3 Michael Stapelberg <michael@i3wm.org>
6 This document contains all the information you need to configure and use the i3
7 window manager. If it does not, please check http://faq.i3wm.org/ first, then
8 contact us on IRC (preferred) or post your question(s) on the mailing list.
10 == Default keybindings
12 For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here is an overview of the default
13 keybindings (click to see the full size image):
15 *Keys to use with mod (alt):*
17 image:keyboard-layer1.png["Keys to use with mod (alt)",width=600,link="keyboard-layer1.png"]
19 *Keys to use with Shift+mod:*
21 image:keyboard-layer2.png["Keys to use with Shift+mod",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]
23 The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
28 Throughout this guide, the keyword +mod+ will be used to refer to the
29 configured modifier. This is the alt key (Mod1) by default, with 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
351 Some tools (such as +import+ or +xdotool+) might be unable to run upon a
352 KeyPress event, because the keyboard/pointer is still grabbed. For these
353 situations, the +--release+ flag can be used, which will execute the command
354 after the keys have been released.
357 ----------------------------------
358 bindsym [--release] [Modifiers+]keysym command
359 bindcode [--release] [Modifiers+]keycode command
360 ----------------------------------
363 --------------------------------
365 bindsym mod+f fullscreen
368 bindsym mod+Shift+r restart
370 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
371 bindcode 214 exec --no-startup-id /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
373 # Simulate ctrl+v upon pressing $mod+x
374 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v
376 # Take a screenshot upon pressing $mod+x (select an area)
377 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id import /tmp/latest-screenshot.png
378 --------------------------------
382 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
383 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
386 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
387 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
388 umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
389 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
390 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
392 [[floating_modifier]]
394 === The floating modifier
396 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
397 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
398 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
399 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
400 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
401 it to the position you want.
403 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
404 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
405 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
406 ratio will be preserved).
409 --------------------------------
410 floating_modifier <Modifiers>
411 --------------------------------
414 --------------------------------
415 floating_modifier Mod1
416 --------------------------------
418 === Constraining floating window size
420 The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
421 either dimension of +floating_maximum_size+ is specified as -1, that dimension
422 will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
423 +floating_maximum_size+ is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
424 value to constrain the maximum size. +floating_minimum_size+ is treated in a
425 manner analogous to +floating_maximum_size+.
428 ----------------------------------------
429 floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
430 floating_maximum_size <width> x <height>
431 ----------------------------------------
434 --------------------------------------
435 floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
436 floating_maximum_size -1 x -1
437 --------------------------------------
439 === Orientation for new workspaces
441 New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
442 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
443 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.
445 With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
449 ----------------------------------------------
450 default_orientation <horizontal|vertical|auto>
451 ----------------------------------------------
454 ----------------------------
455 default_orientation vertical
456 ----------------------------
458 === Layout mode for new containers
460 This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
462 ///////////////////////////////
463 See also <<stack-limit>>.
464 //////////////////////////////
467 ---------------------------------------------
468 workspace_layout <default|stacking|tabbed>
469 ---------------------------------------------
470 /////////////////////////////////////////////
471 new_container stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
472 /////////////////////////////////////////////
475 ---------------------
476 workspace_layout tabbed
477 ---------------------
479 === Border style for new windows
481 This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
485 ---------------------------------------------
486 new_window <normal|1pixel|none>
487 ---------------------------------------------
490 ---------------------
492 ---------------------
494 === Hiding vertical borders
496 You can hide vertical borders adjacent to the screen edges using
497 +hide_edge_borders+. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
498 to waste even two pixels in displayspace. Default is none.
501 ----------------------------
502 hide_edge_borders <none|vertical|horizontal|both>
503 ----------------------------
506 ----------------------
507 hide_edge_borders vertical
508 ----------------------
510 === Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)
512 With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
513 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
514 change their border style, for example.
