3 Michael Stapelberg <michael+i3@stapelberg.de>
6 *********************************************************************************
7 This document is not yet finished. The tree branch is still in development. The
8 information provided here should be correct, just not complete yet.
9 *********************************************************************************
11 This document contains all the information you need to configure and use the i3
12 window manager. If it does not, please contact us on IRC (preferred) or post your
13 question(s) on the mailing list.
15 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
16 == Default keybindings
18 For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here is an overview of the default
19 keybindings (click to see the full size image):
21 *Keys to use with Mod1 (alt):*
23 image:keyboard-layer1.png["Keys to use with Mod1 (alt)",width=600,link="keyboard-layer1.png"]
25 *Keys to use with Shift+Mod1:*
27 image:keyboard-layer2.png["Keys to use with Shift+Mod1",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]
29 As i3 uses keycodes in the default configuration, it does not matter which
30 keyboard layout you actually use. The key positions are what matters (of course
31 you can also use keysymbols, see <<keybindings>>).
33 The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
35 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
39 Throughout this guide, the keyword +mod+ will be used to refer to the
40 configured modifier. This is the windows key (mod4) by default, with alt (mod1)
41 being a popular alternative.
43 === Opening terminals and moving around
45 One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
46 for this is mod+Enter, that is Win+Enter in the default configuration. By
47 pressing mod+Enter, a new terminal will be opened. It will fill the whole
48 space available on your screen.
50 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
52 If you now open another terminal, i3 will place it next to the current one,
53 splitting the screen size in half. Depending on your monitor, i3 will put the
54 new window right to the old window (for widescreen) or below the old window
57 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
59 To move the focus between the two terminals, you use the direction keys which
60 you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used for
61 these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for compatibility
62 with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +mod+J+ is left, +mod+K+ is down,
63 +mod+L+ is up and `mod+;` is right. So, to switch between the terminals,
64 use +mod+K+ or +mod+L+.
66 At the moment, your workspace is split (it contains two terminals) in a
67 specific direction (horizontal by default). Every window can be split
68 horizontally or vertically again, just like the workspace. The terminology is
69 "window" for a container that actually contains an X11 window (like a terminal
70 or browser) and "split container" for containers that consist of one or more
73 TODO: picture of the tree
75 To split a window vertically, press +mod+v+. To split it horizontally, press
78 === Changing container modes
80 A container can have the following modes:
83 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
86 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
87 windows at the top of the container.
89 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
90 a single line which is vertically split.
92 To switch modes, press +Mod1+e+ for default, +Mod1+h+ for stacking and
95 image:modes.png[Container modes]
97 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
99 To display a window fullscreen or to go out of fullscreen mode again, press
102 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
103 TODO: not yet implemented
105 There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will use all
106 available outputs. To use it, or to get out of it again, press +mod+Shift+f+.
107 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
109 === Opening other applications
111 Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
112 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +mod+p+ by default. Just type the name
113 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The application
114 typed has to be in your +$PATH+ for this to work.
116 Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
117 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
118 "Configuring i3" for details.
122 If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
123 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
124 can press +Mod1+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
125 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
126 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
127 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
128 depends on the application.
132 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
133 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
134 another workspace, press +mod+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
135 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
137 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
138 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one, and the ones with which you
139 work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
141 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
142 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
143 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
144 focus to that screen.
146 === Moving windows to workspaces
148 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +mod+Shift+num+ where
149 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
150 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
151 it does not yet exist.
155 The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
156 and move it to the wanted size.
158 See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
159 columns/rows with your keyboard.
161 === Restarting i3 inplace
163 To restart i3 inplace (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
164 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +mod+Shift+r+.
168 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +mod+Shift+e+.
172 Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of a window
173 are not managed by i3, but by you. Using this mode violates the tiling
174 paradigm but can be useful for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog
175 windows, or toolbar windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the
176 appropriate hint and are opened in floating mode by default.
178 You can enable floating mode for a window by pressing +mod+Shift+Space+. By
179 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
180 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
181 can also do that by using the <<floating_modifier>>.
183 For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see <<resizingconfig>>.
185 Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.
189 The most important change and reason for the name is that i3 stores all
190 information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the windows on them
191 in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by the X11 outputs,
192 then workspaces and finally the windows themselve. In previous versions of i3
193 we had multiple lists (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace.
