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21 <a href="/"><h1 id="title">i3 - improved tiling WM</h1></a>
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27 <li><a href="https://github.com/i3/i3/issues">Bugs</a></li>
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29 <br style="clear: both">
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32 <h1>i3 User’s Guide</h1>
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33 <span id="author">Michael Stapelberg</span><br />
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34 <span id="email"><tt><<a href="mailto:michael@i3wm.org">michael@i3wm.org</a>></tt></span><br />
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35 <span id="revdate">March 2013</span>
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37 <div id="toctitle">Table of Contents</div>
38 <noscript><p><b>JavaScript must be enabled in your browser to display the table of contents.</b></p></noscript>
42 <div class="sectionbody">
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43 <div class="paragraph"><p>This document contains all the information you need to configure and use the i3
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44 window manager. If it does not, please check <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/i3wm/">https://www.reddit.com/r/i3wm/</a>
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45 first, then contact us on IRC (preferred) or post your question(s) on the
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46 mailing list.</p></div>
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50 <h2 id="_default_keybindings">1. Default keybindings</h2>
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51 <div class="sectionbody">
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52 <div class="paragraph"><p>For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here is an overview of the default
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53 keybindings (click to see the full size image):</p></div>
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54 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Keys to use with $mod (Alt):</strong></p></div>
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55 <div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
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56 <a class="image" href="keyboard-layer1.png">
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57 <img src="keyboard-layer1.png" alt="Keys to use with $mod (Alt)" width="600" />
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60 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Keys to use with Shift+$mod:</strong></p></div>
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61 <div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
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62 <a class="image" href="keyboard-layer2.png">
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63 <img src="keyboard-layer2.png" alt="Keys to use with Shift+$mod" width="600" />
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66 <div class="paragraph"><p>The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
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67 are your homerow.</p></div>
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68 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that when starting i3 without a config file, i3-config-wizard will offer
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69 you to create a config file in which the key positions (!) match what you see
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70 in the image above, regardless of the keyboard layout you are using. If you
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71 prefer to use a config file where the key letters match what you are seeing
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72 above, just decline i3-config-wizard’s offer and base your config on
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73 <tt>/etc/i3/config</tt>.</p></div>
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77 <h2 id="_using_i3">2. Using i3</h2>
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78 <div class="sectionbody">
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79 <div class="paragraph"><p>Throughout this guide, the keyword <tt>$mod</tt> will be used to refer to the
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80 configured modifier. This is the Alt key (<tt>Mod1</tt>) by default, with the Windows
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81 key (<tt>Mod4</tt>) being a popular alternative.</p></div>
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83 <h3 id="_opening_terminals_and_moving_around">2.1. Opening terminals and moving around</h3>
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84 <div class="paragraph"><p>One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
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85 for this is <tt>$mod+Enter</tt>, that is Alt+Enter (<tt>Mod1+Enter</tt>) in the default
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86 configuration. By pressing <tt>$mod+Enter</tt>, a new terminal will be opened. It
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87 will fill the whole space available on your screen.</p></div>
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88 <div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
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89 <img src="single_terminal.png" alt="Single terminal" />
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91 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you now open another terminal, i3 will place it next to the current one,
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92 splitting the screen size in half. Depending on your monitor, i3 will put the
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93 created window beside the existing window (on wide displays) or below the
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94 existing window (rotated displays).</p></div>
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95 <div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
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96 <img src="two_terminals.png" alt="Two terminals" />
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98 <div class="paragraph"><p>To move the focus between the two terminals, you can use the direction keys
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99 which you may know from the editor <tt>vi</tt>. However, in i3, your homerow is used
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100 for these keys (in <tt>vi</tt>, the keys are shifted to the left by one for
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101 compatibility with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, <tt>$mod+j</tt> is left, <tt>$mod+k</tt>
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102 is down, <tt>$mod+l</tt> is up and <tt>$mod+;</tt> is right. So, to switch between the
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103 terminals, use <tt>$mod+k</tt> or <tt>$mod+l</tt>. Of course, you can also use the arrow keys.</p></div>
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104 <div class="paragraph"><p>At the moment, your workspace is split (it contains two terminals) in a
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105 specific direction (horizontal by default). Every window can be split
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106 horizontally or vertically again, just like the workspace. The terminology is
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107 "window" for a container that actually contains an X11 window (like a terminal
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108 or browser) and "split container" for containers that consist of one or more
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110 <div class="paragraph"><p>TODO: picture of the tree</p></div>
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111 <div class="paragraph"><p>To split a window vertically, press <tt>$mod+v</tt> before you create the new window.
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112 To split it horizontally, press <tt>$mod+h</tt>.</p></div>
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114 <div class="sect2">
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115 <h3 id="_changing_the_container_layout">2.2. Changing the container layout</h3>
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116 <div class="paragraph"><p>A split container can have one of the following layouts:</p></div>
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117 <div class="dlist"><dl>
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118 <dt class="hdlist1">
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123 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
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124 container. splith distributes the windows horizontally (windows are right next
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125 to each other), splitv distributes them vertically (windows are on top of each
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129 <dt class="hdlist1">
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134 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
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135 windows at the top of the container.
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138 <dt class="hdlist1">
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143 The same principle as <tt>stacking</tt>, but the list of windows at the top is only
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144 a single line which is vertically split.
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148 <div class="paragraph"><p>To switch modes, press <tt>$mod+e</tt> for splith/splitv (it toggles), <tt>$mod+s</tt> for
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149 stacking and <tt>$mod+w</tt> for tabbed.</p></div>
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150 <div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
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151 <img src="modes.png" alt="Container modes" />
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154 <div class="sect2">
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155 <h3 id="_toggling_fullscreen_mode_for_a_window">2.3. Toggling fullscreen mode for a window</h3>
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156 <div class="paragraph"><p>To display a window in fullscreen mode or to go out of fullscreen mode again,
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157 press <tt>$mod+f</tt>.</p></div>
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158 <div class="paragraph"><p>There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will span all
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159 available outputs (the command is <tt>fullscreen toggle global</tt>).</p></div>
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161 <div class="sect2">
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162 <h3 id="_opening_other_applications">2.4. Opening other applications</h3>
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163 <div class="paragraph"><p>Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
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164 <tt>dmenu</tt> which is opened by pressing <tt>$mod+d</tt> by default. Just type the name
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165 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The corresponding
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166 application has to be in your <tt>$PATH</tt> for this to work.</p></div>
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167 <div class="paragraph"><p>Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
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168 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
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169 <a href="#configuring">[configuring]</a> for details.</p></div>
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171 <div class="sect2">
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172 <h3 id="_closing_windows">2.5. Closing windows</h3>
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173 <div class="paragraph"><p>If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
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174 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like <tt>Control+w</tt> to close), you
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175 can press <tt>$mod+Shift+q</tt> to kill a window. For applications which support
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176 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
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177 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
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178 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
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179 depends on the application.</p></div>
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181 <div class="sect2">
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182 <h3 id="_using_workspaces">2.6. Using workspaces</h3>
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183 <div class="paragraph"><p>Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
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184 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
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185 another workspace, press <tt>$mod+num</tt> where <tt>num</tt> is the number of the workspace
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186 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.</p></div>
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187 <div class="paragraph"><p>A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
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188 applications (<tt>mutt</tt>, <tt>irssi</tt>, …) on another one, and the ones with which you
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189 work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.</p></div>
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190 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
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191 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
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192 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
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193 focus to that screen.</p></div>
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195 <div class="sect2">
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196 <h3 id="_moving_windows_to_workspaces">2.7. Moving windows to workspaces</h3>
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197 <div class="paragraph"><p>To move a window to another workspace, simply press <tt>$mod+Shift+num</tt> where
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198 <tt>num</tt> is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
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199 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
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200 it does not yet exist.</p></div>
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202 <div class="sect2">
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203 <h3 id="_resizing">2.8. Resizing</h3>
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204 <div class="paragraph"><p>The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
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205 and move it to the wanted size.</p></div>
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206 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can also use <a href="#binding_modes">[binding_modes]</a> to define a mode for resizing via the
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207 keyboard. To see an example for this, look at the
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208 <a href="https://github.com/i3/i3/blob/next/etc/config.keycodes">default config</a> provided
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211 <div class="sect2">
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212 <h3 id="_restarting_i3_inplace">2.9. Restarting i3 inplace</h3>
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213 <div class="paragraph"><p>To restart i3 in place (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
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214 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use <tt>$mod+Shift+r</tt>.</p></div>
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216 <div class="sect2">
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217 <h3 id="_exiting_i3">2.10. Exiting i3</h3>
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218 <div class="paragraph"><p>To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use <tt>$mod+Shift+e</tt>.
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219 By default, a dialog will ask you to confirm if you really want to quit.</p></div>
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221 <div class="sect2">
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222 <h3 id="_floating">2.11. Floating</h3>
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223 <div class="paragraph"><p>Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of
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224 a window are not managed automatically by i3, but manually by
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225 you. Using this mode violates the tiling paradigm but can be useful
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226 for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog windows, or toolbar
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227 windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the appropriate
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228 hint and are opened in floating mode by default.</p></div>
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229 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing <tt>$mod+Shift+Space</tt>. By
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230 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
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231 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
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232 can also do that by using the <a href="#floating_modifier">[floating_modifier]</a>. Another way to resize
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233 floating windows using the mouse is to right-click on the titlebar and drag.</p></div>
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234 <div class="paragraph"><p>For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see the resizing binding mode
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235 provided by the i3 <a href="https://github.com/i3/i3/blob/next/etc/config.keycodes">default config</a>.</p></div>
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236 <div class="paragraph"><p>Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.</p></div>
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240 <div class="sect1">
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241 <h2 id="_tree">3. Tree</h2>
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242 <div class="sectionbody">
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243 <div class="paragraph"><p>i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
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244 windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
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245 the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
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246 finally the windows themselves. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
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247 (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
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248 out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.</p></div>
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249 <div class="sect2">
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250 <h3 id="_the_tree_consists_of_containers">3.1. The tree consists of Containers</h3>
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251 <div class="paragraph"><p>The building blocks of our tree are so called <tt>Containers</tt>. A <tt>Container</tt> can
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252 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
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253 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more <tt>Containers</tt>. A
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254 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
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255 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
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256 like this:</p></div>
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257 <div class="imageblock" style="float:right;">
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258 <div class="content">
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259 <img src="tree-layout2.png" alt="layout2" />
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262 <div class="imageblock">
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263 <div class="content">
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264 <img src="tree-shot4.png" alt="shot4" />
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266 <div class="title">Figure 1. Two terminals on standard workspace</div>
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269 <div class="sect2">
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270 <h3 id="OrientationSplit">3.2. Orientation and Split Containers</h3>
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271 <div class="paragraph"><p>It is only natural to use so-called <tt>Split Containers</tt> in order to build a
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272 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every <tt>Container</tt> has an
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273 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified) and the orientation depends
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274 on the layout the container is in (vertical for splitv and stacking, horizontal
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275 for splith and tabbed). So, in our example with the workspace, the default
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276 layout of the workspace <tt>Container</tt> is splith (most monitors are widescreen
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277 nowadays). If you change the layout to splitv (<tt>$mod+v</tt> in the default config)
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278 and <strong>then</strong> open two terminals, i3 will configure your windows like this:</p></div>
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279 <div class="imageblock">
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280 <div class="content">
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281 <img src="tree-shot2.png" alt="shot2" />
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283 <div class="title">Figure 2. Vertical Workspace Orientation</div>
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285 <div class="paragraph"><p>An interesting new feature of i3 since version 4 is the ability to split anything:
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286 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with splith layout, that is
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287 horizontal orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open
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288 another terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new
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289 terminal window, it would show up to the right due to the splith layout.
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290 Instead, press <tt>$mod+v</tt> to split the container with the splitv layout (to
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291 open a <tt>Horizontal Split Container</tt>, use <tt>$mod+h</tt>). Now you can open a new
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292 terminal and it will open below the current one:</p></div>
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293 <div class="imageblock" style="float:right;">
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294 <div class="content">
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295 <img src="tree-layout1.png" alt="Layout" />
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298 <div class="imageblock">
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299 <div class="content">
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300 <img src="tree-shot1.png" alt="shot" />
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302 <div class="title">Figure 3. Vertical Split Container</div>
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304 <div style="clear:both;"></div>
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305 <div class="paragraph"><p>You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
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306 of splits can be.</p></div>
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308 <div class="sect2">
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309 <h3 id="_focus_parent">3.3. Focus parent</h3>
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310 <div class="paragraph"><p>Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
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311 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
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312 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.</p></div>
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313 <div class="paragraph"><p>So, how can you open a new terminal window to the <strong>right</strong> of the current one?
