new (horizontal) container was created to accomodate the other two
255 terminal windows. You will notice this when switching to tabbed mode (for
256 example). You would end up having one tab called "another container" and the
257 other one being the terminal window you moved down.
262 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependant on your
263 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
265 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
266 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
269 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
270 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
271 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
272 can bind your keys to do useful things.
274 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
275 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
278 On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
279 file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
280 wizard to use either Alt (Mod1) or Windows (Mod4) as modifier in the config
281 file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
282 keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command +i3-config-wizard+.
283 Please note that you must not have +~/.i3/config+, otherwise the wizard will
288 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
289 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
290 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:
301 i3 has support for both X core fonts and FreeType fonts (through Pango) to
302 render window titles.
304 To generate an X core font description, you can use +xfontsel(1)+. To see
305 special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the
308 A FreeType font description is composed by a font family, a style, a weight,
309 a variant, a stretch and a size.
310 FreeType fonts support right-to-left rendering and contain often more
311 Unicode glyphs than X core fonts.
313 If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
314 and fall back to a working font.
317 ------------------------------
318 font <X core font description>
319 font xft:<a FreeType font description>
320 ------------------------------
323 --------------------------------------------------------------
324 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
325 font xft:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
326 --------------------------------------------------------------
330 === Keyboard bindings
332 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
333 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
334 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
336 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
337 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
338 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
339 mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+. To interactively enter a key and
340 see what keysym it is configured to, use +xev+.
342 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
343 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
344 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
346 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
347 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
348 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
352 ----------------------------------
353 bindsym [Modifiers+]keysym command
354 bindcode [Modifiers+]keycode command
355 ----------------------------------
358 --------------------------------
360 bindsym mod+f fullscreen
363 bindsym mod+Shift+r restart
365 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
366 bindcode 214 exec /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
367 --------------------------------
371 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
372 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
375 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
376 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
377 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
378 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
379 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
381 [[floating_modifier]]
383 === The floating modifier
385 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
386 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
387 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
388 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
389 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
390 it to the position you want.
392 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
393 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
394 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
395 ratio will be preserved).
398 --------------------------------
399 floating_modifier <Modifiers>
400 --------------------------------
403 --------------------------------
404 floating_modifier Mod1
405 --------------------------------
407 === Constraining floating window size
409 The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
410 either dimension of +floating_maximum_size+ is specified as -1, that dimension
411 will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
412 +floating_maximum_size+ is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
413 value to constrain the maximum size. +floating_minimum_size+ is treated in a
414 manner analogous to +floating_maximum_size+.
417 ----------------------------------------
418 floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
419 floating_maximum_size <width> x <height>
420 ----------------------------------------
423 --------------------------------------
424 floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
425 floating_maximum_size -1 x -1
426 --------------------------------------
428 === Orientation for new workspaces
430 New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
431 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
432 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.
434 With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
438 ----------------------------------------------
439 default_orientation <horizontal|vertical|auto>
440 ----------------------------------------------
443 ----------------------------
444 default_orientation vertical
445 ----------------------------
447 === Layout mode for new containers
449 This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
451 ///////////////////////////////
452 See also <<stack-limit>>.
453 //////////////////////////////
456 ---------------------------------------------
457 workspace_layout <default|stacking|tabbed>
458 ---------------------------------------------
459 /////////////////////////////////////////////
460 new_container stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
461 /////////////////////////////////////////////
464 ---------------------
465 workspace_layout tabbed
466 ---------------------
468 === Border style for new windows
470 This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
474 ---------------------------------------------
475 new_window <normal|1pixel|none>
476 ---------------------------------------------
479 ---------------------
481 ---------------------
483 === Hiding vertical borders
485 You can hide vertical borders adjacent to the screen edges using
486 +hide_edge_borders+. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
487 to waste even two pixels in displayspace. Default is none.
490 ----------------------------
491 hide_edge_borders <none|vertical|horizontal|both>
492 ----------------------------
495 ----------------------
496 hide_edge_borders vertical
497 ----------------------
499 === Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)
501 With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
502 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
503 change their border style, for example.