194 That approach turned out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and
197 === The tree consists of Containers
199 The building blocks of our tree are so called +Containers+. A +Container+ can
200 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
201 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more +Containers+. A
202 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
203 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
206 image::tree-layout2.png["layout2",float="right"]
207 image::tree-shot4.png["shot4",title="Two terminals on standard workspace"]
209 === Orientation and Split Containers
213 It is only natural to use so-called +Split Containers+ in order to build a
214 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every +Container+ has an
215 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified). So, in our example with the
216 workspace, the default orientation of the workspace +Container+ is horizontal
217 (most monitors are widescreen nowadays). If you change the orientation to
218 vertical (+Alt+v+ in the default config) and *then* open two terminals, i3 will
219 configure your windows like this:
221 image::tree-shot2.png["shot2",title="Vertical Workspace Orientation"]
223 An interesting new feature of the tree branch is the ability to split anything:
224 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with horizontal
225 orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open another
226 terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new terminal
227 window, it would show up to the right due to the horizontal workspace
228 orientation. Instead, press +Alt+v+ to create a +Vertical Split Container+ (to
229 open a +Horizontal Split Container+, use +Alt+h+). Now you can open a new
230 terminal and it will open below the current one:
232 image::tree-layout1.png["Layout",float="right"]
233 image::tree-shot1.png["shot",title="Vertical Split Container"]
237 You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
242 Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
243 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
244 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.
246 So, how can you open a new terminal window to the *right* of the current one?
247 The solution is to use +focus parent+, which will focus the +Parent Container+ of
248 the current +Container+. In this case, you would focus the +Vertical Split
249 Container+ which is *inside* the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
250 windows will be opened to the right of the +Vertical Split Container+:
252 image::tree-shot3.png["shot3",title="Focus parent, then open new terminal"]
257 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependant on your
258 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
260 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
261 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
264 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
265 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
266 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
267 can bind your keys to do useful things.
269 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
270 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
275 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
276 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
277 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:
286 i3 uses X core fonts (not Xft) for rendering window titles and the internal
287 workspace bar. You can use +xfontsel(1)+ to generate such a font description.
288 To see special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports
289 the ISO-10646 encoding.
291 If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
292 and fall back to a working font.
295 ------------------------------
296 font <X core font description>
297 ------------------------------
300 --------------------------------------------------------------
301 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
302 --------------------------------------------------------------
306 === Keyboard bindings
308 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
309 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
310 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
312 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
313 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
314 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
315 mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+.
317 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for some hotkeys
318 on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you switch to a
319 different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
321 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
322 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
323 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
327 ----------------------------------
328 bindsym [Modifiers+]keysym command
329 bindcode [Modifiers+]keycode command
330 ----------------------------------
333 --------------------------------
338 bindsym Mod1+Shift+r restart
340 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
341 bindcode 214 exec /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
342 --------------------------------
346 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
347 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
350 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
351 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
352 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
353 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
354 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
356 [[floating_modifier]]
358 === The floating modifier
360 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
361 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
362 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
363 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
364 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
365 it to the position you want.
367 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
368 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
369 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional.
372 --------------------------------
373 floating_modifier <Modifiers>
374 --------------------------------
377 --------------------------------
378 floating_modifier Mod1
379 --------------------------------
381 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
382 === Layout mode for new containers
384 TODO: this is workspace_layout. but workspace_layout only works for the first
387 This option determines in which mode new containers will start. See also
391 ---------------------------------------------
392 new_container <default|stacking|tabbed>
393 new_container stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
394 ---------------------------------------------
397 ---------------------
399 ---------------------
400 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
402 === Border style for new windows
404 This option determines which border style new windows will have.
407 ---------------------------------------------
408 new_window <normal|1pixel|borderless>
409 ---------------------------------------------
412 ---------------------
414 ---------------------
418 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
419 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
420 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
421 variables can be handy.
429 ------------------------
431 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
432 ------------------------
434 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. There is no fancy
435 handling and there are absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more
436 dynamic configuration you should create a little script which generates a
437 configuration file and run it before starting i3 (for example in your
440 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
444 It is recommended that you match on window classes wherever possible because
445 some applications first create their window, and then worry about setting the
446 correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window starts up
447 being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the title change.
448 As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the window (mapping
449 means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have to match on
450 'Firefox' in this case.
452 You can prefix or suffix workspaces with a `~` to specify that matching clients
453 should be put into floating mode. If you specify only a `~`, the client will
454 not be put onto any workspace, but will be set floating on the current one.
457 ------------------------------------------------------------
458 assign ["]window class[/window title]["] [→] [workspace]
459 ------------------------------------------------------------
462 ----------------------
467 assign "urxvt/VIM" → 3
469 ----------------------
471 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
472 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
474 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
476 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure which
477 commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup (not when restarting i3
478 in-place however). These commands will be run in order.
486 --------------------------------
487 exec i3status | dzen2 -dock
488 --------------------------------
492 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
494 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
495 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
496 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
497 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
498 the second screen and so on).