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314 The solution is to use <tt>focus parent</tt>, which will focus the <tt>Parent Container</tt> of
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315 the current <tt>Container</tt>. In this case, you would focus the <tt>Vertical Split
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316 Container</tt> which is <strong>inside</strong> the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
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317 windows will be opened to the right of the <tt>Vertical Split Container</tt>:</p></div>
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318 <div class="imageblock">
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319 <div class="content">
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320 <img src="tree-shot3.png" alt="shot3" />
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322 <div class="title">Figure 4. Focus parent, then open new terminal</div>
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325 <div class="sect2">
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326 <h3 id="_implicit_containers">3.4. Implicit containers</h3>
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327 <div class="paragraph"><p>In some cases, i3 needs to implicitly create a container to fulfill your
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329 <div class="paragraph"><p>One example is the following scenario: You start i3 with a single monitor and a
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330 single workspace on which you open three terminal windows. All these terminal
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331 windows are directly attached to one node inside i3’s layout tree, the
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332 workspace node. By default, the workspace node’s orientation is <tt>horizontal</tt>.</p></div>
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333 <div class="paragraph"><p>Now you move one of these terminals down (<tt>$mod+Shift+k</tt> by default). The
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334 workspace node’s orientation will be changed to <tt>vertical</tt>. The terminal window
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335 you moved down is directly attached to the workspace and appears on the bottom
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336 of the screen. A new (horizontal) container was created to accommodate the
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337 other two terminal windows. You will notice this when switching to tabbed mode
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338 (for example). You would end up having one tab with a representation of the split
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339 container (e.g., "H[urxvt firefox]") and the other one being the terminal window
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340 you moved down.</p></div>
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344 <div class="sect1">
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345 <h2 id="configuring">4. Configuring i3</h2>
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346 <div class="sectionbody">
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347 <div class="paragraph"><p>This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependent on your
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348 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.</p></div>
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349 <div class="paragraph"><p>While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
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350 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
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352 <div class="paragraph"><p>For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
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353 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
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354 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
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355 can bind your keys to do useful things.</p></div>
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356 <div class="paragraph"><p>To change the configuration of i3, copy <tt>/etc/i3/config</tt> to <tt>~/.i3/config</tt>
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357 (or <tt>~/.config/i3/config</tt> if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
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358 with a text editor.</p></div>
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359 <div class="paragraph"><p>On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
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360 file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
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361 wizard to use either Alt (<tt>Mod1</tt>) or Windows (<tt>Mod4</tt>) as modifier in the config
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362 file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
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363 keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command <tt>i3-config-wizard</tt>.
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364 Please note that you must not have <tt>~/.i3/config</tt>, otherwise the wizard will
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366 <div class="sect2">
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367 <h3 id="_comments">4.1. Comments</h3>
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368 <div class="paragraph"><p>It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
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369 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
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370 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:</p></div>
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371 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
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372 <div class="listingblock">
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373 <div class="content">
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374 <pre><tt># This is a comment</tt></pre>
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377 <div class="sect2">
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378 <h3 id="fonts">4.2. Fonts</h3>
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379 <div class="paragraph"><p>i3 has support for both X core fonts and FreeType fonts (through Pango) to
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380 render window titles.</p></div>
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381 <div class="paragraph"><p>To generate an X core font description, you can use <tt>xfontsel(1)</tt>. To see
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382 special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the
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383 ISO-10646 encoding.</p></div>
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384 <div class="paragraph"><p>A FreeType font description is composed by a font family, a style, a weight,
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385 a variant, a stretch and a size.
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386 FreeType fonts support right-to-left rendering and contain often more
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387 Unicode glyphs than X core fonts.</p></div>
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388 <div class="paragraph"><p>If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
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389 and fall back to a working font.</p></div>
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390 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
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391 <div class="listingblock">
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392 <div class="content">
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393 <pre><tt>font <X core font description>
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394 font pango:<family list> [<style options>] <size></tt></pre>
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396 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
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397 <div class="listingblock">
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398 <div class="content">
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399 <pre><tt>font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
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400 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
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401 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono, Terminus Bold Semi-Condensed 11
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402 font pango:Terminus 11px</tt></pre>
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405 <div class="sect2">
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406 <h3 id="keybindings">4.3. Keyboard bindings</h3>
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407 <div class="paragraph"><p>A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
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408 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
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409 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).</p></div>
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410 <div class="ulist"><ul>
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413 A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
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414 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
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415 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
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416 mapping of your keys, use <tt>xmodmap -pke</tt>. To interactively enter a key and
\r
417 see what keysym it is configured to, use <tt>xev</tt>.
\r
422 Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
\r
423 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
\r
424 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using <tt>xmodmap</tt>).
\r
428 <div class="paragraph"><p>My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
\r
429 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
\r
430 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
\r
432 <div class="paragraph"><p>Some tools (such as <tt>import</tt> or <tt>xdotool</tt>) might be unable to run upon a
\r
433 KeyPress event, because the keyboard/pointer is still grabbed. For these
\r
434 situations, the <tt>--release</tt> flag can be used, which will execute the command
\r
435 after the keys have been released.</p></div>
\r
436 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
437 <div class="listingblock">
\r
438 <div class="content">
\r
439 <pre><tt>bindsym [--release] [<Group>+][<Modifiers>+]<keysym> command
\r
440 bindcode [--release] [<Group>+][<Modifiers>+]<keycode> command</tt></pre>
\r
442 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
443 <div class="listingblock">
\r
444 <div class="content">
\r
445 <pre><tt># Fullscreen
\r
446 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
\r
449 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
\r
451 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
\r
452 bindcode 214 exec --no-startup-id /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
\r
454 # Simulate ctrl+v upon pressing $mod+x
\r
455 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v
\r
457 # Take a screenshot upon pressing $mod+x (select an area)
\r
458 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id import /tmp/latest-screenshot.png</tt></pre>
\r
460 <div class="paragraph"><p>Available Modifiers:</p></div>
\r
461 <div class="dlist"><dl>
\r
462 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
463 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control
\r
467 Standard modifiers, see <tt>xmodmap(1)</tt>
\r
470 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
471 Group1, Group2, Group3, Group4
\r
475 When using multiple keyboard layouts (e.g. with <tt>setxkbmap -layout us,ru</tt>), you
\r
476 can specify in which XKB group (also called “layout”) a keybinding should be
\r
477 active. By default, keybindings are translated in Group1 and are active in all
\r
478 groups. If you want to override keybindings in one of your layouts, specify the
\r
479 corresponding group. For backwards compatibility, the group “Mode_switch” is an
\r
485 <div class="sect2">
\r
486 <h3 id="mousebindings">4.4. Mouse bindings</h3>
\r
487 <div class="paragraph"><p>A mouse binding makes i3 execute a command upon pressing a specific mouse
\r
488 button in the scope of the clicked container (see <a href="#command_criteria">[command_criteria]</a>). You
\r
489 can configure mouse bindings in a similar way to key bindings.</p></div>
\r
490 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
491 <div class="listingblock">
\r
492 <div class="content">
\r
493 <pre><tt>bindsym [--release] [--border] [--whole-window] [<Modifiers>+]button<n> command</tt></pre>
\r
495 <div class="paragraph"><p>By default, the binding will only run when you click on the titlebar of the
\r
496 window. If the <tt>--release</tt> flag is given, it will run when the mouse button
\r
497 is released.</p></div>
\r
498 <div class="paragraph"><p>If the <tt>--whole-window</tt> flag is given, the binding will also run when any part
\r
499 of the window is clicked, with the exception of the border. To have a bind run
\r
500 when the border is clicked, specify the <tt>--border</tt> flag.</p></div>
\r
501 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
502 <div class="listingblock">
\r
503 <div class="content">
\r
504 <pre><tt># The middle button over a titlebar kills the window
\r
505 bindsym --release button2 kill
\r
507 # The middle button and a modifer over any part of the window kills the window
\r
508 bindsym --whole-window $mod+button2 kill
\r
510 # The right button toggles floating
\r
511 bindsym button3 floating toggle
\r
512 bindsym $mod+button3 floating toggle
\r
514 # The side buttons move the window around
\r
515 bindsym button9 move left
\r
516 bindsym button8 move right</tt></pre>
\r
519 <div class="sect2">
\r
520 <h3 id="binding_modes">4.5. Binding modes</h3>
\r
521 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can have multiple sets of bindings by using different binding modes. When
\r
522 you switch to another binding mode, all bindings from the current mode are
\r
523 released and only the bindings defined in the new mode are valid for as long as
\r
524 you stay in that binding mode. The only predefined binding mode is <tt>default</tt>,
\r
525 which is the mode i3 starts out with and to which all bindings not defined in a
\r
526 specific binding mode belong.</p></div>
\r
527 <div class="paragraph"><p>Working with binding modes consists of two parts: defining a binding mode and
\r
528 switching to it. For these purposes, there are one config directive and one
\r
529 command, both of which are called <tt>mode</tt>. The directive is used to define the
\r
530 bindings belonging to a certain binding mode, while the command will switch to
\r
531 the specified mode.</p></div>
\r
532 <div class="paragraph"><p>It is recommended to use binding modes in combination with <a href="#variables">[variables]</a> in
\r
533 order to make maintenance easier. Below is an example of how to use a binding
\r
535 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that it is advisable to define bindings for switching back to the default
\r
537 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that it is possible to use <a href="#pango_markup">[pango_markup]</a> for binding modes, but you
\r
538 need to enable it explicitly by passing the <tt>--pango_markup</tt> flag to the mode
\r
539 definition.</p></div>
\r
540 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
541 <div class="listingblock">
\r
542 <div class="content">
\r
543 <pre><tt># config directive
\r
544 mode [--pango_markup] <name>
\r
547 mode <name></tt></pre>
\r
549 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
550 <div class="listingblock">
\r
551 <div class="content">
\r
552 <pre><tt># Press $mod+o followed by either f, t, Esc or Return to launch firefox,
\r
553 # thunderbird or return to the default mode, respectively.