506 -----------------------------
507 for_window <criteria> command
508 -----------------------------
511 ------------------------------------------------
512 # enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
513 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
515 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
516 for_window [class="urxvt"] border 1pixel
518 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
519 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
520 # directory to ~/work
521 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
522 ------------------------------------------------
524 The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.
528 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
529 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
530 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
531 variables can be handy.
539 ------------------------
541 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
542 ------------------------
544 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. There is no fancy
545 handling and there are absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more
546 dynamic configuration you should create a little script which generates a
547 configuration file and run it before starting i3 (for example in your
550 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
554 To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
555 can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
556 see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
557 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
558 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
559 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
560 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
561 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
562 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
563 to match on 'Firefox' in this case.
566 ------------------------------------------------------------
567 assign <criteria> [→] workspace
568 ------------------------------------------------------------
571 ----------------------
572 # Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
573 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
575 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
576 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
578 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
579 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
581 # Assignment to a named workspace
582 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
584 # Start urxvt -name irssi
585 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
586 ----------------------
588 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
589 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
591 To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
592 window, you will see the following output:
595 -----------------------------------
596 WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
597 -----------------------------------
599 The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
600 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).
602 Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
603 logfile first (see http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
604 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
605 title when starting up.
607 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
609 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
610 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
611 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
612 also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
613 keyword. These commands will be run in order.
617 exec [--no-startup-id] command
618 exec_always [--no-startup-id] command
622 --------------------------------
624 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
626 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
627 exec --no-startup-id urxvt
628 --------------------------------
630 The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <<exec>>.
634 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
636 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
637 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
638 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
639 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
640 the second screen and so on).
643 ----------------------------------
644 workspace <workspace> output <output>
645 ----------------------------------
647 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
648 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
649 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
651 If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:
654 ---------------------------
655 workspace 1 output LVDS1
656 workspace 5 output VGA1
657 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1
658 ---------------------------
662 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.
665 --------------------------------------------
666 colorclass border background text indicator
667 --------------------------------------------
669 Where colorclass can be one of:
672 A client which currently has the focus.
673 client.focused_inactive::
674 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
675 the focus at the moment.
677 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
679 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
681 You can also specify the color to be used to paint the background of the client
682 windows. This color will be used to paint the window on top of which the client
686 -----------------------
687 client.background color
688 -----------------------
690 Only clients that do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color
691 used to paint it. If you use a color other than black for your terminals, you
692 most likely want to set the client background color to the same color as your
693 terminal program's background color to avoid black gaps between the rendered
694 area of the terminal and the i3 border.
696 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
698 *Examples (default colors)*:
699 ---------------------------------------------------------
700 # class border backgr. text indicator
701 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff #2e9ef4
702 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff #484e50
703 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888 #292d2e
704 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff #900000
705 ---------------------------------------------------------
707 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
708 background color, and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
711 The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
712 For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
713 color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
714 single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
715 from single windows outside of a split container.
717 === Interprocess communication
719 i3 uses unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
720 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
721 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
723 The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
724 +/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username, +%p+ is
725 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
726 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).
728 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
729 by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
730 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
731 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
732 user can create that directory.
735 ----------------------------
736 ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock
737 ----------------------------
739 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
742 === Focus follows mouse
744 By default, window focus follows your mouse movements. However, if you have a
745 setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad on your laptop
746 which you do not want to disable completely), you might want to disable 'focus
747 follows mouse' and control focus only by using your keyboard. The mouse will
748 still be useful inside the currently active window (for example to click on
749 links in your browser window).
752 ----------------------------
753 focus_follows_mouse <yes|no>
754 ----------------------------
757 ----------------------
758 focus_follows_mouse no
759 ----------------------
761 === Popups during fullscreen mode
763 When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
764 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
765 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
766 There are two things which are possible to do in this situation:
768 1. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
769 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
770 you go out of fullscreen).
771 2. Leave fullscreen mode. This is the default.
774 -------------------------------------------------
775 popup_during_fullscreen <ignore|leave_fullscreen>
776 -------------------------------------------------
779 ------------------------------
780 popup_during_fullscreen ignore
781 ------------------------------
785 When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
786 focused when you use +focus down+ on the last container -- the focus wraps. If
787 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
788 be set on that container. This is the default behaviour so you can navigate to
789 all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.