501 ----------------------------------
502 workspace <number> output <output>
503 ----------------------------------
505 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
506 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
507 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
510 ---------------------------
511 workspace 1 output LVDS1
512 workspace 5 output VGA1
513 ---------------------------
517 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations and the
521 --------------------------------------------
522 colorclass border background text
523 --------------------------------------------
525 Where colorclass can be one of:
528 A client which currently has the focus.
529 client.focused_inactive::
530 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
531 the focus at the moment.
533 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
535 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
537 The current workspace in the bottom bar.
539 All other workspaces in the bottom bar.
541 A workspace which has at least one client with an activated urgency hint.
543 You can also specify the color to be used to paint the background of the client
544 windows. This color will be used to paint the window on top of which the client
548 -----------------------
549 client.background color
550 -----------------------
552 Only clients that do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color
553 used to paint it. If you use a color other than black for your terminals, you
554 most likely want to set the client background color to the same color as your
555 terminal program's background color to avoid black gaps between the rendered
556 area of the termianal and the i3 border.
558 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
561 --------------------------------------
562 # class border backgr. text
563 client.focused #2F343A #900000 #FFFFFF
564 --------------------------------------
566 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
567 background color, and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
570 === Interprocess communication
572 i3 uses unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
573 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
574 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
576 To enable it, you have to configure a path where the unix socket will be
577 stored. The default path is +/tmp/i3-ipc.sock+.
579 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+.
582 ----------------------------
583 ipc-socket /tmp/i3-ipc.sock
584 ----------------------------
586 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
589 === Disable focus follows mouse
591 If you have a setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad
592 on your laptop which you do not want to disable completely), you might want
593 to disable 'focus follows mouse' and control focus only by using your keyboard.
594 The mouse will still be useful inside the currently active window (for example
595 to click on links in your browser window).
598 ----------------------------
599 focus_follows_mouse <yes|no>
600 ----------------------------
603 ----------------------
604 focus_follows_mouse no
605 ----------------------
609 === Manipulating layout
611 To change the layout of the current container to stacking, use +layout
612 stacking+, for default use +layout default+ and for tabbed, use +layout
613 tabbed+. To make the current client (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen+, to make
614 it floating (or tiling again) use +mode floating+ respectively +mode tiling+
619 bindsym Mod1+s layout stacking
620 bindsym Mod1+l layout default
621 bindsym Mod1+w layout tabbed
624 bindsym Mod1+f fullscreen
626 # Toggle floating/tiling
627 bindsym Mod1+t mode toggle
630 === Focusing/Moving containers
632 To change the focus, use the focus command: +focus left+, +focus right+, +focus down+ and +focus up+.
634 For moving, use +move left+, +move right+, +move down+ and +move up+.
637 ----------------------
638 # Focus clients on the left, bottom, top, right:
639 bindsym Mod1+j focus left
640 bindsym Mod1+k focus down
641 bindsym Mod1+l focus up
642 bindsym Mod1+semicolon focus right
644 # Move client to the left, bottom, top, right:
645 bindsym Mod1+j move left
646 bindsym Mod1+k move down
647 bindsym Mod1+l move up
648 bindsym Mod1+semicolon move right
649 ----------------------
651 === Changing workspaces/moving containers to workspaces
653 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
654 number or name of the workspace. To move containers, use +move workspace+.
656 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
657 TODO: not yet implemented
659 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands +nw+
660 and +pw+, which is handy, for example, if you have workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and
661 you want to cycle through them with a single key combination.
662 //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
665 -------------------------
666 bindsym Mod1+1 workspace 1
667 bindsym Mod1+2 workspace 2
670 bindsym Mod1+Shift+1 move workspace 1
671 bindsym Mod1+Shift+2 move workspace 2
673 -------------------------
677 === Resizing columns/rows
679 If you want to resize columns/rows using your keyboard, you can use the
680 +resize+ command, I recommend using it inside a so called +mode+:
682 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
683 TODO: mode is not yet implemented
684 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
685 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
687 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
689 # They resize the border in the direction you pressed, e.g.