\r
554 set $mode_launcher Launch: [f]irefox [t]hunderbird
\r
555 bindsym $mod+o mode "$mode_launcher"
\r
557 mode "$mode_launcher" {
\r
558 bindsym f exec firefox
\r
559 bindsym t exec thunderbird
\r
561 bindsym Esc mode "default"
\r
562 bindsym Return mode "default"
\r
566 <div class="sect2">
\r
567 <h3 id="floating_modifier">4.6. The floating modifier</h3>
\r
568 <div class="paragraph"><p>To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
\r
569 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
\r
570 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
\r
571 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
\r
572 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
\r
573 it to the position you want.</p></div>
\r
574 <div class="paragraph"><p>When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
\r
575 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
\r
576 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
\r
577 ratio will be preserved).</p></div>
\r
578 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
579 <div class="listingblock">
\r
580 <div class="content">
\r
581 <pre><tt>floating_modifier <Modifier></tt></pre>
\r
583 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
584 <div class="listingblock">
\r
585 <div class="content">
\r
586 <pre><tt>floating_modifier Mod1</tt></pre>
\r
589 <div class="sect2">
\r
590 <h3 id="_constraining_floating_window_size">4.7. Constraining floating window size</h3>
\r
591 <div class="paragraph"><p>The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
\r
592 either dimension of <tt>floating_maximum_size</tt> is specified as -1, that dimension
\r
593 will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
\r
594 <tt>floating_maximum_size</tt> is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
\r
595 value to constrain the maximum size. <tt>floating_minimum_size</tt> is treated in a
\r
596 manner analogous to <tt>floating_maximum_size</tt>.</p></div>
\r
597 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
598 <div class="listingblock">
\r
599 <div class="content">
\r
600 <pre><tt>floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
\r
601 floating_maximum_size <width> x <height></tt></pre>
\r
603 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
604 <div class="listingblock">
\r
605 <div class="content">
\r
606 <pre><tt>floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
\r
607 floating_maximum_size -1 x -1</tt></pre>
\r
610 <div class="sect2">
\r
611 <h3 id="_orientation_for_new_workspaces">4.8. Orientation for new workspaces</h3>
\r
612 <div class="paragraph"><p>New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
\r
613 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
\r
614 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.</p></div>
\r
615 <div class="paragraph"><p>With the <tt>default_orientation</tt> configuration directive, you can override that
\r
616 behavior.</p></div>
\r
617 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
618 <div class="listingblock">
\r
619 <div class="content">
\r
620 <pre><tt>default_orientation horizontal|vertical|auto</tt></pre>
\r
622 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
623 <div class="listingblock">
\r
624 <div class="content">
\r
625 <pre><tt>default_orientation vertical</tt></pre>
\r
628 <div class="sect2">
\r
629 <h3 id="_layout_mode_for_new_containers">4.9. Layout mode for new containers</h3>
\r
630 <div class="paragraph"><p>This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
\r
632 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
633 <div class="listingblock">
\r
634 <div class="content">
\r
635 <pre><tt>workspace_layout default|stacking|tabbed</tt></pre>
\r
637 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
638 <div class="listingblock">
\r
639 <div class="content">
\r
640 <pre><tt>workspace_layout tabbed</tt></pre>
\r
643 <div class="sect2">
\r
644 <h3 id="_border_style_for_new_windows">4.10. Border style for new windows</h3>
\r
645 <div class="paragraph"><p>This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
\r
646 <tt>normal</tt>. Note that new_float applies only to windows which are starting out as
\r
647 floating windows, e.g., dialog windows, but not windows that are floated later on.</p></div>
\r
648 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
649 <div class="listingblock">
\r
650 <div class="content">
\r
651 <pre><tt>new_window normal|none|pixel
\r
652 new_window normal|pixel <px>
\r
653 new_float normal|none|pixel
\r
654 new_float normal|pixel <px></tt></pre>
\r
656 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
657 <div class="listingblock">
\r
658 <div class="content">
\r
659 <pre><tt>new_window pixel</tt></pre>
\r
661 <div class="paragraph"><p>The "normal" and "pixel" border styles support an optional border width in
\r
663 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
664 <div class="listingblock">
\r
665 <div class="content">
\r
666 <pre><tt># The same as new_window none
\r
670 new_window pixel 3</tt></pre>
\r
673 <div class="sect2">
\r
674 <h3 id="_hiding_vertical_borders">4.11. Hiding borders adjacent to the screen edges</h3>
\r
675 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can hide container borders adjacent to the screen edges using
\r
676 <tt>hide_edge_borders</tt>. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
\r
677 to waste even two pixels in displayspace. The "smart" setting hides borders on
\r
678 workspaces with only one window visible, but keeps them on workspaces with
\r
679 multiple windows visible. Default is none.</p></div>
\r
680 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
681 <div class="listingblock">
\r
682 <div class="content">
\r
683 <pre><tt>hide_edge_borders none|vertical|horizontal|both|smart</tt></pre>
\r
685 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
686 <div class="listingblock">
\r
687 <div class="content">
\r
688 <pre><tt>hide_edge_borders vertical</tt></pre>
\r
691 <div class="sect2">
\r
692 <h3 id="for_window">4.12. Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)</h3>
\r
693 <div class="paragraph"><p>With the <tt>for_window</tt> command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
\r
694 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
\r
695 change their border style, for example.</p></div>
\r
696 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
697 <div class="listingblock">
\r
698 <div class="content">
\r
699 <pre><tt>for_window <criteria> <command></tt></pre>
\r
701 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
702 <div class="listingblock">
\r
703 <div class="content">
\r
704 <pre><tt># enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
\r
705 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
\r
707 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
\r
708 for_window [class="urxvt"] border pixel 1
\r
710 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
\r
711 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
\r
712 # directory to ~/work
\r
713 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable</tt></pre>
\r
715 <div class="paragraph"><p>The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <a href="#command_criteria">[command_criteria]</a>.</p></div>
\r
717 <div class="sect2">
\r
718 <h3 id="no_focus">4.13. Don’t focus window upon opening</h3>
\r
719 <div class="paragraph"><p>When a new window appears, it will be focused. The <tt>no_focus</tt> directive allows preventing
\r
720 this from happening and must be used in combination with <a href="#command_criteria">[command_criteria]</a>.</p></div>
\r
721 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that this does not apply to all cases, e.g., when feeding data into a running application
\r
722 causing it to request being focused. To configure the behavior in such cases, refer to
\r
723 <a href="#focus_on_window_activation">[focus_on_window_activation]</a>.</p></div>
\r
724 <div class="paragraph"><p><tt>no_focus</tt> will also be ignored for the first window on a workspace as there shouldn’t be
\r
725 a reason to not focus the window in this case. This allows for better usability in
\r
726 combination with <tt>workspace_layout</tt>.</p></div>
\r
727 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
728 <div class="listingblock">
\r
729 <div class="content">
\r
730 <pre><tt>no_focus <criteria></tt></pre>
\r
732 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
733 <div class="listingblock">
\r
734 <div class="content">
\r
735 <pre><tt>no_focus [window_role="pop-up"]</tt></pre>
\r
738 <div class="sect2">
\r
739 <h3 id="variables">4.14. Variables</h3>
\r
740 <div class="paragraph"><p>As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
\r
741 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
\r
742 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
\r
743 variables can be handy.</p></div>
\r
744 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
745 <div class="listingblock">
\r
746 <div class="content">
\r
747 <pre><tt>set $<name> <value></tt></pre>
\r
749 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
750 <div class="listingblock">
\r
751 <div class="content">
\r
752 <pre><tt>set $m Mod1
\r
753 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart</tt></pre>
\r
755 <div class="paragraph"><p>Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. Variables expansion
\r
756 is not recursive so it is not possible to define a variable with a value
\r
757 containing another variable. There is no fancy handling and there are
\r
758 absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more dynamic configuration
\r
759 you should create a little script which generates a configuration file and run
\r
760 it before starting i3 (for example in your <tt>~/.xsession</tt> file).</p></div>
\r
761 <div class="paragraph"><p>Also see <a href="#xresources">[xresources]</a> to learn how to create variables based on resources
\r
762 loaded from the X resource database.</p></div>
\r
764 <div class="sect2">
\r
765 <h3 id="xresources">4.15. X resources</h3>
\r
766 <div class="paragraph"><p><a href="#variables">[variables]</a> can also be created using a value configured in the X resource
\r
767 database. This is useful, for example, to avoid configuring color values within
\r
768 the i3 configuration. Instead, the values can be configured, once, in the X
\r
769 resource database to achieve an easily maintainable, consistent color theme
\r
770 across many X applications.</p></div>
\r
771 <div class="paragraph"><p>Defining a resource will load this resource from the resource database and
\r
772 assign its value to the specified variable. A fallback must be specified in
\r
773 case the resource cannot be loaded from the database.</p></div>
\r
774 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
775 <div class="listingblock">
\r
776 <div class="content">
\r
777 <pre><tt>set_from_resource $<name> <resource_name> <fallback></tt></pre>
\r
779 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
780 <div class="listingblock">
\r
781 <div class="content">
\r
782 <pre><tt># The ~/.Xresources should contain a line such as
\r
784 # and must be loaded properly, e.g., by using
\r
785 # xrdb ~/.Xresources
\r
786 # This value is picked up on by other applications (e.g., the URxvt terminal
\r
787 # emulator) and can be used in i3 like this:
\r
788 set_from_resource $black i3wm.color0 #000000</tt></pre>
\r
791 <div class="sect2">
\r
792 <h3 id="assign_workspace">4.16. Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces</h3>
\r
793 <div class="paragraph"><p>To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
\r
794 can use an <strong>assignment</strong>. You can match windows by using any criteria,
\r
795 see <a href="#command_criteria">[command_criteria]</a>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
\r
796 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
\r
797 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
\r
798 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
\r
799 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
\r
800 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
\r
801 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
\r
802 to match on <em>Firefox</em> in this case.</p></div>
\r
803 <div class="paragraph"><p>Assignments are processed by i3 in the order in which they appear in the config
\r
804 file. The first one which matches the window wins and later assignments are not
\r
805 considered.</p></div>
\r
806 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
807 <div class="listingblock">
\r
808 <div class="content">
\r
809 <pre><tt>assign <criteria> [→] [workspace] <workspace></tt></pre>
\r
811 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
812 <div class="listingblock">
\r
813 <div class="content">
\r
814 <pre><tt># Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
\r
815 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
\r
817 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
\r
818 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
\r
820 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
\r
821 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
\r
823 # Assignment to a named workspace
\r
824 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
\r
826 # Start urxvt -name irssi
\r
827 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3</tt></pre>
\r
829 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
\r
830 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not <tt>-></tt> or something like that.</p></div>
\r
831 <div class="paragraph"><p>To get the class and instance, you can use <tt>xprop</tt>. After clicking on the
\r
832 window, you will see the following output:</p></div>
\r
833 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>xprop</strong>:</p></div>
\r
834 <div class="listingblock">
\r
835 <div class="content">
\r
836 <pre><tt>WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"</tt></pre>
\r
838 <div class="paragraph"><p>The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
\r
839 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).</p></div>
\r
840 <div class="paragraph"><p>Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
\r
841 logfile first (see <a href="http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html">http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html</a>). It includes more
\r
842 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
\r
843 title when starting up.</p></div>
\r
844 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that if you want to start an application just once on a specific
\r
845 workspace, but you don’t want to assign all instances of it permanently, you
\r
846 can make use of i3’s startup-notification support (see <a href="#exec">[exec]</a>) in your config
\r
847 file in the following way:</p></div>
\r
848 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Start iceweasel on workspace 3 (once)</strong>:</p></div>
\r
849 <div class="listingblock">
\r
850 <div class="content">
\r
851 <pre><tt># Start iceweasel on workspace 3, then switch back to workspace 1
\r
852 # (Being a command-line utility, i3-msg does not support startup notifications,
\r
853 # hence the exec --no-startup-id.)
\r
854 # (Starting iceweasel with i3’s exec command is important in order to make i3
\r
855 # create a startup notification context, without which the iceweasel window(s)
\r
856 # cannot be matched onto the workspace on which the command was started.)
\r
857 exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 3; exec iceweasel; workspace 1'</tt></pre>
\r
860 <div class="sect2">
\r
861 <h3 id="_automatically_starting_applications_on_i3_startup">4.17. Automatically starting applications on i3 startup</h3>
\r
862 <div class="paragraph"><p>By using the <tt>exec</tt> keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
\r
863 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. <tt>exec</tt>
\r
864 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
\r
865 also when restarting i3 you should use the <tt>exec_always</tt>
\r
866 keyword. These commands will be run in order.</p></div>
\r
867 <div class="paragraph"><p>See <a href="#command_chaining">[command_chaining]</a> for details on the special meaning of <tt>;</tt> (semicolon)
\r
868 and <tt>,</tt> (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
\r
869 strings (as shown in <a href="#exec_quoting">[exec_quoting]</a>) if they appear in your command.</p></div>
\r
870 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
871 <div class="listingblock">
\r
872 <div class="content">
\r
873 <pre><tt>exec [--no-startup-id] <command>
\r
874 exec_always [--no-startup-id] <command></tt></pre>
\r
876 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
877 <div class="listingblock">
\r
878 <div class="content">
\r
879 <pre><tt>exec chromium
\r
880 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
\r
882 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
\r
883 exec --no-startup-id urxvt</tt></pre>
\r
885 <div class="paragraph"><p>The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <a href="#exec">[exec]</a>.</p></div>
\r
887 <div class="sect2">
\r
888 <h3 id="workspace_screen">4.18. Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens</h3>
\r
889 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
\r
890 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
\r
891 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
\r
892 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
\r
893 the second screen and so on).</p></div>
\r
894 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
895 <div class="listingblock">
\r
896 <div class="content">
\r
897 <pre><tt>workspace <workspace> output <output></tt></pre>
\r
899 <div class="paragraph"><p>The <em>output</em> is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
\r
900 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
\r
901 available outputs by running <tt>xrandr --current</tt>.</p></div>
\r
902 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:</p></div>
\r
903 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
904 <div class="listingblock">
\r
905 <div class="content">
\r
906 <pre><tt>workspace 1 output LVDS1
\r
907 workspace 5 output VGA1
\r
908 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1</tt></pre>
\r
911 <div class="sect2">
\r
912 <h3 id="_changing_colors">4.19. Changing colors</h3>
\r
913 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.</p></div>
\r
914 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
915 <div class="listingblock">
\r
916 <div class="content">
\r
917 <pre><tt><colorclass> <border> <background> <text> <indicator> <child_border></tt></pre>
\r
919 <div class="paragraph"><p>Where colorclass can be one of:</p></div>
\r
920 <div class="dlist"><dl>
\r
921 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
926 A client which currently has the focus.
\r
929 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
930 client.focused_inactive
\r
934 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
\r
935 the focus at the moment.
\r
938 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
943 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
\r
946 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
951 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
\r
954 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
959 Background and text color are used to draw placeholder window contents
\r
960 (when restoring layouts). Border and indicator are ignored.
\r
963 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
968 Background color which will be used to paint the background of the
\r
969 client window on top of which the client will be rendered. Only clients
\r
970 which do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color. Note
\r
971 that this colorclass only takes a single color.