791 If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
792 parent+ to switch to different containers, you can use the
793 +force_focus_wrapping+ configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
797 -----------------------------
798 force_focus_wrapping <yes|no>
799 -----------------------------
802 ------------------------
803 force_focus_wrapping yes
804 ------------------------
808 As explained in-depth in <http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html>, some X11
809 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
810 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
811 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
812 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
815 For people who do cannot modify their +~/.xsession+ to add the
816 +--force-xinerama+ commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:
819 -----------------------
820 force_xinerama <yes|no>
821 -----------------------
828 Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like +HDMI1+) when using
829 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: +xinerama-0+, +xinerama-1+, …
831 === Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace
833 This configuration directive enables automatic +workspace back_and_forth+ (see
834 <<back_and_forth>>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.
836 For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
837 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
838 came from now, you can just press mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".
841 --------------------------------------
842 workspace_auto_back_and_forth <yes|no>
843 --------------------------------------
846 ---------------------------------
847 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes
848 ---------------------------------
852 The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
853 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
856 1. It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
857 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
858 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
859 2. It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
860 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
861 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
862 3. It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
863 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
865 That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
866 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
867 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
868 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
869 configuration infrastructure in place.
871 Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a +bar+ block. You can have
872 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):
875 ---------------------------
877 status_command i3status
879 ---------------------------
883 By default i3 will just pass +i3bar+ and let your shell handle the execution,
884 searching your +$PATH+ for a correct version.
885 If you have a different +i3bar+ somewhere or the binary is not in your +$PATH+ you can
886 tell i3 what to execute.
888 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
889 have to have correct quoting etc.
892 ----------------------
893 i3bar_command command
894 ----------------------
897 -------------------------------------------------
899 i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
901 -------------------------------------------------
904 === Statusline command
906 i3bar can run a program and display every line of its +stdout+ output on the
907 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
908 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.
910 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
911 have to have correct quoting etc.
914 ----------------------
915 status_command command
916 ----------------------
919 -------------------------------------------------
921 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
923 -------------------------------------------------
927 You can have i3bar either be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
928 (+dock+ mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (+hide+
929 mode). The modifier key can be configured using the +modifier+ option.
931 The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
932 i3bar sends the +SIGSTOP+ and +SIGCONT+ signals to the statusline process to
935 The default is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
952 Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see +xmodmap(1)+).
957 This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.
959 The default is bottom.
962 ---------------------
963 position <top|bottom>
964 ---------------------
967 ---------------------
971 ---------------------
975 You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
976 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
977 options for different outputs by using multiple 'bar' blocks.
979 To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
980 directive multiple times.
988 -------------------------------
989 # big monitor: everything
991 # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
994 status_command i3status
997 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
1000 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
1006 -------------------------------
1010 i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
1011 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.
1013 You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
1014 you can turn off the functionality entirely.
1017 -------------------------
1018 tray_output <none|primary|output>
1019 -------------------------
1022 -------------------------
1023 # disable system tray
1028 # show tray icons on the primary monitor
1031 # show tray icons on the big monitor
1035 -------------------------
1037 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1038 -------------------------
1039 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1040 -------------------------
1044 Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <<fonts>>.
1047 ---------------------
1049 ---------------------
1052 --------------------------------------------------------------
1054 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
1055 font xft:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
1057 --------------------------------------------------------------
1059 === Workspace buttons
1061 Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
1062 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.
1064 The default is to show workspace buttons.
1067 --------------------------
1068 workspace_buttons <yes|no>
1069 --------------------------
1072 --------------------
1074 workspace_buttons no
1076 --------------------
1080 As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
1081 be configured at the moment:
1084 Background color of the bar.
1086 Text color to be used for the statusline.
1088 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1091 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1092 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
1093 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
1094 using multiple monitors.
1095 inactive_workspace::
1096 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1097 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
1098 will be the case for most workspaces.
1100 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1101 window with the urgency hint set.