517 -----------------------------
518 for_window <criteria> command
519 -----------------------------
522 ------------------------------------------------
523 # enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
524 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
526 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
527 for_window [class="urxvt"] border 1pixel
529 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
530 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
531 # directory to ~/work
532 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
533 ------------------------------------------------
535 The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.
539 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
540 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
541 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
542 variables can be handy.
550 ------------------------
552 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
553 ------------------------
555 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. There is no fancy
556 handling and there are absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more
557 dynamic configuration you should create a little script which generates a
558 configuration file and run it before starting i3 (for example in your
561 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
565 To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
566 can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
567 see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
568 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
569 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
570 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
571 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
572 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
573 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
574 to match on 'Firefox' in this case.
577 ------------------------------------------------------------
578 assign <criteria> [→] workspace
579 ------------------------------------------------------------
582 ----------------------
583 # Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
584 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
586 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
587 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
589 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
590 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
592 # Assignment to a named workspace
593 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
595 # Start urxvt -name irssi
596 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
597 ----------------------
599 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
600 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
602 To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
603 window, you will see the following output:
606 -----------------------------------
607 WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
608 -----------------------------------
610 The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
611 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).
613 Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
614 logfile first (see http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
615 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
616 title when starting up.
618 Note that if you want to start an application just once on a specific
619 workspace, but you don’t want to assign all instances of it permanently, you
620 can make use of i3’s startup-notification support (see <<exec>>) in your config
621 file in the following way:
623 *Start iceweasel on workspace 3 (once)*:
624 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
625 # Start iceweasel on workspace 3, then switch back to workspace 1
626 # (Being a command-line utility, i3-msg does not support startup notifications,
627 # hence the exec --no-startup-id.)
628 # (Starting iceweasel with i3’s exec command is important in order to make i3
629 # create a startup notification context, without which the iceweasel window(s)
630 # cannot be matched onto the workspace on which the command was started.)
631 exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 3; exec iceweasel; workspace 1'
632 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
634 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
636 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
637 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
638 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
639 also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
640 keyword. These commands will be run in order.
644 exec [--no-startup-id] command
645 exec_always [--no-startup-id] command
649 --------------------------------
651 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
653 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
654 exec --no-startup-id urxvt
655 --------------------------------
657 The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <<exec>>.
661 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
663 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
664 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
665 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
666 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
667 the second screen and so on).
670 ----------------------------------
671 workspace <workspace> output <output>
672 ----------------------------------
674 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
675 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
676 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
678 If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:
681 ---------------------------
682 workspace 1 output LVDS1
683 workspace 5 output VGA1
684 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1
685 ---------------------------
689 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.
692 --------------------------------------------
693 colorclass border background text indicator
694 --------------------------------------------
696 Where colorclass can be one of:
699 A client which currently has the focus.
700 client.focused_inactive::
701 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
702 the focus at the moment.
704 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
706 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
708 You can also specify the color to be used to paint the background of the client
709 windows. This color will be used to paint the window on top of which the client
713 -----------------------
714 client.background color
715 -----------------------
717 Only clients that do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color
718 used to paint it. If you use a color other than black for your terminals, you
719 most likely want to set the client background color to the same color as your
720 terminal program's background color to avoid black gaps between the rendered
721 area of the terminal and the i3 border.
723 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
725 *Examples (default colors)*:
726 ---------------------------------------------------------
727 # class border backgr. text indicator
728 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff #2e9ef4
729 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff #484e50
730 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888 #292d2e
731 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff #900000
732 ---------------------------------------------------------
734 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
735 background color, and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
738 The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
739 For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
740 color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
741 single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
742 from single windows outside of a split container.
744 === Interprocess communication
746 i3 uses unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
747 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
748 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
750 The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
751 +/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username, +%p+ is
752 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
753 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).
755 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
756 by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
757 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
758 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
759 user can create that directory.