\r
975 <div class="paragraph"><p>Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:</p></div>
\r
976 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples (default colors)</strong>:</p></div>
\r
977 <div class="listingblock">
\r
978 <div class="content">
\r
979 <pre><tt># class border backgr. text indicator child_border
\r
980 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff #2e9ef4 #285577
\r
981 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff #484e50 #5f676a
\r
982 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888 #292d2e #222222
\r
983 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff #900000 #900000
\r
984 client.placeholder #000000 #0c0c0c #ffffff #000000 #0c0c0c
\r
986 client.background #ffffff</tt></pre>
\r
988 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
\r
989 "child_border", and "border" color is only the two thin lines around the
\r
990 titlebar.</p></div>
\r
991 <div class="paragraph"><p>The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
\r
992 For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
\r
993 color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
\r
994 single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
\r
995 from single windows outside of a split container.</p></div>
\r
997 <div class="sect2">
\r
998 <h3 id="_interprocess_communication">4.20. Interprocess communication</h3>
\r
999 <div class="paragraph"><p>i3 uses Unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
\r
1000 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
\r
1001 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.</p></div>
\r
1002 <div class="paragraph"><p>The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
\r
1003 <tt>/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p</tt> where <tt>%u</tt> is your UNIX username, <tt>%p</tt> is
\r
1004 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
\r
1005 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).</p></div>
\r
1006 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can override the default path through the environment-variable <tt>I3SOCK</tt> or
\r
1007 by specifying the <tt>ipc-socket</tt> directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
\r
1008 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
\r
1009 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
\r
1010 user can create that directory.</p></div>
\r
1011 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1012 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1013 <div class="content">
\r
1014 <pre><tt>ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock</tt></pre>
\r
1016 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can then use the <tt>i3-msg</tt> application to perform any command listed in
\r
1017 the next section.</p></div>
\r
1019 <div class="sect2">
\r
1020 <h3 id="_focus_follows_mouse">4.21. Focus follows mouse</h3>
\r
1021 <div class="paragraph"><p>By default, window focus follows your mouse movements. However, if you have a
\r
1022 setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad on your laptop
\r
1023 which you do not want to disable completely), you might want to disable <em>focus
\r
1024 follows mouse</em> and control focus only by using your keyboard. The mouse will
\r
1025 still be useful inside the currently active window (for example to click on
\r
1026 links in your browser window).</p></div>
\r
1027 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1028 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1029 <div class="content">
\r
1030 <pre><tt>focus_follows_mouse yes|no</tt></pre>
\r
1032 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1033 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1034 <div class="content">
\r
1035 <pre><tt>focus_follows_mouse no</tt></pre>
\r
1038 <div class="sect2">
\r
1039 <h3 id="_mouse_warping">4.22. Mouse warping</h3>
\r
1040 <div class="paragraph"><p>By default, when switching focus to a window on a different output (e.g.
\r
1041 focusing a window on workspace 3 on output VGA-1, coming from workspace 2 on
\r
1042 LVDS-1), the mouse cursor is warped to the center of that window.</p></div>
\r
1043 <div class="paragraph"><p>With the <tt>mouse_warping</tt> option, you can control when the mouse cursor should
\r
1044 be warped. <tt>none</tt> disables warping entirely, whereas <tt>output</tt> is the default
\r
1045 behavior described above.</p></div>
\r
1046 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1047 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1048 <div class="content">
\r
1049 <pre><tt>mouse_warping output|none</tt></pre>
\r
1051 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1052 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1053 <div class="content">
\r
1054 <pre><tt>mouse_warping none</tt></pre>
\r
1057 <div class="sect2">
\r
1058 <h3 id="_popups_during_fullscreen_mode">4.23. Popups during fullscreen mode</h3>
\r
1059 <div class="paragraph"><p>When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
\r
1060 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
\r
1061 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
\r
1062 There are three things which are possible to do in this situation:</p></div>
\r
1063 <div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
\r
1066 Display the popup if it belongs to the fullscreen application only. This is
\r
1067 the default and should be reasonable behavior for most users.
\r
1072 Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
\r
1073 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
\r
1074 you go out of fullscreen).
\r
1079 Leave fullscreen mode.
\r
1083 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1084 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1085 <div class="content">
\r
1086 <pre><tt>popup_during_fullscreen smart|ignore|leave_fullscreen</tt></pre>
\r
1088 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1089 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1090 <div class="content">
\r
1091 <pre><tt>popup_during_fullscreen smart</tt></pre>
\r
1094 <div class="sect2">
\r
1095 <h3 id="_focus_wrapping">4.24. Focus wrapping</h3>
\r
1096 <div class="paragraph"><p>When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
\r
1097 focused when you use <tt>focus down</tt> on the last container — the focus wraps. If
\r
1098 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
\r
1099 be set on that container. This is the default behavior so you can navigate to
\r
1100 all your windows without having to use <tt>focus parent</tt>.</p></div>
\r
1101 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you want the focus to <strong>always</strong> wrap and you are aware of using <tt>focus
\r
1102 parent</tt> to switch to different containers, you can use the
\r
1103 <tt>force_focus_wrapping</tt> configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
\r
1104 will always wrap.</p></div>
\r
1105 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1106 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1107 <div class="content">
\r
1108 <pre><tt>force_focus_wrapping yes|no</tt></pre>
\r
1110 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1111 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1112 <div class="content">
\r
1113 <pre><tt>force_focus_wrapping yes</tt></pre>
\r
1116 <div class="sect2">
\r
1117 <h3 id="_forcing_xinerama">4.25. Forcing Xinerama</h3>
\r
1118 <div class="paragraph"><p>As explained in-depth in <a href="http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html">http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html</a>, some X11
\r
1119 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
\r
1120 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
\r
1121 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
\r
1122 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
\r
1123 that’s it).</p></div>
\r
1124 <div class="paragraph"><p>For people who cannot modify their <tt>~/.xsession</tt> to add the
\r
1125 <tt>--force-xinerama</tt> commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:</p></div>
\r
1126 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1127 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1128 <div class="content">
\r
1129 <pre><tt>force_xinerama yes|no</tt></pre>
\r
1131 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1132 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1133 <div class="content">
\r
1134 <pre><tt>force_xinerama yes</tt></pre>
\r
1136 <div class="paragraph"><p>Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like <tt>HDMI1</tt>) when using
\r
1137 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: <tt>xinerama-0</tt>, <tt>xinerama-1</tt>, …</p></div>
\r
1139 <div class="sect2">
\r
1140 <h3 id="_automatic_back_and_forth_when_switching_to_the_current_workspace">4.26. Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace</h3>
\r
1141 <div class="paragraph"><p>This configuration directive enables automatic <tt>workspace back_and_forth</tt> (see
\r
1142 <a href="#back_and_forth">[back_and_forth]</a>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.</p></div>
\r
1143 <div class="paragraph"><p>For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
\r
1144 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
\r
1145 came from now, you can just press $mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".</p></div>
\r
1146 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1147 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1148 <div class="content">
\r
1149 <pre><tt>workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes|no</tt></pre>
\r
1151 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1152 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1153 <div class="content">
\r
1154 <pre><tt>workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes</tt></pre>
\r
1157 <div class="sect2">
\r
1158 <h3 id="_delaying_urgency_hint_reset_on_workspace_change">4.27. Delaying urgency hint reset on workspace change</h3>
\r
1159 <div class="paragraph"><p>If an application on another workspace sets an urgency hint, switching to this
\r
1160 workspace may lead to immediate focus of the application, which also means the
\r
1161 window decoration color would be immediately reset to <tt>client.focused</tt>. This
\r
1162 may make it unnecessarily hard to tell which window originally raised the
\r
1164 <div class="paragraph"><p>In order to prevent this, you can tell i3 to delay resetting the urgency state
\r
1165 by a certain time using the <tt>force_display_urgency_hint</tt> directive. Setting the
\r
1166 value to 0 disables this feature.</p></div>
\r
1167 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default is 500ms.</p></div>
\r
1168 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1169 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1170 <div class="content">
\r
1171 <pre><tt>force_display_urgency_hint <timeout> ms</tt></pre>
\r
1173 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1174 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1175 <div class="content">
\r
1176 <pre><tt>force_display_urgency_hint 500 ms</tt></pre>
\r
1179 <div class="sect2">
\r
1180 <h3 id="focus_on_window_activation">4.28. Focus on window activation</h3>
\r
1181 <div class="paragraph"><p>If a window is activated, e.g., via <tt>google-chrome www.google.com</tt>, it may request
\r
1182 to take focus. Since this may not preferable, different reactions can be configured.</p></div>
\r
1183 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that this may not affect windows that are being opened. To prevent new windows
\r
1184 from being focused, see <a href="#no_focus">[no_focus]</a>.</p></div>
\r
1185 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1186 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1187 <div class="content">
\r
1188 <pre><tt>focus_on_window_activation smart|urgent|focus|none</tt></pre>
\r
1190 <div class="paragraph"><p>The different modes will act as follows:</p></div>
\r
1191 <div class="dlist"><dl>
\r
1192 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1197 This is the default behavior. If the window requesting focus is on an active
\r
1198 workspace, it will receive the focus. Otherwise, the urgency hint will be set.
\r
1201 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1206 The window will always be marked urgent, but the focus will not be stolen.
\r
1209 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1214 The window will always be focused and not be marked urgent.
\r
1217 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1222 The window will neither be focused, nor be marked urgent.
\r
1227 <div class="sect2">
\r
1228 <h3 id="show_marks">4.29. Drawing marks on window decoration</h3>
\r
1229 <div class="paragraph"><p>If activated, marks on windows are drawn in their window decoration. However,
\r
1230 any mark starting with an underscore in its name (<tt>_</tt>) will not be drawn even if
\r
1231 this option is activated.</p></div>
\r
1232 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default for this option is <tt>yes</tt>.</p></div>
\r
1233 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1234 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1235 <div class="content">
\r
1236 <pre><tt>show_marks yes|no</tt></pre>
\r
1238 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1239 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1240 <div class="content">
\r
1241 <pre><tt>show_marks yes</tt></pre>
\r
1244 <div class="sect2">
\r
1245 <h3 id="line_continuation">4.30. Line continuation</h3>
\r
1246 <div class="paragraph"><p>Config files support line continuation, meaning when you end a line in a
\r
1247 backslash character (<tt>\</tt>), the line-break will be ignored by the parser. This
\r
1248 feature can be used to create more readable configuration files.
\r
1249 Commented lines are not continued.</p></div>
\r
1250 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1251 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1252 <div class="content">
\r
1253 <pre><tt>bindsym Mod1+f \
\r
1256 # this line is not continued \
\r
1257 bindsym Mod1+F fullscreen toggle</tt></pre>
\r
1262 <div class="sect1">
\r
1263 <h2 id="_configuring_i3bar">5. Configuring i3bar</h2>
\r
1264 <div class="sectionbody">
\r
1265 <div class="paragraph"><p>The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
\r
1266 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
\r
1267 several advantages:</p></div>
\r
1268 <div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
\r
1271 It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
\r
1272 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
\r
1273 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
\r
1278 It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
\r
1279 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
\r
1280 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
\r
1285 It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
\r
1286 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
\r
1290 <div class="paragraph"><p>That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
\r
1291 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
\r
1292 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
\r
1293 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
\r
1294 configuration infrastructure in place.</p></div>
\r
1295 <div class="paragraph"><p>Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a <tt>bar</tt> block. You can have
\r
1296 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):</p></div>
\r
1297 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1298 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1299 <div class="content">
\r
1301 status_command i3status
\r
1304 <div class="sect2">
\r
1305 <h3 id="_i3bar_command">5.1. i3bar command</h3>
\r
1306 <div class="paragraph"><p>By default i3 will just pass <tt>i3bar</tt> and let your shell handle the execution,
\r
1307 searching your <tt>$PATH</tt> for a correct version.
\r
1308 If you have a different <tt>i3bar</tt> somewhere or the binary is not in your <tt>$PATH</tt> you can
\r
1309 tell i3 what to execute.</p></div>
\r
1310 <div class="paragraph"><p>The specified command will be passed to <tt>sh -c</tt>, so you can use globbing and
\r
1311 have to have correct quoting etc.</p></div>
\r
1312 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1313 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1314 <div class="content">
\r
1315 <pre><tt>i3bar_command <command></tt></pre>
\r
1317 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1318 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1319 <div class="content">
\r
1321 i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
\r
1325 <div class="sect2">
\r
1326 <h3 id="status_command">5.2. Statusline command</h3>
\r
1327 <div class="paragraph"><p>i3bar can run a program and display every line of its <tt>stdout</tt> output on the
\r
1328 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
\r
1329 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.</p></div>
\r
1330 <div class="paragraph"><p>The specified command will be passed to <tt>sh -c</tt>, so you can use globbing and
\r
1331 have to have correct quoting etc. Note that for signal handling, depending on
\r
1332 your shell (users of dash(1) are known to be affected), you have to use the
\r
1333 shell’s exec command so that signals are passed to your program, not to the
\r
1335 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1336 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1337 <div class="content">
\r
1338 <pre><tt>status_command <command></tt></pre>
\r
1340 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1341 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1342 <div class="content">
\r
1344 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
\r
1346 # For dash(1) users who want signal handling to work:
\r
1347 status_command exec ~/.bin/my_status_command
\r
1351 <div class="sect2">
\r
1352 <h3 id="_display_mode">5.3. Display mode</h3>
\r
1353 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can either have i3bar be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
\r
1354 (<tt>dock</tt> mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (<tt>hide</tt> mode).
\r
1355 It is also possible to force i3bar to always stay hidden (<tt>invisible</tt>
\r
1356 mode). The modifier key can be configured using the <tt>modifier</tt> option.</p></div>
\r
1357 <div class="paragraph"><p>The mode option can be changed during runtime through the <tt>bar mode</tt> command.
