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21 <a href="/"><h1 id="title">i3 - improved tiling WM</h1></a>
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26 <li><a href="http://bugs.i3wm.org/">Bugs</a></li>
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28 <br style="clear: both">
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31 <h1>i3 User’s Guide</h1>
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32 <span id="author">Michael Stapelberg</span><br />
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33 <span id="email"><tt><<a href="mailto:michael@i3wm.org">michael@i3wm.org</a>></tt></span><br />
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34 <span id="revdate">March 2013</span>
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36 <div id="toctitle">Table of Contents</div>
37 <noscript><p><b>JavaScript must be enabled in your browser to display the table of contents.</b></p></noscript>
41 <div class="sectionbody">
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42 <div class="paragraph"><p>This document contains all the information you need to configure and use the i3
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43 window manager. If it does not, please check <a href="http://faq.i3wm.org/">http://faq.i3wm.org/</a> first, then
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44 contact us on IRC (preferred) or post your question(s) on the mailing list.</p></div>
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48 <h2 id="_default_keybindings">1. Default keybindings</h2>
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49 <div class="sectionbody">
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50 <div class="paragraph"><p>For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here is an overview of the default
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51 keybindings (click to see the full size image):</p></div>
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52 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Keys to use with $mod (Alt):</strong></p></div>
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53 <div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
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54 <a class="image" href="keyboard-layer1.png">
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55 <img src="keyboard-layer1.png" alt="Keys to use with $mod (Alt)" width="600" />
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58 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Keys to use with Shift+$mod:</strong></p></div>
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59 <div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
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60 <a class="image" href="keyboard-layer2.png">
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61 <img src="keyboard-layer2.png" alt="Keys to use with Shift+$mod" width="600" />
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64 <div class="paragraph"><p>The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
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65 are your homerow.</p></div>
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69 <h2 id="_using_i3">2. Using i3</h2>
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70 <div class="sectionbody">
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71 <div class="paragraph"><p>Throughout this guide, the keyword <tt>$mod</tt> will be used to refer to the
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72 configured modifier. This is the Alt key (Mod1) by default, with the Windows
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73 key (Mod4) being a popular alternative.</p></div>
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75 <h3 id="_opening_terminals_and_moving_around">2.1. Opening terminals and moving around</h3>
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76 <div class="paragraph"><p>One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
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77 for this is $mod+Enter, that is Alt+Enter in the default configuration. By
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78 pressing $mod+Enter, a new terminal will be opened. It will fill the whole
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79 space available on your screen.</p></div>
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80 <div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
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81 <img src="single_terminal.png" alt="Single terminal" />
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83 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you now open another terminal, i3 will place it next to the current one,
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84 splitting the screen size in half. Depending on your monitor, i3 will put the
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85 created window beside the existing window (on wide displays) or below the
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86 existing window (rotated displays).</p></div>
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87 <div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
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88 <img src="two_terminals.png" alt="Two terminals" />
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90 <div class="paragraph"><p>To move the focus between the two terminals, you can use the direction keys
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91 which you may know from the editor <tt>vi</tt>. However, in i3, your homerow is used
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92 for these keys (in <tt>vi</tt>, the keys are shifted to the left by one for
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93 compatibility with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, <tt>$mod+J</tt> is left, <tt>$mod+K</tt>
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94 is down, <tt>$mod+L</tt> is up and <tt>$mod+;</tt> is right. So, to switch between the
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95 terminals, use <tt>$mod+K</tt> or <tt>$mod+L</tt>. Of course, you can also use the arrow keys.</p></div>
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96 <div class="paragraph"><p>At the moment, your workspace is split (it contains two terminals) in a
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97 specific direction (horizontal by default). Every window can be split
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98 horizontally or vertically again, just like the workspace. The terminology is
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99 "window" for a container that actually contains an X11 window (like a terminal
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100 or browser) and "split container" for containers that consist of one or more
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102 <div class="paragraph"><p>TODO: picture of the tree</p></div>
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103 <div class="paragraph"><p>To split a window vertically, press <tt>$mod+v</tt> before you create the new window.
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104 To split it horizontally, press <tt>$mod+h</tt>.</p></div>
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106 <div class="sect2">
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107 <h3 id="_changing_the_container_layout">2.2. Changing the container layout</h3>
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108 <div class="paragraph"><p>A split container can have one of the following layouts:</p></div>
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109 <div class="dlist"><dl>
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110 <dt class="hdlist1">
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115 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
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116 container. splith distributes the windows horizontally (windows are right next
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117 to each other), splitv distributes them vertically (windows are on top of each
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121 <dt class="hdlist1">
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126 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
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127 windows at the top of the container.