762 ----------------------------
763 ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock
764 ----------------------------
766 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
769 === Focus follows mouse
771 By default, window focus follows your mouse movements. However, if you have a
772 setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad on your laptop
773 which you do not want to disable completely), you might want to disable 'focus
774 follows mouse' and control focus only by using your keyboard. The mouse will
775 still be useful inside the currently active window (for example to click on
776 links in your browser window).
779 ----------------------------
780 focus_follows_mouse <yes|no>
781 ----------------------------
784 ----------------------
785 focus_follows_mouse no
786 ----------------------
788 === Popups during fullscreen mode
790 When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
791 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
792 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
793 There are two things which are possible to do in this situation:
795 1. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
796 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
797 you go out of fullscreen).
798 2. Leave fullscreen mode. This is the default.
801 -------------------------------------------------
802 popup_during_fullscreen <ignore|leave_fullscreen>
803 -------------------------------------------------
806 ------------------------------
807 popup_during_fullscreen ignore
808 ------------------------------
812 When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
813 focused when you use +focus down+ on the last container -- the focus wraps. If
814 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
815 be set on that container. This is the default behaviour so you can navigate to
816 all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.
818 If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
819 parent+ to switch to different containers, you can use the
820 +force_focus_wrapping+ configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
824 -----------------------------
825 force_focus_wrapping <yes|no>
826 -----------------------------
829 ------------------------
830 force_focus_wrapping yes
831 ------------------------
835 As explained in-depth in <http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html>, some X11
836 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
837 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
838 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
839 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
842 For people who do cannot modify their +~/.xsession+ to add the
843 +--force-xinerama+ commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:
846 -----------------------
847 force_xinerama <yes|no>
848 -----------------------
855 Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like +HDMI1+) when using
856 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: +xinerama-0+, +xinerama-1+, …
858 === Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace
860 This configuration directive enables automatic +workspace back_and_forth+ (see
861 <<back_and_forth>>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.
863 For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
864 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
865 came from now, you can just press mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".
868 --------------------------------------
869 workspace_auto_back_and_forth <yes|no>
870 --------------------------------------
873 ---------------------------------
874 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes
875 ---------------------------------
877 === Delaying urgency hint reset on workspace change
879 If an application on another workspace sets an urgency hint, switching to this
880 workspace may lead to immediate focus of the application, which also means the
881 window decoration color would be immediately resetted to +client.focused+. This
882 may make it unnecessarily hard to tell which window originally raised the
885 In order to prevent this, you can tell i3 to delay resetting the urgency state
886 by a certain time using the +force_display_urgency_hint+ directive. Setting the
887 value to 0 disables this feature.
889 The default is 500ms.
892 ---------------------------------------
893 force_display_urgency_hint <timeout> ms
894 ---------------------------------------
897 ---------------------------------
898 force_display_urgency_hint 500 ms
899 ---------------------------------
903 The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
904 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
907 1. It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
908 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
909 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
910 2. It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
911 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
912 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
913 3. It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
914 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
916 That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
917 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
918 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
919 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
920 configuration infrastructure in place.
922 Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a +bar+ block. You can have
923 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):
926 ---------------------------
928 status_command i3status
930 ---------------------------
934 By default i3 will just pass +i3bar+ and let your shell handle the execution,
935 searching your +$PATH+ for a correct version.
936 If you have a different +i3bar+ somewhere or the binary is not in your +$PATH+ you can
937 tell i3 what to execute.
939 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
940 have to have correct quoting etc.
943 ----------------------
944 i3bar_command command
945 ----------------------
948 -------------------------------------------------
950 i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
952 -------------------------------------------------
955 === Statusline command
957 i3bar can run a program and display every line of its +stdout+ output on the
958 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
959 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.
961 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
962 have to have correct quoting etc.
965 ----------------------
966 status_command command
967 ----------------------
970 -------------------------------------------------
972 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
974 -------------------------------------------------
978 You can have i3bar either be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
979 (+dock+ mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (+hide+
980 mode). The modifier key can be configured using the +modifier+ option.