\r
1358 On reload the mode will be reverted to its configured value.</p></div>
\r
1359 <div class="paragraph"><p>The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
\r
1360 i3bar sends the <tt>SIGSTOP</tt> and <tt>SIGCONT</tt> signals to the statusline process to
\r
1361 save battery power.</p></div>
\r
1362 <div class="paragraph"><p>Invisible mode allows to permanently maximize screen space, as the bar is never
\r
1363 shown. Thus, you can configure i3bar to not disturb you by popping up because
\r
1364 of an urgency hint or because the modifier key is pressed.</p></div>
\r
1365 <div class="paragraph"><p>In order to control whether i3bar is hidden or shown in hide mode, there exists
\r
1366 the hidden_state option, which has no effect in dock mode or invisible mode. It
\r
1367 indicates the current hidden_state of the bar: (1) The bar acts like in normal
\r
1368 hide mode, it is hidden and is only unhidden in case of urgency hints or by
\r
1369 pressing the modifier key (<tt>hide</tt> state), or (2) it is drawn on top of the
\r
1370 currently visible workspace (<tt>show</tt> state).</p></div>
\r
1371 <div class="paragraph"><p>Like the mode, the hidden_state can also be controlled through i3, this can be
\r
1372 done by using the <tt>bar hidden_state</tt> command.</p></div>
\r
1373 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default mode is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
\r
1374 the windows key). The default value for the hidden_state is hide.</p></div>
\r
1375 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1376 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1377 <div class="content">
\r
1378 <pre><tt>mode dock|hide|invisible
\r
1379 hidden_state hide|show
\r
1380 modifier <Modifier>|none</tt></pre>
\r
1382 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1383 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1384 <div class="content">
\r
1391 <div class="paragraph"><p>Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see <tt>xmodmap(1)</tt>). You can
\r
1392 also use "none" if you don’t want any modifier to trigger this behavior.</p></div>
\r
1394 <div class="sect2">
\r
1395 <h3 id="_mouse_button_commands">5.4. Mouse button commands</h3>
\r
1396 <div class="paragraph"><p>Specifies a command to run when a button was pressed on i3bar to override the
\r
1397 default behavior. This is useful, e.g., for disabling the scroll wheel action
\r
1398 or running scripts that implement custom behavior for these buttons.</p></div>
\r
1399 <div class="paragraph"><p>A button is always named <tt>button<n></tt>, where 1 to 5 are default buttons as follows and higher
\r
1400 numbers can be special buttons on devices offering more buttons:</p></div>
\r
1401 <div class="dlist"><dl>
\r
1402 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1407 Left mouse button.
\r
1410 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1415 Middle mouse button.
\r
1418 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1423 Right mouse button.
\r
1426 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1434 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1439 Scroll wheel down.
\r
1443 <div class="paragraph"><p>Please note that the old <tt>wheel_up_cmd</tt> and <tt>wheel_down_cmd</tt> commands are deprecated
\r
1444 and will be removed in a future release. We strongly recommend using the more general
\r
1445 <tt>bindsym</tt> with <tt>button4</tt> and <tt>button5</tt> instead.</p></div>
\r
1446 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1447 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1448 <div class="content">
\r
1449 <pre><tt>bindsym button<n> <command></tt></pre>
\r
1451 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1452 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1453 <div class="content">
\r
1455 # disable clicking on workspace buttons
\r
1456 bindsym button1 nop
\r
1457 # execute custom script when scrolling downwards
\r
1458 bindsym button5 exec ~/.i3/scripts/custom_wheel_down
\r
1462 <div class="sect2">
\r
1463 <h3 id="_bar_id">5.5. Bar ID</h3>
\r
1464 <div class="paragraph"><p>Specifies the bar ID for the configured bar instance. If this option is missing,
\r
1465 the ID is set to <em>bar-x</em>, where x corresponds to the position of the embedding
\r
1466 bar block in the config file (<em>bar-0</em>, <em>bar-1</em>, …).</p></div>
\r
1467 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1468 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1469 <div class="content">
\r
1470 <pre><tt>id <bar_id></tt></pre>
\r
1472 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1473 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1474 <div class="content">
\r
1480 <div class="sect2">
\r
1481 <h3 id="i3bar_position">5.6. Position</h3>
\r
1482 <div class="paragraph"><p>This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.</p></div>
\r
1483 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default is bottom.</p></div>
\r
1484 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1485 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1486 <div class="content">
\r
1487 <pre><tt>position top|bottom</tt></pre>
\r
1489 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1490 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1491 <div class="content">
\r
1497 <div class="sect2">
\r
1498 <h3 id="_output_s">5.7. Output(s)</h3>
\r
1499 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
\r
1500 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
\r
1501 options for different outputs by using multiple <em>bar</em> blocks.</p></div>
\r
1502 <div class="paragraph"><p>To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
\r
1503 directive multiple times.</p></div>
\r
1504 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1505 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1506 <div class="content">
\r
1507 <pre><tt>output <output></tt></pre>
\r
1509 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1510 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1511 <div class="content">
\r
1512 <pre><tt># big monitor: everything
\r
1514 # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
\r
1517 status_command i3status
\r
1520 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
\r
1523 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
\r
1525 background #000000
\r
1526 statusline #ffffff
\r
1531 <div class="sect2">
\r
1532 <h3 id="_tray_output">5.8. Tray output</h3>
\r
1533 <div class="paragraph"><p>i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
\r
1534 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.</p></div>
\r
1535 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
\r
1536 you can turn off the functionality entirely.</p></div>
\r
1537 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can use multiple <tt>tray_output</tt> directives in your config to specify a list
\r
1538 of outputs on which you want the tray to appear. The first available output in
\r
1539 that list as defined by the order of the directives will be used for the tray
\r
1541 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1542 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1543 <div class="content">
\r
1544 <pre><tt>tray_output none|primary|<output></tt></pre>
\r
1546 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1547 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1548 <div class="content">
\r
1549 <pre><tt># disable system tray
\r
1554 # show tray icons on the primary monitor
\r
1556 tray_output primary
\r
1559 # show tray icons on the big monitor
\r
1564 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:</p></div>
\r
1565 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1566 <div class="content">
\r
1567 <pre><tt>xrandr --output <output> --primary</tt></pre>
\r
1569 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that when you use multiple bar configuration blocks, either specify
\r
1570 <tt>tray_output primary</tt> in all of them or explicitly specify <tt>tray_output none</tt>
\r
1571 in bars which should not display the tray, otherwise the different instances
\r
1572 might race each other in trying to display tray icons.</p></div>
\r
1574 <div class="sect2">
\r
1575 <h3 id="_tray_padding">5.9. Tray padding</h3>
\r
1576 <div class="paragraph"><p>The tray is shown on the right-hand side of the bar. By default, a padding of 2
\r
1577 pixels is used for the upper, lower and right-hand side of the tray area and
\r
1578 between the individual icons.</p></div>
\r
1579 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1580 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1581 <div class="content">
\r
1582 <pre><tt>tray_padding <px> [px]</tt></pre>
\r
1584 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1585 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1586 <div class="content">
\r
1587 <pre><tt># Obey Fitts's law
\r
1588 tray_padding 0</tt></pre>
\r
1591 <div class="sect2">
\r
1592 <h3 id="_font">5.10. Font</h3>
\r
1593 <div class="paragraph"><p>Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <a href="#fonts">[fonts]</a>.</p></div>
\r
1594 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1595 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1596 <div class="content">
\r
1597 <pre><tt>font <font></tt></pre>
\r
1599 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1600 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1601 <div class="content">
\r
1603 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
\r
1604 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
\r
1608 <div class="sect2">
\r
1609 <h3 id="_custom_separator_symbol">5.11. Custom separator symbol</h3>
\r
1610 <div class="paragraph"><p>Specifies a custom symbol to be used for the separator as opposed to the vertical,
\r
1611 one pixel thick separator.</p></div>
\r
1612 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1613 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1614 <div class="content">
\r
1615 <pre><tt>separator_symbol <symbol></tt></pre>
\r
1617 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1618 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1619 <div class="content">
\r
1621 separator_symbol ":|:"
\r
1625 <div class="sect2">
\r
1626 <h3 id="_workspace_buttons">5.12. Workspace buttons</h3>
\r
1627 <div class="paragraph"><p>Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
\r
1628 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.</p></div>
\r
1629 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default is to show workspace buttons.</p></div>
\r
1630 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1631 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1632 <div class="content">
\r
1633 <pre><tt>workspace_buttons yes|no</tt></pre>
\r
1635 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1636 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1637 <div class="content">
\r
1639 workspace_buttons no
\r
1643 <div class="sect2">
\r
1644 <h3 id="_strip_workspace_numbers">5.13. Strip workspace numbers</h3>
\r
1645 <div class="paragraph"><p>Specifies whether workspace numbers should be displayed within the workspace
\r
1646 buttons. This is useful if you want to have a named workspace that stays in
\r
1647 order on the bar according to its number without displaying the number prefix.</p></div>
\r
1648 <div class="paragraph"><p>When <tt>strip_workspace_numbers</tt> is set to <tt>yes</tt>, any workspace that has a name of
\r
1649 the form "[n]:[NAME]" will display only the name. You could use this, for
\r
1650 instance, to display Roman numerals rather than digits by naming your
\r
1651 workspaces to "1:I", "2:II", "3:III", "4:IV", …</p></div>
\r
1652 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default is to display the full name within the workspace button.</p></div>
\r
1653 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1654 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1655 <div class="content">
\r
1656 <pre><tt>strip_workspace_numbers yes|no</tt></pre>
\r
1658 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1659 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1660 <div class="content">
\r
1662 strip_workspace_numbers yes
\r
1666 <div class="sect2">
\r
1667 <h3 id="_binding_mode_indicator">5.14. Binding Mode indicator</h3>
\r
1668 <div class="paragraph"><p>Specifies whether the current binding mode indicator should be shown or not.
\r
1669 This is useful if you want to hide the workspace buttons but still be able
\r
1670 to see the current binding mode indicator. See <a href="#binding_modes">[binding_modes]</a> to learn what
\r
1671 modes are and how to use them.</p></div>
\r
1672 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default is to show the mode indicator.</p></div>
\r
1673 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1674 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1675 <div class="content">
\r
1676 <pre><tt>binding_mode_indicator yes|no</tt></pre>
\r
1678 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1679 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1680 <div class="content">
\r
1682 binding_mode_indicator no
\r
1686 <div class="sect2">
\r
1687 <h3 id="_colors">5.15. Colors</h3>
\r
1688 <div class="paragraph"><p>As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
\r
1689 be configured at the moment:</p></div>
\r
1690 <div class="dlist"><dl>
\r
1691 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1696 Background color of the bar.
\r
1699 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1704 Text color to be used for the statusline.
\r
1707 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1712 Text color to be used for the separator.
\r
1715 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1716 focused_background
\r
1720 Background color of the bar on the currently focused monitor output. If
\r
1721 not used, the color will be taken from <tt>background</tt>.
\r
1724 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1725 focused_statusline
\r
1729 Text color to be used for the statusline on the currently focused
\r
1730 monitor output. If not used, the color will be taken from <tt>statusline</tt>.
\r
1733 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1738 Text color to be used for the separator on the currently focused
\r
1739 monitor output. If not used, the color will be taken from <tt>separator</tt>.
\r
1742 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1747 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
\r
1751 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1756 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
\r
1757 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
\r
1758 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
\r
1759 using multiple monitors.
\r
1762 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1763 inactive_workspace
\r
1767 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
\r
1768 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
\r
1769 will be the case for most workspaces.
\r
1772 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1777 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
\r
1778 contains a window with the urgency hint set.
\r
1781 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1786 Border, background and text color for the binding mode indicator. If not used,
\r
1787 the colors will be taken from <tt>urgent_workspace</tt>.
\r
1791 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1792 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1793 <div class="content">
\r
1795 background <color>
\r
1796 statusline <color>
\r
1797 separator <color>
\r
1799 <colorclass> <border> <background> <text>
\r
1802 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example (default colors)</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1803 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1804 <div class="content">
\r
1807 background #000000
\r
1808 statusline #ffffff
\r
1811 focused_workspace #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
\r
1812 active_workspace #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
\r
1813 inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
\r
1814 urgent_workspace #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
\r
1815 binding_mode #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
\r
1822 <div class="sect1">
\r
1823 <h2 id="_list_of_commands">6. List of commands</h2>
\r
1824 <div class="sectionbody">
\r
1825 <div class="paragraph"><p>Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
\r
1826 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
\r
1827 do this is to use the <tt>i3-msg</tt> utility:</p></div>
\r
1828 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1829 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1830 <div class="content">
\r
1831 <pre><tt># execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
\r
1832 i3-msg border none</tt></pre>
\r
1834 <div class="paragraph" id="command_chaining"><p>Commands can be chained by using <tt>;</tt> (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
\r
1835 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
\r
1836 the following keybinding:</p></div>
\r
1837 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1838 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1839 <div class="content">
\r
1840 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3</tt></pre>
\r
1842 <div class="paragraph" id="command_criteria"><p>Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command - that is, which containers
\r
1843 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. The criteria
\r
1844 are specified before any command in a pair of square brackets and are separated
\r
1845 by space.</p></div>
\r
1846 <div class="paragraph"><p>When using multiple commands, separate them by using a <tt>,</tt> (a comma) instead of
\r
1847 a semicolon. Criteria apply only until the next semicolon, so if you use a
\r
1848 semicolon to separate commands, only the first one will be executed for the
\r
1849 matched window(s).</p></div>
\r
1850 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1851 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1852 <div class="content">
\r
1853 <pre><tt># if you want to kill all windows which have the class Firefox, use:
\r
1854 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
\r
1856 # same thing, but case-insensitive
\r
1857 bindsym $mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
\r
1859 # kill only the About dialog from Firefox
\r
1860 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox" window_role="About"] kill
\r
1862 # enable floating mode and move container to workspace 4
\r
1863 for_window [class="^evil-app$"] floating enable, move container to workspace 4
\r
1865 # move all floating windows to the scratchpad
\r
1866 bindsym $mod+x [floating] move scratchpad</tt></pre>
\r
1868 <div class="paragraph"><p>The criteria which are currently implemented are:</p></div>
\r
1869 <div class="dlist"><dl>
\r
1870 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1875 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS). Use the
\r
1876 special value <tt>__focused__</tt> to match all windows having the same window
\r
1877 class as the currently focused window.