1104 ----------------------------------------
1109 colorclass <border> <background> <text>
1111 ----------------------------------------
1113 *Example (default colors)*:
1114 --------------------------------------
1120 focused_workspace #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
1121 active_workspace #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
1122 inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
1123 urgent_workspace #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1126 --------------------------------------
1130 Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
1131 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
1132 do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:
1135 --------------------------
1136 # execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
1138 --------------------------
1140 Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
1141 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
1142 the following keybinding:
1145 --------------------------------------------------------
1146 bindsym mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3
1147 --------------------------------------------------------
1149 [[command_criteria]]
1151 Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command, that is, which containers
1152 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. These are
1153 prefixed in square brackets to every command. If you want to kill all windows
1154 which have the class Firefox, use:
1157 ------------------------------------
1158 bindsym mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
1160 # same thing, but case-insensitive
1161 bindsym mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
1162 ------------------------------------
1164 The criteria which are currently implemented are:
1167 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS)
1169 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS)
1171 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE).
1173 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
1175 Compares the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
1177 Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
1178 Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
1179 (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
1181 Compares the mark set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>.
1183 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
1184 interface. Handy for scripting.
1186 The criteria +class+, +instance+, +role+, +title+ and +mark+ are actually
1187 regular expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for
1188 information on how to use them.
1192 === Executing applications (exec)
1194 What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
1195 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
1196 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
1197 searched in your $PATH.
1200 ------------------------------
1201 exec [--no-startup-id] command
1202 ------------------------------
1205 ------------------------------
1207 bindsym mod+g exec gimp
1209 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
1210 bindsym mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt
1211 ------------------------------
1213 The +--no-startup-id+ parameter disables startup-notification support for this
1214 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
1215 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
1216 will change the X11 cursor to +watch+ (a clock) while the application is
1217 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
1218 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
1219 cursor for 60 seconds.
1221 === Splitting containers
1223 The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
1224 can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
1225 new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
1226 get placed below the current one (splitv).
1228 If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
1229 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
1230 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window). Use
1231 +layout toggle split+ to change the layout of any split container from splitv
1232 to splith or vice-versa.
1235 ---------------------------
1236 split <vertical|horizontal>
1237 ---------------------------
1240 ------------------------------
1241 bindsym mod+v split vertical
1242 bindsym mod+h split horizontal
1243 ------------------------------
1245 === Manipulating layout
1247 Use +layout toggle split+, +layout stacking+ or +layout tabbed+ to change the
1248 current container layout to splith/splitv, stacking or tabbed layout,
1251 To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen+, to make
1252 it floating (or tiling again) use +floating enable+ respectively +floating disable+
1253 (or +floating toggle+):
1257 layout <tabbed|stacking>
1258 layout toggle [split|all]
1263 bindsym mod+s layout stacking
1264 bindsym mod+l layout toggle split
1265 bindsym mod+w layout tabbed
1267 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
1268 bindsym mod+x layout toggle
1270 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
1271 bindsym mod+x layout toggle all
1274 bindsym mod+f fullscreen
1276 # Toggle floating/tiling
1277 bindsym mod+t floating toggle
1280 === Focusing/Moving containers
1282 To change the focus, use the focus command: +focus left+, +focus right+, +focus
1283 down+ and +focus up+.
1285 There are a few special parameters you can use for the focus command:
1288 Sets focus to the +Parent Container+ of the current +Container+.
1290 The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
1293 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
1295 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
1297 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
1299 Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
1300 corresponding output.
1302 For moving, use +move left+, +move right+, +move down+ and +move up+.
1305 -----------------------------------
1306 focus <left|right|down|up>
1307 focus <parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle>
1308 focus output <<left|right|down|up>|output>
1309 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
1310 move [absolute] position [[<px> px] [<px> px]|center]
1311 -----------------------------------
1313 Note that the amount of pixels you can specify for the +move+ command is only
1314 relevant for floating containers. The default amount is 10 pixels.
1317 ----------------------
1318 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right:
1319 bindsym mod+j focus left
1320 bindsym mod+k focus down
1321 bindsym mod+l focus up
1322 bindsym mod+semicolon focus right
1324 # Focus parent container
1325 bindsym mod+u focus parent
1327 # Focus last floating/tiling container
1328 bindsym mod+g focus mode_toggle
1330 # Focus the output right to the current one
1331 bindsym mod+x focus output right
1333 # Focus the big output
1334 bindsym mod+x focus output HDMI-2
1336 # Move container to the left, bottom, top, right:
1337 bindsym mod+j move left
1338 bindsym mod+k move down
1339 bindsym mod+l move up
1340 bindsym mod+semicolon move right
1342 # Move container, but make floating containers
1343 # move more than the default
1344 bindsym mod+j move left 20 px
1346 # Move floating container to the center
1348 bindsym mod+c move absolute position center
1349 ----------------------
1351 === Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces
1353 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
1354 number or name of the workspace. To move containers to specific workspaces, use
1355 +move container to workspace+.