982 The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
983 i3bar sends the +SIGSTOP+ and +SIGCONT+ signals to the statusline process to
986 The default is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
1003 Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see +xmodmap(1)+).
1008 This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.
1010 The default is bottom.
1013 ---------------------
1014 position <top|bottom>
1015 ---------------------
1018 ---------------------
1022 ---------------------
1026 You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
1027 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
1028 options for different outputs by using multiple 'bar' blocks.
1030 To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
1031 directive multiple times.
1039 -------------------------------
1040 # big monitor: everything
1042 # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
1045 status_command i3status
1048 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
1051 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
1057 -------------------------------
1061 i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
1062 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.
1064 You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
1065 you can turn off the functionality entirely.
1068 -------------------------
1069 tray_output <none|primary|output>
1070 -------------------------
1073 -------------------------
1074 # disable system tray
1079 # show tray icons on the primary monitor
1082 # show tray icons on the big monitor
1086 -------------------------
1088 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1089 -------------------------
1090 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1091 -------------------------
1095 Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <<fonts>>.
1098 ---------------------
1100 ---------------------
1103 --------------------------------------------------------------
1105 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
1106 font xft:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
1108 --------------------------------------------------------------
1110 === Workspace buttons
1112 Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
1113 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.
1115 The default is to show workspace buttons.
1118 --------------------------
1119 workspace_buttons <yes|no>
1120 --------------------------
1123 --------------------
1125 workspace_buttons no
1127 --------------------
1131 As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
1132 be configured at the moment:
1135 Background color of the bar.
1137 Text color to be used for the statusline.
1139 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1142 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1143 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
1144 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
1145 using multiple monitors.
1146 inactive_workspace::
1147 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1148 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
1149 will be the case for most workspaces.
1151 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1152 window with the urgency hint set.
1155 ----------------------------------------
1160 colorclass <border> <background> <text>
1162 ----------------------------------------
1164 *Example (default colors)*:
1165 --------------------------------------
1171 focused_workspace #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
1172 active_workspace #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
1173 inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
1174 urgent_workspace #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1177 --------------------------------------
1181 Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
1182 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
1183 do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:
1186 --------------------------
1187 # execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
1189 --------------------------
1191 Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
1192 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
1193 the following keybinding:
1196 --------------------------------------------------------
1197 bindsym mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3
1198 --------------------------------------------------------
1200 [[command_criteria]]
1202 Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command, that is, which containers
1203 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. These are
1204 prefixed in square brackets to every command. If you want to kill all windows
1205 which have the class Firefox, use:
1208 ------------------------------------
1209 bindsym mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
1211 # same thing, but case-insensitive
1212 bindsym mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
1213 ------------------------------------
1215 The criteria which are currently implemented are:
1218 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS)
1220 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS)
1222 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE).
1224 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
1226 Compares the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
1228 Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
1229 Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
1230 (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
1232 Compares the mark set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>.
1234 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
1235 interface. Handy for scripting.
1237 The criteria +class+, +instance+, +role+, +title+ and +mark+ are actually
1238 regular expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for
1239 information on how to use them.
1243 === Executing applications (exec)
1245 What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
1246 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
1247 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
1248 searched in your $PATH.
1251 ------------------------------
1252 exec [--no-startup-id] command
1253 ------------------------------
1256 ------------------------------
1258 bindsym mod+g exec gimp
1260 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
1261 bindsym mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt
1262 ------------------------------
1264 The +--no-startup-id+ parameter disables startup-notification support for this
1265 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
1266 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
1267 will change the X11 cursor to +watch+ (a clock) while the application is
1268 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
1269 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
1270 cursor for 60 seconds.
1272 === Splitting containers
1274 The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
1275 can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
1276 new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
1277 get placed below the current one (splitv).
1279 If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
1280 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
1281 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window). Use
1282 +layout toggle split+ to change the layout of any split container from splitv
1283 to splith or vice-versa.