690 # when pressing left, the window is resized so that it has
691 # more space on its left
693 bindsym j resize shrink left
694 bindsym Shift+j resize grow left
696 bindsym k resize grow bottom
697 bindsym Shift+k resize shrink bottom
699 bindsym l resize shrink top
700 bindsym Shift+l resize grow top
702 bindsym semicolon resize grow right
703 bindsym Shift+semicolon resize shrink right
705 bindcode 36 mode default
709 bindsym Mod1+r mode resize
710 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
712 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
714 === Jumping to specific windows
716 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
717 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
718 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
719 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mailclient,
720 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
724 ----------------------------------------------------
725 [class="class"] focus
726 [title="title"] focus
727 ----------------------------------------------------
730 ------------------------------------------------
731 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
732 bindsym Mod1+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
733 ------------------------------------------------
735 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
739 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
740 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
741 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
742 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You do not need to ensure that your
743 windows have unique classes or titles, and you do not need to change your
746 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
747 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
748 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
749 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
752 ------------------------------
754 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
755 ------------------------------
757 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
758 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
760 ---------------------------------------
761 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
762 bindsym Mod1+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
764 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
765 bindsym Mod1+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
766 ---------------------------------------
768 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
769 seperate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
770 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
772 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
773 TODO: not yet implemented
774 === Traveling the focus stack
776 This mechanism can be thought of as the opposite of the +jump+ command.
777 It travels the focus stack and jumps to the window which had focus previously.
781 focus [number] | floating | tiling | ft
784 Where +number+ by default is 1 meaning that the next client in the focus stack
787 The special values have the following meaning:
790 The next floating window is selected.
792 The next tiling window is selected.
794 If the current window is floating, the next tiling window will be
795 selected; and vice-versa.
796 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
798 === Changing border style
800 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
801 border (including window title), +border 1pixel+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
802 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
804 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
805 TODO: not yet implemented
806 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
807 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
810 ----------------------------
811 bindsym Mod1+t border normal
812 bindsym Mod1+y border 1pixel
813 bindsym Mod1+u border none
814 ----------------------------
818 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
819 TODO: not yet implemented
820 === Changing the stack-limit of a container
822 If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside it (say, more than
823 10), the default layout of a stacking container can get a little unhandy.
824 Depending on your screen’s size, you might end up with only half of the title
825 lines being actually used, wasting a lot of screen space.
827 Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the number of rows or columns
828 in a stacking container. i3 will create columns or rows (depending on what
829 you limited) automatically as needed.
832 --------------------------------
833 stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
834 --------------------------------
838 # I always want to have two window titles in one line
841 # Not more than 5 rows in this stacking container
845 image:stacklimit.png[Container limited to two columns]
846 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
848 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
850 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
851 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
852 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
853 your X session. However, your layout is not preserved at the moment, meaning
854 that all open windows will end up in a single container in default layout
855 after the restart. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
856 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
859 ----------------------------
860 bindsym Mod1+Shift+r restart
861 bindsym Mod1+Shift+w reload
862 bindsym Mod1+Shift+e exit
863 ----------------------------
869 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
870 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
871 handle multiple monitors.
873 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
874 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
876 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
877 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
878 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
879 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
880 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
881 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
882 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
884 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
885 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
886 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
887 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
888 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
889 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
890 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
891 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
893 === Configuring your monitors
895 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
896 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
897 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
898 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
899 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
901 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
902 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
903 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
905 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
907 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
908 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
912 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
914 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
915 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
916 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
917 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
919 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
920 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
921 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
923 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
924 -------------------------------------------
925 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
926 -------------------------------------------
927 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
928 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
929 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
930 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
932 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
933 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
934 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
937 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
939 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
940 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
942 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
944 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
946 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
947 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
951 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
952 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
953 only what you can see in xrandr.
955 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
957 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
959 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
960 have more than one monitor:
962 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
963 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
964 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
965 <<workspace_screen>>.
966 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
967 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
968 <<assign_workspace>>.
969 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
970 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
971 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
973 == i3 and the rest of your software world
975 === Displaying a status line
977 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
978 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
979 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
981 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
982 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
983 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
984 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states.
986 Regardless of which application you use to generate the status line, you
987 want to make sure that the application does one of the following things:
989 1. Register as a dock window using EWMH hints. This will make i3 position the
990 window above the workspace bar but below every other client. This is the
991 recommended way, but in case of dzen2, for example, you need to check out
992 the source of dzen2 from subversion, as the -dock option is not present
993 in the released versions.
994 2. Overlay the internal workspace bar. This method will not waste any space
995 on the workspace bar, however, it is rather hackish. Just configure
996 the output window to be over the workspace bar (say -x 200 and -y 780 if
997 your screen is 800 px height).
999 The planned solution for this problem is to make the workspace bar optional
1000 and switch to a third party application completely (dzen2 for example)
1001 which will then contain the workspace bar.
1003 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
1005 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
1006 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
1007 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
1008 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
1012 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
1013 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
1014 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
1015 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
1016 -----------------------------------------------------
1017 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
1018 -----------------------------------------------------
1019 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
1020 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
1021 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
1023 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
1024 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
1025 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
1026 -----------------------------------------------------
1027 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
1028 -----------------------------------------------------
1029 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
1030 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
1032 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
1033 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
1034 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).