1357 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
1358 +workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
1359 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
1360 combination. To restrict those to the current output, use +workspace
1361 next_on_output+ and +workspace prev_on_output+. Similarly, you can use +move
1362 container to workspace next+, +move container to workspace prev+ to move a
1363 container to the next/previous workspace and +move container to workspace current+
1364 (the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).
1367 To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use +workspace
1370 To move a container to another xrandr output such as +LVDS1+ or +VGA1+, you can
1371 use the +move container to output+ command followed by the name of the target
1372 output. You may also use +left+, +right+, +up+, +down+ instead of the xrandr
1373 output name to move to the next output in the specified direction.
1375 To move a whole workspace to another xrandr output such as +LVDS1+ or +VGA1+,
1376 you can use the +move workspace to output+ command followed by the name of the
1377 target output. You may also use +left+, +right+, +up+, +down+ instead of the
1378 xrandr output name to move to the next output in the specified direction.
1381 -----------------------------------
1382 workspace <next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output>
1383 workspace back_and_forth
1385 workspace number <number>
1387 move [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
1388 move [window|container] [to] workspace number <number>
1389 move [window|container] [to] workspace <prev|next|current>
1390 -----------------------------------
1393 -------------------------
1394 bindsym mod+1 workspace 1
1395 bindsym mod+2 workspace 2
1398 bindsym mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
1399 bindsym mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
1402 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
1403 bindsym mod+b workspace back_and_forth
1405 # move the whole workspace to the next output
1406 bindsym mod+x move workspace to output right
1408 # move firefox to current workspace
1409 bindsym mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current
1410 -------------------------
1412 ==== Named workspaces
1414 Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
1415 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:
1418 -------------------------
1419 bindsym mod+1 workspace mail
1421 -------------------------
1423 If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
1427 -------------------------
1428 bindsym mod+1 workspace 1: mail
1429 bindsym mod+2 workspace 2: www
1431 -------------------------
1433 Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
1434 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
1435 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
1436 will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use +workspace number 1+
1437 to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
1438 it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
1441 === Renaming workspaces
1443 You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
1444 numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
1445 reflect what’s actually on them.
1448 ----------------------------------------------------
1449 rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
1450 ----------------------------------------------------
1453 ------------------------------------------------
1454 i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
1455 i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
1456 i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
1457 ------------------------------------------------
1461 === Resizing containers/windows
1463 If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
1467 ---------------------------------------------------------
1468 resize <grow|shrink> <direction> [<px> px] [or <ppt> ppt]
1469 ---------------------------------------------------------
1471 Direction can either be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. Or you can be
1472 less specific and use +width+ or +height+, in which case i3 will take/give
1473 space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
1474 how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or shrunk (the default
1475 is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
1476 many percentage points a *tiling container* should be grown or shrunk (the
1477 default is 10 percentage points).
1479 I recommend using the resize command inside a so called +mode+:
1481 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
1482 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1484 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
1486 # Pressing left will shrink the window’s width.
1487 # Pressing right will grow the window’s width.
1488 # Pressing up will shrink the window’s height.
1489 # Pressing down will grow the window’s height.
1490 bindsym j resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
1491 bindsym k resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
1492 bindsym l resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
1493 bindsym semicolon resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
1495 # same bindings, but for the arrow keys
1496 bindsym Left resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
1497 bindsym Down resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
1498 bindsym Up resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
1499 bindsym Right resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
1501 # back to normal: Enter or Escape
1502 bindsym Return mode "default"
1503 bindsym Escape mode "default"
1507 bindsym mod+r mode "resize"
1508 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1510 === Jumping to specific windows
1512 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
1513 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
1514 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
1515 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mailclient,
1516 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
1517 with criteria for that.