1286 ---------------------------
1287 split <vertical|horizontal>
1288 ---------------------------
1291 ------------------------------
1292 bindsym mod+v split vertical
1293 bindsym mod+h split horizontal
1294 ------------------------------
1296 === Manipulating layout
1298 Use +layout toggle split+, +layout stacking+ or +layout tabbed+ to change the
1299 current container layout to splith/splitv, stacking or tabbed layout,
1302 To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen+, to make
1303 it floating (or tiling again) use +floating enable+ respectively +floating disable+
1304 (or +floating toggle+):
1308 layout <tabbed|stacking>
1309 layout toggle [split|all]
1314 bindsym mod+s layout stacking
1315 bindsym mod+l layout toggle split
1316 bindsym mod+w layout tabbed
1318 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
1319 bindsym mod+x layout toggle
1321 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
1322 bindsym mod+x layout toggle all
1325 bindsym mod+f fullscreen
1327 # Toggle floating/tiling
1328 bindsym mod+t floating toggle
1331 === Focusing/Moving containers
1333 To change the focus, use the focus command: +focus left+, +focus right+, +focus
1334 down+ and +focus up+.
1336 There are a few special parameters you can use for the focus command:
1339 Sets focus to the +Parent Container+ of the current +Container+.
1341 The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
1344 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
1346 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
1348 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
1350 Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
1351 corresponding output.
1353 For moving, use +move left+, +move right+, +move down+ and +move up+.
1356 -----------------------------------
1357 focus <left|right|down|up>
1358 focus <parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle>
1359 focus output <<left|right|down|up>|output>
1360 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
1361 move [absolute] position [[<px> px] [<px> px]|center]
1362 -----------------------------------
1364 Note that the amount of pixels you can specify for the +move+ command is only
1365 relevant for floating containers. The default amount is 10 pixels.
1368 ----------------------
1369 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right:
1370 bindsym mod+j focus left
1371 bindsym mod+k focus down
1372 bindsym mod+l focus up
1373 bindsym mod+semicolon focus right
1375 # Focus parent container
1376 bindsym mod+u focus parent
1378 # Focus last floating/tiling container
1379 bindsym mod+g focus mode_toggle
1381 # Focus the output right to the current one
1382 bindsym mod+x focus output right
1384 # Focus the big output
1385 bindsym mod+x focus output HDMI-2
1387 # Move container to the left, bottom, top, right:
1388 bindsym mod+j move left
1389 bindsym mod+k move down
1390 bindsym mod+l move up
1391 bindsym mod+semicolon move right
1393 # Move container, but make floating containers
1394 # move more than the default
1395 bindsym mod+j move left 20 px
1397 # Move floating container to the center
1399 bindsym mod+c move absolute position center
1400 ----------------------
1402 === Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces
1404 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
1405 number or name of the workspace. To move containers to specific workspaces, use
1406 +move container to workspace+.
1408 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
1409 +workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
1410 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
1411 combination. To restrict those to the current output, use +workspace
1412 next_on_output+ and +workspace prev_on_output+. Similarly, you can use +move
1413 container to workspace next+, +move container to workspace prev+ to move a
1414 container to the next/previous workspace and +move container to workspace current+
1415 (the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).
1417 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
1421 To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use +workspace
1422 back_and_forth+; likewise, you can move containers to the previously focused
1423 workspace using +move container to workspace back_and_forth+.