\r
1880 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1885 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS). Use the
\r
1886 special value <tt>__focused__</tt> to match all windows having the same window
\r
1887 instance as the currently focused window.
\r
1890 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1895 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE). Use the special value
\r
1896 <tt>__focused__</tt> to match all windows having the same window role as the
\r
1897 currently focused window.
\r
1900 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1905 Compare the window type (_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE). Possible values are
\r
1906 <tt>normal</tt>, <tt>dialog</tt>, <tt>utility</tt>, <tt>toolbar</tt>, <tt>splash</tt>, <tt>menu</tt>, <tt>dropdown_menu</tt>,
\r
1907 <tt>popup_menu</tt>, <tt>tooltip</tt> and <tt>notification</tt>.
\r
1910 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1915 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via <tt>xwininfo</tt> for example.
\r
1918 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1923 Compares the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
\r
1924 Use the special value <tt>__focused__</tt> to match all windows having the
\r
1925 same window title as the currently focused window.
\r
1928 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1933 Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
\r
1934 Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
\r
1935 (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
\r
1938 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1943 Compares the workspace name of the workspace the window belongs to. Use
\r
1944 the special value <tt>__focused__</tt> to match all windows in the currently
\r
1945 focused workspace.
\r
1948 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1953 Compares the marks set for this container, see <a href="#vim_like_marks">[vim_like_marks]</a>. A
\r
1954 match is made if any of the container’s marks matches the specified
\r
1958 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1963 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
\r
1964 interface. Handy for scripting. Use the special value <tt>__focused__</tt>
\r
1965 to match only the currently focused window.
\r
1968 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1973 Only matches floating windows. This criterion requires no value.
\r
1976 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1981 Only matches tiling windows. This criterion requires no value.
\r
1985 <div class="paragraph"><p>The criteria <tt>class</tt>, <tt>instance</tt>, <tt>role</tt>, <tt>title</tt>, <tt>workspace</tt> and <tt>mark</tt> are
\r
1986 actually regular expressions (PCRE). See <tt>pcresyntax(3)</tt> or <tt>perldoc perlre</tt> for
\r
1987 information on how to use them.</p></div>
\r
1988 <div class="sect2">
\r
1989 <h3 id="exec">6.1. Executing applications (exec)</h3>
\r
1990 <div class="paragraph"><p>What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
\r
1991 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
\r
1992 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
\r
1993 searched in your <tt>$PATH</tt>.</p></div>
\r
1994 <div class="paragraph"><p>See <a href="#command_chaining">[command_chaining]</a> for details on the special meaning of <tt>;</tt> (semicolon)
\r
1995 and <tt>,</tt> (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
\r
1996 strings (as shown in <a href="#exec_quoting">[exec_quoting]</a>) if they appear in your command.</p></div>
\r
1997 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1998 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1999 <div class="content">
\r
2000 <pre><tt>exec [--no-startup-id] <command></tt></pre>
\r
2002 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2003 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2004 <div class="content">
\r
2005 <pre><tt># Start the GIMP
\r
2006 bindsym $mod+g exec gimp
\r
2008 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
\r
2009 bindsym $mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt</tt></pre>
\r
2011 <div class="paragraph"><p>The <tt>--no-startup-id</tt> parameter disables startup-notification support for this
\r
2012 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
\r
2013 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
\r
2014 will change the X11 cursor to <tt>watch</tt> (a clock) while the application is
\r
2015 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
\r
2016 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
\r
2017 cursor for 60 seconds.</p></div>
\r
2018 <div class="paragraph" id="exec_quoting"><p>If the command to be executed contains a <tt>;</tt> (semicolon) and/or a <tt>,</tt> (comma),
\r
2019 the entire command must be quoted. For example, to have a keybinding for the
\r
2020 shell command <tt>notify-send Hello, i3</tt>, you would add an entry to your
\r
2021 configuration file like this:</p></div>
\r
2022 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2023 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2024 <div class="content">
\r
2025 <pre><tt># Execute a command with a comma in it
\r
2026 bindsym $mod+p exec "notify-send Hello, i3"</tt></pre>
\r
2028 <div class="paragraph"><p>If however a command with a comma and/or semicolon itself requires quotes, you
\r
2029 must escape the internal quotation marks with double backslashes, like this:</p></div>
\r
2030 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2031 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2032 <div class="content">
\r
2033 <pre><tt># Execute a command with a comma, semicolon and internal quotes
\r
2034 bindsym $mod+p exec "notify-send \\"Hello, i3; from $USER\\""</tt></pre>
\r
2037 <div class="sect2">
\r
2038 <h3 id="_splitting_containers">6.2. Splitting containers</h3>
\r
2039 <div class="paragraph"><p>The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
\r
2040 can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
\r
2041 new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
\r
2042 get placed below the current one (splitv).</p></div>
\r
2043 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
\r
2044 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
\r
2045 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window).
\r
2046 The <tt>toggle</tt> option will toggle the orientation of the split container if it
\r
2047 contains a single window. Otherwise it makes the current window a split
\r
2048 container with opposite orientation compared to the parent container.
\r
2049 Use <tt>layout toggle split</tt> to change the layout of any split container from
\r
2050 splitv to splith or vice-versa.</p></div>
\r
2051 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2052 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2053 <div class="content">
\r
2054 <pre><tt>split vertical|horizontal|toggle</tt></pre>
\r
2056 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2057 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2058 <div class="content">
\r
2059 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+v split vertical
\r
2060 bindsym $mod+h split horizontal
\r
2061 bindsym $mod+t split toggle</tt></pre>
\r
2064 <div class="sect2">
\r
2065 <h3 id="_manipulating_layout">6.3. Manipulating layout</h3>
\r
2066 <div class="paragraph"><p>Use <tt>layout toggle split</tt>, <tt>layout stacking</tt>, <tt>layout tabbed</tt>, <tt>layout splitv</tt>
\r
2067 or <tt>layout splith</tt> to change the current container layout to splith/splitv,
\r
2068 stacking, tabbed layout, splitv or splith, respectively.</p></div>
\r
2069 <div class="paragraph"><p>To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use <tt>fullscreen enable</tt> (or
\r
2070 <tt>fullscreen enable global</tt> for the global mode), to leave either fullscreen
\r
2071 mode use <tt>fullscreen disable</tt>, and to toggle between these two states use
\r
2072 <tt>fullscreen toggle</tt> (or <tt>fullscreen toggle global</tt>).</p></div>
\r
2073 <div class="paragraph"><p>Likewise, to make the current window floating (or tiling again) use <tt>floating
\r
2074 enable</tt> respectively <tt>floating disable</tt> (or <tt>floating toggle</tt>):</p></div>
\r
2075 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2076 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2077 <div class="content">
\r
2078 <pre><tt>layout default|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith
\r
2079 layout toggle [split|all]</tt></pre>
\r
2081 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2082 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2083 <div class="content">
\r
2084 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+s layout stacking
\r
2085 bindsym $mod+l layout toggle split
\r
2086 bindsym $mod+w layout tabbed
\r
2088 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
\r
2089 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle
\r
2091 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
\r
2092 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle all
\r
2094 # Toggle fullscreen
\r
2095 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
\r
2097 # Toggle floating/tiling
\r
2098 bindsym $mod+t floating toggle</tt></pre>
\r
2101 <div class="sect2">
\r
2102 <h3 id="_focusing_moving_containers">6.4. Focusing containers</h3>
\r
2103 <div class="paragraph"><p>To change focus, you can use the <tt>focus</tt> command. The following options are
\r
2104 available:</p></div>
\r
2105 <div class="dlist"><dl>
\r
2106 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
2107 left|right|up|down
\r
2111 Sets focus to the nearest container in the given direction.
\r
2114 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
2119 Sets focus to the parent container of the current container.
\r
2122 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
2127 The opposite of <tt>focus parent</tt>, sets the focus to the last focused
\r
2131 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
2136 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
\r
2139 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
2144 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
\r
2147 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
2152 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
\r
2155 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
2160 Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
\r
2161 corresponding output.
\r
2165 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2166 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2167 <div class="content">
\r
2168 <pre><tt>focus left|right|down|up
\r
2169 focus parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle
\r
2170 focus output left|right|up|down|<output></tt></pre>
\r
2172 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2173 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2174 <div class="content">
\r
2175 <pre><tt># Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right
\r
2176 bindsym $mod+j focus left
\r
2177 bindsym $mod+k focus down
\r
2178 bindsym $mod+l focus up
\r
2179 bindsym $mod+semicolon focus right
\r
2181 # Focus parent container
\r
2182 bindsym $mod+u focus parent
\r
2184 # Focus last floating/tiling container
\r
2185 bindsym $mod+g focus mode_toggle
\r
2187 # Focus the output right to the current one
\r
2188 bindsym $mod+x focus output right
\r
2190 # Focus the big output
\r
2191 bindsym $mod+x focus output HDMI-2</tt></pre>
\r
2194 <div class="sect2">
\r
2195 <h3 id="_moving_containers">6.5. Moving containers</h3>
\r
2196 <div class="paragraph"><p>Use the <tt>move</tt> command to move a container.</p></div>
\r
2197 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2198 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2199 <div class="content">
\r
2200 <pre><tt># Moves the container into the given direction.
\r
2201 # The optional pixel argument specifies how far the
\r
2202 # container should be moved if it is floating and
\r
2203 # defaults to 10 pixels.
\r
2204 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
\r
2206 # Moves the container either to a specific location
\r
2207 # or to the center of the screen. If 'absolute' is
\r
2208 # used, it is moved to the center of all outputs.
\r
2209 move [absolute] position [[<px> px] [<px> px]|center]
\r
2211 # Moves the container to the current position of the
\r
2212 # mouse cursor. Only affects floating containers.