1520 ----------------------------------------------------
1521 [class="class"] focus
1522 [title="title"] focus
1523 ----------------------------------------------------
1526 ------------------------------------------------
1527 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
1528 bindsym mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
1529 ------------------------------------------------
1531 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
1535 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
1536 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
1537 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
1538 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You do not need to ensure that your
1539 windows have unique classes or titles, and you do not need to change your
1542 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
1543 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
1544 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
1545 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
1548 ------------------------------
1550 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
1551 ------------------------------
1553 *Example (in a terminal)*:
1554 ------------------------------
1556 $ i3-msg '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
1557 ------------------------------
1559 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1560 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
1562 ---------------------------------------
1563 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
1564 bindsym mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
1566 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
1567 bindsym mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
1568 ---------------------------------------
1570 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
1571 seperate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
1572 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1574 === Changing border style
1576 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
1577 border (including window title), +border 1pixel+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
1578 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
1580 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
1583 ----------------------------
1584 bindsym mod+t border normal
1585 bindsym mod+y border 1pixel
1586 bindsym mod+u border none
1587 ----------------------------
1591 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1592 TODO: not yet implemented
1593 === Changing the stack-limit of a container
1595 If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside it (say, more than
1596 10), the default layout of a stacking container can get a little unhandy.
1597 Depending on your screen’s size, you might end up with only half of the title
1598 lines being actually used, wasting a lot of screen space.
1600 Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the number of rows or columns
1601 in a stacking container. i3 will create columns or rows (depending on what
1602 you limited) automatically as needed.
1605 --------------------------------
1606 stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
1607 --------------------------------
1611 # I always want to have two window titles in one line
1614 # Not more than 5 rows in this stacking container
1618 image:stacklimit.png[Container limited to two columns]
1619 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1621 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
1623 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
1624 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
1625 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
1626 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
1627 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
1630 ----------------------------
1631 bindsym mod+Shift+r restart
1632 bindsym mod+Shift+w reload
1633 bindsym mod+Shift+e exit
1634 ----------------------------
1638 There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. +move
1639 scratchpad+ will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
1640 invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
1641 Instead, when using +scratchpad show+, the window will be shown again, as a
1642 floating window, centered on your current workspace (using +scratchpad show+ on
1643 a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
1644 keybinding to toggle).
1646 As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
1647 editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
1648 running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
1649 player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?
1659 ------------------------------------------------
1660 # Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
1661 bindsym mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad
1663 # Show the first scratchpad window
1664 bindsym mod+minus scratchpad show
1666 # Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
1667 bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show
1668 ------------------------------------------------
1672 == Multiple monitors
1674 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
1675 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
1676 handle multiple monitors.
1678 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
1679 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
1681 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
1682 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
1683 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
1684 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
1685 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
1686 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
1687 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
1689 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
1690 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
1691 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
1692 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
1693 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
1694 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
1695 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
1696 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
1698 === Configuring your monitors
1700 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
1701 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
1702 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
1703 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
1704 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1706 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
1707 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
1708 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
1709 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
1710 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
1712 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1713 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
1717 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1719 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
1720 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
1721 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
1722 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
1724 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
1725 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
1726 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
1728 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
1729 -------------------------------------------
1730 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
1731 -------------------------------------------
1732 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
1733 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
1734 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
1735 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1737 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
1738 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
1739 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
1742 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
1744 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1745 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
1747 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
1748 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
1749 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
1751 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1752 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
1756 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1757 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
1758 only what you can see in xrandr.
1760 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
1762 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
1764 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
1765 have more than one monitor:
1767 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
1768 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
1769 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
1770 <<workspace_screen>>.
1771 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
1772 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
1773 <<assign_workspace>>.
1774 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
1775 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
1776 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
1778 == i3 and the rest of your software world
1780 === Displaying a status line
1782 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
1783 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
1784 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
1786 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
1787 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
1788 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
1789 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
1790 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
1791 i3bar. See <<status_command>> for how to display i3status in i3bar.
1793 Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
1794 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
1795 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
1796 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
1797 see <<i3bar_position>>.
1799 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
1801 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
1802 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
1803 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
1804 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
1808 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
1809 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
1810 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
1811 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
1812 -----------------------------------------------------
1813 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
1814 -----------------------------------------------------
1815 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
1816 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
1817 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
1819 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
1820 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
1821 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
1822 -----------------------------------------------------
1823 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
1824 -----------------------------------------------------
1825 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
1826 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
1828 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
1829 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
1830 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).