1426 -----------------------------------
1427 workspace <next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output>
1428 workspace back_and_forth
1430 workspace number <name>
1432 move [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
1433 move [window|container] [to] workspace number <name>
1434 move [window|container] [to] workspace <prev|next|current>
1435 -----------------------------------
1438 -------------------------
1439 bindsym mod+1 workspace 1
1440 bindsym mod+2 workspace 2
1443 bindsym mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
1444 bindsym mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
1447 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
1448 bindsym mod+b workspace back_and_forth
1449 bindsym mod+Shift+b move container to workspace back_and_forth
1451 # move the whole workspace to the next output
1452 bindsym mod+x move workspace to output right
1454 # move firefox to current workspace
1455 bindsym mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current
1456 -------------------------
1458 ==== Named workspaces
1460 Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
1461 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:
1464 -------------------------
1465 bindsym mod+1 workspace mail
1467 -------------------------
1469 If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
1473 -------------------------
1474 bindsym mod+1 workspace 1: mail
1475 bindsym mod+2 workspace 2: www
1477 -------------------------
1479 Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
1480 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
1481 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
1482 will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use +workspace number 1+
1483 to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
1484 it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
1485 dynamically. To combine both commands you can use +workspace number 1: mail+ to
1486 specify a default name if there's currently no workspace starting with a "1".
1488 ==== Renaming workspaces
1490 You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
1491 numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
1492 reflect what’s actually on them.
1495 ----------------------------------------------------
1496 rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
1497 ----------------------------------------------------
1500 ------------------------------------------------
1501 i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
1502 i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
1503 i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
1504 ------------------------------------------------
1506 === Moving containers/workspaces to RandR outputs
1510 To move a container to another RandR output (addressed by names like +LVDS1+ or
1511 +VGA1+) or to a RandR output identified by a specific direction (like +left+,
1512 +right+, +up+ or +down+), there are two commands:
1515 --------------------------------------------------------
1516 move container to output <<left|right|down|up>|<output>>
1517 move workspace to output <<left|right|down|up>|<output>>
1518 --------------------------------------------------------
1521 --------------------------------------------------------
1522 # Move the current workspace to the next output
1523 # (effectively toggles when you only have two outputs)
1524 bindsym mod+x move workspace to output right
1526 # Put this window on the presentation output.
1527 bindsym mod+x move container to output VGA1
1528 --------------------------------------------------------
1532 === Resizing containers/windows
1534 If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
1538 ---------------------------------------------------------
1539 resize <grow|shrink> <direction> [<px> px] [or <ppt> ppt]
1540 ---------------------------------------------------------
1542 Direction can either be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. Or you can be
1543 less specific and use +width+ or +height+, in which case i3 will take/give
1544 space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
1545 how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or shrunk (the default
1546 is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
1547 many percentage points a *tiling container* should be grown or shrunk (the
1548 default is 10 percentage points).
1550 I recommend using the resize command inside a so called +mode+:
1552 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
1553 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1555 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
1557 # Pressing left will shrink the window’s width.
1558 # Pressing right will grow the window’s width.
1559 # Pressing up will shrink the window’s height.
1560 # Pressing down will grow the window’s height.
1561 bindsym j resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
1562 bindsym k resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
1563 bindsym l resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
1564 bindsym semicolon resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
1566 # same bindings, but for the arrow keys
1567 bindsym Left resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
1568 bindsym Down resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
1569 bindsym Up resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
1570 bindsym Right resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
1572 # back to normal: Enter or Escape
1573 bindsym Return mode "default"
1574 bindsym Escape mode "default"
1578 bindsym mod+r mode "resize"
1579 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1581 === Jumping to specific windows
1583 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
1584 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
1585 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
1586 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mailclient,
1587 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
1588 with criteria for that.
1591 ----------------------------------------------------
1592 [class="class"] focus
1593 [title="title"] focus
1594 ----------------------------------------------------
1597 ------------------------------------------------
1598 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
1599 bindsym mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
1600 ------------------------------------------------
1602 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
1606 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
1607 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
1608 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
1609 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You do not need to ensure that your
1610 windows have unique classes or titles, and you do not need to change your
1613 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
1614 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
1615 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
1616 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
1619 ------------------------------
1621 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
1622 ------------------------------
1624 *Example (in a terminal)*:
1625 ------------------------------
1627 $ i3-msg '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
1628 ------------------------------
1630 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1631 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
1633 ---------------------------------------
1634 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
1635 bindsym mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
1637 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
1638 bindsym mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
1639 ---------------------------------------
1641 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
1642 seperate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
1643 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1645 === Changing border style
1647 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
1648 border (including window title), +border 1pixel+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
1649 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
1651 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
1654 ----------------------------
1655 bindsym mod+t border normal
1656 bindsym mod+y border 1pixel
1657 bindsym mod+u border none
1658 ----------------------------
1662 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1663 TODO: not yet implemented
1664 === Changing the stack-limit of a container
1666 If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside it (say, more than
1667 10), the default layout of a stacking container can get a little unhandy.