\r
2213 move position mouse</tt></pre>
\r
2215 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2216 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2217 <div class="content">
\r
2218 <pre><tt># Move container to the left, bottom, top, right
\r
2219 bindsym $mod+j move left
\r
2220 bindsym $mod+k move down
\r
2221 bindsym $mod+l move up
\r
2222 bindsym $mod+semicolon move right
\r
2224 # Move container, but make floating containers
\r
2225 # move more than the default
\r
2226 bindsym $mod+j move left 20 px
\r
2228 # Move floating container to the center of all outputs
\r
2229 bindsym $mod+c move absolute position center
\r
2231 # Move container to the current position of the cursor
\r
2232 bindsym $mod+m move position mouse</tt></pre>
\r
2235 <div class="sect2">
\r
2236 <h3 id="_sticky_floating_windows">6.6. Sticky floating windows</h3>
\r
2237 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you want a window to stick to the glass, i.e., have it stay on screen even
\r
2238 if you switch to another workspace, you can use the <tt>sticky</tt> command. For
\r
2239 example, this can be useful for notepads, a media player or a video chat
\r
2241 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that while any window can be made sticky through this command, it will
\r
2242 only take effect if the window is floating.</p></div>
\r
2243 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2244 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2245 <div class="content">
\r
2246 <pre><tt>sticky enable|disable|toggle</tt></pre>
\r
2248 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2249 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2250 <div class="content">
\r
2251 <pre><tt># make a terminal sticky that was started as a notepad
\r
2252 for_window [instance=notepad] sticky enable</tt></pre>
\r
2255 <div class="sect2">
\r
2256 <h3 id="_changing_named_workspaces_moving_to_workspaces">6.7. Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces</h3>
\r
2257 <div class="paragraph"><p>To change to a specific workspace, use the <tt>workspace</tt> command, followed by the
\r
2258 number or name of the workspace. Pass the optional flag
\r
2259 <tt>--no-auto-back-and-forth</tt> to disable <a href="#back_and_forth">[back_and_forth]</a> for this specific call
\r
2261 <div class="paragraph"><p>To move containers to specific workspaces, use <tt>move container to workspace</tt>.</p></div>
\r
2262 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
\r
2263 <tt>workspace next</tt> and <tt>workspace prev</tt>, which is handy, for example, if you have
\r
2264 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
\r
2265 combination. To restrict those to the current output, use <tt>workspace
\r
2266 next_on_output</tt> and <tt>workspace prev_on_output</tt>. Similarly, you can use <tt>move
\r
2267 container to workspace next</tt>, <tt>move container to workspace prev</tt> to move a
\r
2268 container to the next/previous workspace and <tt>move container to workspace current</tt>
\r
2269 (the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).</p></div>
\r
2270 <div class="paragraph"><p><tt>workspace next</tt> cycles through either numbered or named workspaces. But when it
\r
2271 reaches the last numbered/named workspace, it looks for named workspaces after
\r
2272 exhausting numbered ones and looks for numbered ones after exhausting named ones.</p></div>
\r
2273 <div class="paragraph"><p>See <a href="#move_to_outputs">[move_to_outputs]</a> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
\r
2274 RandR output.</p></div>
\r
2275 <div class="paragraph"><p>Workspace names are parsed as
\r
2276 <a href="https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html">Pango markup</a>
\r
2277 by i3bar.</p></div>
\r
2278 <div class="paragraph" id="back_and_forth"><p>To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use <tt>workspace
\r
2279 back_and_forth</tt>; likewise, you can move containers to the previously focused
\r
2280 workspace using <tt>move container to workspace back_and_forth</tt>.</p></div>
\r
2281 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2282 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2283 <div class="content">
\r
2284 <pre><tt>workspace next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output
\r
2285 workspace back_and_forth
\r
2286 workspace [--no-auto-back-and-forth] <name>
\r
2287 workspace [--no-auto-back-and-forth] number <name>
\r
2289 move [--no-auto-back-and-forth] [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
\r
2290 move [--no-auto-back-and-forth] [window|container] [to] workspace number <name>
\r
2291 move [window|container] [to] workspace prev|next|current</tt></pre>
\r
2293 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2294 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2295 <div class="content">
\r
2296 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1
\r
2297 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2
\r
2298 bindsym $mod+3 workspace 3:<span foreground="red">vim</span>
\r
2301 bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
\r
2302 bindsym $mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
\r
2305 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
\r
2306 bindsym $mod+b workspace back_and_forth
\r
2307 bindsym $mod+Shift+b move container to workspace back_and_forth
\r
2309 # move the whole workspace to the next output
\r
2310 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
\r
2312 # move firefox to current workspace
\r
2313 bindsym $mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current</tt></pre>
\r
2315 <div class="sect3">
\r
2316 <h4 id="_named_workspaces">6.7.1. Named workspaces</h4>
\r
2317 <div class="paragraph"><p>Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
\r
2318 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:</p></div>
\r
2319 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2320 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2321 <div class="content">
\r
2322 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+1 workspace mail
\r
2325 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you want the workspace to have a number <strong>and</strong> a name, just prefix the
\r
2326 number, like this:</p></div>
\r
2327 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2328 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2329 <div class="content">
\r
2330 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1: mail
\r
2331 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2: www
\r
2334 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
\r
2335 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
\r
2336 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
\r
2337 will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use <tt>workspace number 1</tt>
\r
2338 to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
\r
2339 it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
\r
2340 dynamically. To combine both commands you can use <tt>workspace number 1: mail</tt> to
\r
2341 specify a default name if there’s currently no workspace starting with a "1".</p></div>
\r
2343 <div class="sect3">
\r
2344 <h4 id="_renaming_workspaces">6.7.2. Renaming workspaces</h4>
\r
2345 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
\r
2346 numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
\r
2347 reflect what’s actually on them. You can also omit the old name to rename
\r
2348 the currently focused workspace. This is handy if you want to use the
\r
2349 rename command with <tt>i3-input</tt>.</p></div>
\r
2350 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2351 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2352 <div class="content">
\r
2353 <pre><tt>rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
\r
2354 rename workspace to <new_name></tt></pre>
\r
2356 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2357 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2358 <div class="content">
\r
2359 <pre><tt>i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
\r
2360 i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
\r
2361 i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
\r
2362 i3-msg 'rename workspace to "2: mail"'
\r
2363 bindsym $mod+r exec i3-input -F 'rename workspace to "%s"' -P 'New name: '</tt></pre>
\r
2367 <div class="sect2">
\r
2368 <h3 id="_moving_workspaces_to_a_different_screen">6.8. Moving workspaces to a different screen</h3>
\r
2369 <div class="paragraph"><p>See <a href="#move_to_outputs">[move_to_outputs]</a> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
\r
2370 RandR output.</p></div>
\r
2372 <div class="sect2">
\r
2373 <h3 id="_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs">6.9. Moving containers/workspaces to RandR outputs</h3>
\r
2374 <div class="paragraph"><p>To move a container to another RandR output (addressed by names like <tt>LVDS1</tt> or
\r
2375 <tt>VGA1</tt>) or to a RandR output identified by a specific direction (like <tt>left</tt>,
\r
2376 <tt>right</tt>, <tt>up</tt> or <tt>down</tt>), there are two commands:</p></div>
\r
2377 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2378 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2379 <div class="content">
\r
2380 <pre><tt>move container to output left|right|down|up|current|<output>
\r
2381 move workspace to output left|right|down|up|current|<output></tt></pre>
\r
2383 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2384 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2385 <div class="content">
\r
2386 <pre><tt># Move the current workspace to the next output
\r
2387 # (effectively toggles when you only have two outputs)
\r
2388 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
\r
2390 # Put this window on the presentation output.
\r
2391 bindsym $mod+x move container to output VGA1</tt></pre>
\r
2394 <div class="sect2">
\r
2395 <h3 id="_moving_containers_windows_to_marks">6.10. Moving containers/windows to marks</h3>
\r
2396 <div class="paragraph"><p>To move a container to another container with a specific mark (see <a href="#vim_like_marks">[vim_like_marks]</a>),
\r
2397 you can use the following command.</p></div>
\r
2398 <div class="paragraph"><p>The window will be moved right after the marked container in the tree, i.e., it ends up
\r
2399 in the same position as if you had opened a new window when the marked container was
\r
2400 focused. If the mark is on a split container, the window will appear as a new child
\r
2401 after the currently focused child within that container.</p></div>
\r
2402 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2403 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2404 <div class="content">
\r
2405 <pre><tt>move window|container to mark <mark></tt></pre>
\r
2407 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2408 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2409 <div class="content">
\r
2410 <pre><tt>for_window [instance="tabme"] move window to mark target</tt></pre>
\r
2413 <div class="sect2">
\r
2414 <h3 id="resizingconfig">6.11. Resizing containers/windows</h3>
\r
2415 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
\r
2416 <tt>resize</tt> command:</p></div>
\r
2417 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2418 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2419 <div class="content">
\r
2420 <pre><tt>resize grow|shrink <direction> [<px> px [or <ppt> ppt]]
\r
2421 resize set <width> [px] <height> [px]</tt></pre>
\r
2423 <div class="paragraph"><p>Direction can either be one of <tt>up</tt>, <tt>down</tt>, <tt>left</tt> or <tt>right</tt>. Or you can be
\r
2424 less specific and use <tt>width</tt> or <tt>height</tt>, in which case i3 will take/give
\r
2425 space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
\r
2426 how many pixels a <strong>floating container</strong> should be grown or shrunk (the default
\r
2427 is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
\r
2428 many percentage points a <strong>tiling container</strong> should be grown or shrunk (the
\r
2429 default is 10 percentage points). Note that <tt>resize set</tt> will only work for
\r
2430 floating containers.</p></div>
\r
2431 <div class="paragraph"><p>It is recommended to define bindings for resizing in a dedicated binding mode.
\r
2432 See <a href="#binding_modes">[binding_modes]</a> and the example in the i3
\r
2433 <a href="https://github.com/i3/i3/blob/next/etc/config.keycodes">default config</a> for more
\r
2434 context.</p></div>
\r
2435 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2436 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2437 <div class="content">
\r
2438 <pre><tt>for_window [class="urxvt"] resize set 640 480</tt></pre>
\r
2441 <div class="sect2">
\r
2442 <h3 id="_jumping_to_specific_windows">6.12. Jumping to specific windows</h3>
\r
2443 <div class="paragraph"><p>Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
\r
2444 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
\r
2445 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
\r
2446 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mail client,
\r
2447 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the <tt>focus</tt> command
\r
2448 with criteria for that.</p></div>
\r
2449 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2450 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2451 <div class="content">
\r
2452 <pre><tt>[class="class"] focus
\r
2453 [title="title"] focus</tt></pre>
\r
2455 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2456 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2457 <div class="content">
\r
2458 <pre><tt># Get me to the next open VIM instance
\r
2459 bindsym $mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus</tt></pre>
\r
2462 <div class="sect2">
\r
2463 <h3 id="vim_like_marks">6.13. VIM-like marks (mark/goto)</h3>
\r
2464 <div class="paragraph"><p>This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
\r
2465 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
\r
2466 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
\r
2467 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You can unmark the label in the same
\r
2468 way, using the unmark command. If you don’t specify a label, unmark removes all
\r
2469 marks. You do not need to ensure that your windows have unique classes or
\r
2470 titles, and you do not need to change your configuration file.</p></div>
\r
2471 <div class="paragraph"><p>As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
\r
2472 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. <tt>i3-input</tt> is a tool created
\r
2473 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
\r
2474 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.</p></div>
\r
2475 <div class="paragraph"><p>The additional <tt>--toggle</tt> option will remove the mark if the window already has
\r
2476 this mark or add it otherwise. Note that you may need to use this in
\r
2477 combination with <tt>--add</tt> (see below) as any other marks will otherwise be
\r
2478 removed.</p></div>
\r
2479 <div class="paragraph"><p>By default, a window can only have one mark. You can use the <tt>--add</tt> flag to
\r
2480 put more than one mark on a window.</p></div>
\r
2481 <div class="paragraph"><p>Refer to <a href="#show_marks">[show_marks]</a> if you don’t want marks to be shown in the window decoration.</p></div>
\r
2482 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2483 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2484 <div class="content">
\r
2485 <pre><tt>mark [--add|--replace] [--toggle] <identifier>
\r
2486 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
\r
2487 unmark <identifier></tt></pre>
\r
2489 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example (in a terminal)</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2490 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2491 <div class="content">
\r
2492 <pre><tt># marks the focused container
\r
2495 # focus the container with the mark "irssi"
\r
2496 '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
\r
2498 # remove the mark "irssi" from whichever container has it
\r
2501 # remove all marks on all firefox windows
\r
2502 [class="(?i)firefox"] unmark</tt></pre>
\r
2505 <div class="sect2">
\r
2506 <h3 id="pango_markup">6.14. Window title format</h3>
\r
2507 <div class="paragraph"><p>By default, i3 will simply print the X11 window title. Using <tt>title_format</tt>,
\r
2508 this can be customized by setting the format to the desired output. This
\r
2509 directive supports
\r
2510 <a href="https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html">Pango markup</a>
\r
2511 and the following placeholders which will be replaced:</p></div>
\r
2512 <div class="dlist"><dl>
\r
2513 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
2518 For normal windows, this is the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME
\r
2519 as fallback). When used on containers without a window (e.g., a split
\r
2520 container inside a tabbed/stacked layout), this will be the tree
\r
2521 representation of the container (e.g., "H[xterm xterm]").
\r
2524 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
2529 The X11 window class (second part of WM_CLASS). This corresponds to the
\r
2530 <tt>class</tt> criterion, see <a href="#command_criteria">[command_criteria]</a>.
\r
2533 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
2534 <tt>%instance</tt>
\r
2538 The X11 window instance (first part of WM_CLASS). This corresponds to the
\r
2539 <tt>instance</tt> criterion, see <a href="#command_criteria">[command_criteria]</a>.
