Note: Swallowing windows into unsatisfied placeholder windows takes precedence
over
-link:http://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#_automatically_putting_clients_on_specific_workspaces[assignment
+link:https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#_automatically_putting_clients_on_specific_workspaces[assignment
rules]. For example, if you assign all Emacs windows to workspace 1 in your i3
configuration file, but there is a placeholder window on workspace 2 which
matches Emacs as well, your newly started Emacs window will end up in the
image:layout-saving-1.png["Restored layout",width=400,link="layout-saving-1.png"]
The structure of this JSON file looks a lot like the +TREE+ reply, see
-http://build.i3wm.org/docs/ipc.html#_tree_reply for documentation on that. Some
+https://build.i3wm.org/docs/ipc.html#_tree_reply for documentation on that. Some
properties are excluded because they are not relevant when restoring a layout.
Most importantly, look at the "swallows" section of each window. This is where
easier. In case you are writing a more elaborate tool for manipulating these
layouts, you can either use a JSON parser that supports these deviations (for
example libyajl), transform the layout file to a JSON-conforming file, or
-link:http://cr.i3wm.org/[submit a patch] to make +i3-save-tree(1)+ optionally
-output standard-conforming JSON.
+link:https://github.com/i3/i3/blob/next/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md[submit a patch]
+to make +i3-save-tree(1)+ optionally output standard-conforming JSON.
== Troubleshooting
]
}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+=== Placeholders using window title matches don't swallow the window
+
+If you use the +title+ attribute to match a window and find that it doesn't
+work or only works sometimes, the reason might be that the application sets the
+title only after making the window visible. This will be especially true for
+programs running inside terminal emulators, e.g., +urxvt -e irssi+ when
+matching on +title: "irssi"+.
+
+One way to deal with this is to not rely on the title, but instead use, e.g.,
+the +instance+ attribute and running the program to set this window instance to
+that value:
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Run irssi via
+# urxvt -name "irssi-container" -e irssi
+
+"swallows": [
+ {
+ "class": "URxvt",
+ "instance": "irssi-container"
+ }
+]
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------