1668 Depending on your screen’s size, you might end up with only half of the title
1669 lines being actually used, wasting a lot of screen space.
1671 Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the number of rows or columns
1672 in a stacking container. i3 will create columns or rows (depending on what
1673 you limited) automatically as needed.
1676 --------------------------------
1677 stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
1678 --------------------------------
1682 # I always want to have two window titles in one line
1685 # Not more than 5 rows in this stacking container
1689 image:stacklimit.png[Container limited to two columns]
1690 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
1692 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
1694 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
1695 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
1696 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
1697 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
1698 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
1701 ----------------------------
1702 bindsym mod+Shift+r restart
1703 bindsym mod+Shift+w reload
1704 bindsym mod+Shift+e exit
1705 ----------------------------
1709 There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. +move
1710 scratchpad+ will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
1711 invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
1712 Instead, when using +scratchpad show+, the window will be shown again, as a
1713 floating window, centered on your current workspace (using +scratchpad show+ on
1714 a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
1715 keybinding to toggle).
1717 As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
1718 editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
1719 running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
1720 player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?
1730 ------------------------------------------------
1731 # Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
1732 bindsym mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad
1734 # Show the first scratchpad window
1735 bindsym mod+minus scratchpad show
1737 # Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
1738 bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show
1739 ------------------------------------------------
1743 == Multiple monitors
1745 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
1746 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
1747 handle multiple monitors.
1749 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
1750 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
1752 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
1753 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
1754 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
1755 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
1756 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
1757 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
1758 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
1760 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
1761 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
1762 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
1763 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
1764 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
1765 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
1766 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
1767 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
1769 === Configuring your monitors
1771 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
1772 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
1773 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
1774 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
1775 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1777 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
1778 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
1779 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
1780 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
1781 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
1783 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1784 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
1788 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1790 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
1791 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
1792 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
1793 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
1795 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
1796 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
1797 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
1799 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
1800 -------------------------------------------
1801 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
1802 -------------------------------------------
1803 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
1804 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
1805 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
1806 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1808 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
1809 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
1810 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
1813 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
1815 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1816 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
1818 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
1819 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
1820 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
1822 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
1823 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
1827 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1828 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
1829 only what you can see in xrandr.
1831 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
1833 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
1835 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
1836 have more than one monitor:
1838 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
1839 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
1840 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
1841 <<workspace_screen>>.
1842 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
1843 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
1844 <<assign_workspace>>.
1845 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
1846 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
1847 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
1848 4. For information on how to move existing workspaces between monitors,
1849 see <<_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs>>.
1851 == i3 and the rest of your software world
1853 === Displaying a status line
1855 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
1856 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
1857 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
1859 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
1860 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
1861 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
1862 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
1863 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
1864 i3bar. See <<status_command>> for how to display i3status in i3bar.
1866 Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
1867 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
1868 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
1869 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
1870 see <<i3bar_position>>.
1872 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
1874 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
1875 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
1876 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
1877 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
1881 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
1882 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
1883 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
1884 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
1885 -----------------------------------------------------
1886 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
1887 -----------------------------------------------------
1888 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
1889 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
1890 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
1892 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
1893 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
1894 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
1895 -----------------------------------------------------
1896 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
1897 -----------------------------------------------------
1898 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
1899 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
1901 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
1902 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
1903 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).