\r
2543 <div class="paragraph"><p>Using the <a href="#for_window">[for_window]</a> directive, you can set the title format for any window
\r
2544 based on <a href="#command_criteria">[command_criteria]</a>.</p></div>
\r
2545 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2546 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2547 <div class="content">
\r
2548 <pre><tt>title_format <format></tt></pre>
\r
2550 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2551 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2552 <div class="content">
\r
2553 <pre><tt># give the focused window a prefix
\r
2554 bindsym $mod+p title_format "Important | %title"
\r
2556 # print all window titles bold
\r
2557 for_window [class=".*"] title_format "<b>%title</b>"
\r
2559 # print window titles of firefox windows red
\r
2560 for_window [class="(?i)firefox"] title_format "<span foreground='red'>%title</span>"</tt></pre>
\r
2563 <div class="sect2">
\r
2564 <h3 id="_changing_border_style">6.15. Changing border style</h3>
\r
2565 <div class="paragraph"><p>To change the border of the current client, you can use <tt>border normal</tt> to use the normal
\r
2566 border (including window title), <tt>border pixel 1</tt> to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
\r
2567 and <tt>border none</tt> to make the client borderless.</p></div>
\r
2568 <div class="paragraph"><p>There is also <tt>border toggle</tt> which will toggle the different border styles.</p></div>
\r
2569 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that "pixel" refers to logical pixel. On HiDPI displays, a logical pixel
\r
2570 may be represented by multiple physical pixels, so <tt>pixel 1</tt> might not
\r
2571 necessarily translate into a single pixel row wide border.</p></div>
\r
2572 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2573 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2574 <div class="content">
\r
2575 <pre><tt>border normal|pixel [<n>]
\r
2576 border none|toggle
\r
2578 # legacy syntax, equivalent to "border pixel 1"
\r
2579 border 1pixel</tt></pre>
\r
2581 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2582 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2583 <div class="content">
\r
2584 <pre><tt># use window title, but no border
\r
2585 bindsym $mod+t border normal 0
\r
2586 # use no window title and a thick border
\r
2587 bindsym $mod+y border pixel 3
\r
2588 # use neither window title nor border
\r
2589 bindsym $mod+u border none</tt></pre>
\r
2592 <div class="sect2">
\r
2593 <h3 id="shmlog">6.16. Enabling shared memory logging</h3>
\r
2594 <div class="paragraph"><p>As described in <a href="http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html">http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html</a>, i3 can log to a shared
\r
2595 memory buffer, which you can dump using <tt>i3-dump-log</tt>. The <tt>shmlog</tt> command
\r
2596 allows you to enable or disable the shared memory logging at runtime.</p></div>
\r
2597 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that when using <tt>shmlog <size_in_bytes></tt>, the current log will be
\r
2598 discarded and a new one will be started.</p></div>
\r
2599 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2600 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2601 <div class="content">
\r
2602 <pre><tt>shmlog <size_in_bytes>
\r
2603 shmlog on|off|toggle</tt></pre>
\r
2605 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2606 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2607 <div class="content">
\r
2608 <pre><tt># Enable/disable logging
\r
2609 bindsym $mod+x shmlog toggle
\r
2611 # or, from a terminal:
\r
2612 # increase the shared memory log buffer to 50 MiB
\r
2613 i3-msg shmlog $((50*1024*1024))</tt></pre>
\r
2616 <div class="sect2">
\r
2617 <h3 id="_enabling_debug_logging">6.17. Enabling debug logging</h3>
\r
2618 <div class="paragraph"><p>The <tt>debuglog</tt> command allows you to enable or disable debug logging at
\r
2619 runtime. Debug logging is much more verbose than non-debug logging. This
\r
2620 command does not activate shared memory logging (shmlog), and as such is most
\r
2621 likely useful in combination with the above-described <a href="#shmlog">[shmlog]</a> command.</p></div>
\r
2622 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2623 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2624 <div class="content">
\r
2625 <pre><tt>debuglog on|off|toggle</tt></pre>
\r
2627 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2628 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2629 <div class="content">
\r
2630 <pre><tt># Enable/disable logging
\r
2631 bindsym $mod+x debuglog toggle</tt></pre>
\r
2634 <div class="sect2">
\r
2635 <h3 id="_reloading_restarting_exiting">6.18. Reloading/Restarting/Exiting</h3>
\r
2636 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can make i3 reload its configuration file with <tt>reload</tt>. You can also
\r
2637 restart i3 inplace with the <tt>restart</tt> command to get it out of some weird state
\r
2638 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
\r
2639 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the <tt>exit</tt> command,
\r
2640 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).</p></div>
\r
2641 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2642 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2643 <div class="content">
\r
2644 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
\r
2645 bindsym $mod+Shift+w reload
\r
2646 bindsym $mod+Shift+e exit</tt></pre>
\r
2649 <div class="sect2">
\r
2650 <h3 id="_scratchpad">6.19. Scratchpad</h3>
\r
2651 <div class="paragraph"><p>There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. <tt>move
\r
2652 scratchpad</tt> will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
\r
2653 invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
\r
2654 Instead, when using <tt>scratchpad show</tt>, the window will be shown again, as a
\r
2655 floating window, centered on your current workspace (using <tt>scratchpad show</tt> on
\r
2656 a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
\r
2657 keybinding to toggle). Note that this is just a normal floating window, so if
\r
2658 you want to "remove it from scratchpad", you can simple make it tiling again
\r
2659 (<tt>floating toggle</tt>).</p></div>
\r
2660 <div class="paragraph"><p>As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
\r
2661 editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
\r
2662 running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
\r
2663 player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?</p></div>
\r
2664 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2665 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2666 <div class="content">
\r
2667 <pre><tt>move scratchpad
\r
2669 scratchpad show</tt></pre>
\r
2671 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2672 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2673 <div class="content">
\r
2674 <pre><tt># Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
\r
2675 bindsym $mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad
\r
2677 # Show the first scratchpad window
\r
2678 bindsym $mod+minus scratchpad show
\r
2680 # Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
\r
2681 bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show</tt></pre>
\r
2684 <div class="sect2">
\r
2685 <h3 id="_nop">6.20. Nop</h3>
\r
2686 <div class="paragraph"><p>There is a no operation command <tt>nop</tt> which allows you to override default
\r
2687 behavior. This can be useful for, e.g., disabling a focus change on clicks with
\r
2688 the middle mouse button.</p></div>
\r
2689 <div class="paragraph"><p>The optional <tt>comment</tt> argument is ignored, but will be printed to the log file
\r
2690 for debugging purposes.</p></div>
\r
2691 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2692 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2693 <div class="content">
\r
2694 <pre><tt>nop [<comment>]</tt></pre>
\r
2696 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2697 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2698 <div class="content">
\r
2699 <pre><tt># Disable focus change for clicks on titlebars
\r
2700 # with the middle mouse button
\r
2701 bindsym button2 nop</tt></pre>
\r
2704 <div class="sect2">
\r
2705 <h3 id="_i3bar_control">6.21. i3bar control</h3>
\r
2706 <div class="paragraph"><p>There are two options in the configuration of each i3bar instance that can be
\r
2707 changed during runtime by invoking a command through i3. The commands <tt>bar
\r
2708 hidden_state</tt> and <tt>bar mode</tt> allow setting the current hidden_state
\r
2709 respectively mode option of each bar. It is also possible to toggle between
\r
2710 hide state and show state as well as between dock mode and hide mode. Each
\r
2711 i3bar instance can be controlled individually by specifying a bar_id, if none
\r
2712 is given, the command is executed for all bar instances.</p></div>
\r
2713 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2714 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2715 <div class="content">
\r
2716 <pre><tt>bar hidden_state hide|show|toggle [<bar_id>]
\r
2718 bar mode dock|hide|invisible|toggle [<bar_id>]</tt></pre>
\r
2720 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2721 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2722 <div class="content">
\r
2723 <pre><tt># Toggle between hide state and show state
\r
2724 bindsym $mod+m bar hidden_state toggle
\r
2726 # Toggle between dock mode and hide mode
\r
2727 bindsym $mod+n bar mode toggle
\r
2729 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to switch to hide mode
\r
2730 bindsym $mod+b bar mode hide bar-1
\r
2732 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to always stay hidden
\r
2733 bindsym $mod+Shift+b bar mode invisible bar-1</tt></pre>
\r
2738 <div class="sect1">
\r
2739 <h2 id="multi_monitor">7. Multiple monitors</h2>
\r
2740 <div class="sectionbody">
\r
2741 <div class="paragraph"><p>As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
\r
2742 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
\r
2743 handle multiple monitors.</p></div>
\r
2744 <div class="paragraph"><p>When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
\r
2745 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.</p></div>
\r
2746 <div class="paragraph"><p>When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
\r
2747 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
\r
2748 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
\r
2749 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
\r
2750 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
\r
2751 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
\r
2752 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.</p></div>
\r
2753 <div class="paragraph"><p>The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
\r
2754 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
\r
2755 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
\r
2756 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
\r
2757 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
\r
2758 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
\r
2759 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
\r
2760 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).</p></div>
\r
2761 <div class="sect2">
\r
2762 <h3 id="_configuring_your_monitors">7.1. Configuring your monitors</h3>
\r
2763 <div class="paragraph"><p>To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
\r
2764 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
\r
2765 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
\r
2766 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:</p></div>
\r
2767 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2768 <div class="content">
\r
2770 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
\r
2771 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
\r
2772 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
\r
2773 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
\r
2774 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
\r
2776 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
\r
2777 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
\r
2780 640x350 85.1</tt></pre>
\r
2782 <div class="paragraph"><p>Several things are important here: You can see that <tt>LVDS1</tt> is connected (of
\r
2783 course, it is the internal flat panel) but <tt>VGA1</tt> is not. If you have a monitor
\r
2784 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
\r
2785 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.</p></div>
\r
2786 <div class="paragraph"><p>The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
\r
2787 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
\r
2788 to be increased by editing <tt>/etc/X11/xorg.conf</tt>.</p></div>
\r
2789 <div class="paragraph"><p>So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:</p></div>
\r
2790 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2791 <div class="content">
\r
2792 <pre><tt>xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1</tt></pre>
\r
2794 <div class="paragraph"><p>This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
\r
2795 connected to <tt>VGA1</tt> and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
\r
2796 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:</p></div>
\r
2797 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2798 <div class="content">
\r
2800 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
\r
2801 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
\r
2802 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
\r
2805 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
\r
2807 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
\r
2808 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
\r
2810 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
\r
2811 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
\r
2812 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
\r
2814 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
\r
2815 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
\r
2818 640x350 85.1</tt></pre>
\r
2820 <div class="paragraph"><p>Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
\r
2821 only what you can see in xrandr.</p></div>
\r
2822 <div class="paragraph"><p>See also <a href="#presentations">[presentations]</a> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.</p></div>
\r
2824 <div class="sect2">
\r
2825 <h3 id="_interesting_configuration_for_multi_monitor_environments">7.2. Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments</h3>
\r
2826 <div class="paragraph"><p>There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
\r
2827 have more than one monitor:</p></div>
\r
2828 <div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
\r
2831 You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
\r
2832 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
\r
2833 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
\r
2834 <a href="#workspace_screen">[workspace_screen]</a>.
\r
2839 If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
\r
2840 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
\r
2841 <a href="#assign_workspace">[assign_workspace]</a>.
\r
2846 If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
\r
2847 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
\r
2848 quickly switch between windows. See <a href="#vim_like_marks">[vim_like_marks]</a>.
\r
2853 For information on how to move existing workspaces between monitors,
\r
2854 see <a href="#move_to_outputs">[move_to_outputs]</a>.
\r
2861 <div class="sect1">
\r
2862 <h2 id="_i3_and_the_rest_of_your_software_world">8. i3 and the rest of your software world</h2>
\r
2863 <div class="sectionbody">
\r
2864 <div class="sect2">
\r
2865 <h3 id="_displaying_a_status_line">8.1. Displaying a status line</h3>
\r
2866 <div class="paragraph"><p>A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
\r
2867 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
\r
2868 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.</p></div>
\r
2869 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
\r
2870 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
\r
2871 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
\r
2872 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
\r
2873 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
\r
2874 i3bar. See <a href="#status_command">[status_command]</a> for how to display i3status in i3bar.</p></div>
\r
2875 <div class="paragraph"><p>Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
\r
2876 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
\r
2877 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
\r
2878 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
\r
2879 see <a href="#i3bar_position">[i3bar_position]</a>.</p></div>
\r
2881 <div class="sect2">
\r
2882 <h3 id="presentations">8.2. Giving presentations (multi-monitor)</h3>
\r
2883 <div class="paragraph"><p>When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
\r
2884 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
\r
2885 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
\r
2886 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
\r
2888 <div class="sect3">
\r
2889 <h4 id="_case_1_everybody_gets_the_same_output">8.2.1. Case 1: everybody gets the same output</h4>
\r
2890 <div class="paragraph"><p>This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
\r
2891 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
\r
2892 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:</p></div>
\r
2893 <div class="listingblock">
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2894 <div class="content">
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2895 <pre><tt>xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1</tt></pre>
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2897 <div class="paragraph"><p>i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
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2898 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
\r
2899 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).</p></div>
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2901 <div class="sect3">
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2902 <h4 id="_case_2_you_can_see_more_than_your_audience">8.2.2. Case 2: you can see more than your audience</h4>
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2903 <div class="paragraph"><p>This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
\r
2904 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:</p></div>
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2905 <div class="listingblock">
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2906 <div class="content">
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2907 <pre><tt>xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1</tt></pre>
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2909 <div class="paragraph"><p>Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
\r
2910 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <a href="#multi_monitor">[multi_monitor]</a>).</p></div>
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2911 <div class="paragraph"><p>Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
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2912 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
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2913 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).</p></div>
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2919 <div id="footnotes"><hr /></div>
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2920 <div id="footer" lang="de">
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2921 © 2009-2011 Michael Stapelberg, <a href="/impress.html">Impressum</a>
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