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130 <dt class="hdlist1">
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135 The same principle as <tt>stacking</tt>, but the list of windows at the top is only
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136 a single line which is vertically split.
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140 <div class="paragraph"><p>To switch modes, press <tt>$mod+e</tt> for splith/splitv (it toggles), <tt>$mod+s</tt> for
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141 stacking and <tt>$mod+w</tt> for tabbed.</p></div>
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142 <div class="paragraph"><p><span class="image">
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143 <img src="modes.png" alt="Container modes" />
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146 <div class="sect2">
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147 <h3 id="_toggling_fullscreen_mode_for_a_window">2.3. Toggling fullscreen mode for a window</h3>
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148 <div class="paragraph"><p>To display a window in fullscreen mode or to go out of fullscreen mode again,
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149 press <tt>$mod+f</tt>.</p></div>
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150 <div class="paragraph"><p>There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will span all
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151 available outputs (the command is <tt>fullscreen global</tt>).</p></div>
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153 <div class="sect2">
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154 <h3 id="_opening_other_applications">2.4. Opening other applications</h3>
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155 <div class="paragraph"><p>Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
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156 <tt>dmenu</tt> which is opened by pressing <tt>$mod+d</tt> by default. Just type the name
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157 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The corresponding
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158 application has to be in your <tt>$PATH</tt> for this to work.</p></div>
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159 <div class="paragraph"><p>Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
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160 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
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161 <a href="#configuring">[configuring]</a> for details.</p></div>
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163 <div class="sect2">
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164 <h3 id="_closing_windows">2.5. Closing windows</h3>
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165 <div class="paragraph"><p>If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
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166 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like <tt>Control+W</tt> to close), you
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167 can press <tt>$mod+Shift+q</tt> to kill a window. For applications which support
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168 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
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169 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
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170 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
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171 depends on the application.</p></div>
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173 <div class="sect2">
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174 <h3 id="_using_workspaces">2.6. Using workspaces</h3>
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175 <div class="paragraph"><p>Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
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176 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
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177 another workspace, press <tt>$mod+num</tt> where <tt>num</tt> is the number of the workspace
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178 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.</p></div>
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179 <div class="paragraph"><p>A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
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180 applications (<tt>mutt</tt>, <tt>irssi</tt>, …) on another one, and the ones with which you
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181 work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.</p></div>
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182 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
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183 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
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184 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
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185 focus to that screen.</p></div>
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187 <div class="sect2">
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188 <h3 id="_moving_windows_to_workspaces">2.7. Moving windows to workspaces</h3>
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189 <div class="paragraph"><p>To move a window to another workspace, simply press <tt>$mod+Shift+num</tt> where
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190 <tt>num</tt> is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
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191 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
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192 it does not yet exist.</p></div>
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194 <div class="sect2">
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195 <h3 id="_resizing">2.8. Resizing</h3>
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196 <div class="paragraph"><p>The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
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197 and move it to the wanted size.</p></div>
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198 <div class="paragraph"><p>See <a href="#resizingconfig">[resizingconfig]</a> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
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199 columns/rows with your keyboard.</p></div>
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201 <div class="sect2">
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202 <h3 id="_restarting_i3_inplace">2.9. Restarting i3 inplace</h3>
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203 <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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204 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use <tt>$mod+Shift+r</tt>.</p></div>
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206 <div class="sect2">
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207 <h3 id="_exiting_i3">2.10. Exiting i3</h3>
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208 <div class="paragraph"><p>To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use <tt>$mod+Shift+e</tt>.</p></div>
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210 <div class="sect2">
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211 <h3 id="_floating">2.11. Floating</h3>
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212 <div class="paragraph"><p>Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of
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213 a window are not managed automatically by i3, but manually by
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214 you. Using this mode violates the tiling paradigm but can be useful
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215 for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog windows, or toolbar
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216 windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the appropriate
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217 hint and are opened in floating mode by default.</p></div>
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218 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing <tt>$mod+Shift+Space</tt>. By
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219 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
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220 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
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221 can also do that by using the <a href="#floating_modifier">[floating_modifier]</a>. Another way to resize
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222 floating windows using the mouse is to right-click on the titlebar and drag.</p></div>
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223 <div class="paragraph"><p>For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see <a href="#resizingconfig">[resizingconfig]</a>.</p></div>
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224 <div class="paragraph"><p>Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.</p></div>
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228 <div class="sect1">
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229 <h2 id="_tree">3. Tree</h2>
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230 <div class="sectionbody">
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231 <div class="paragraph"><p>i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
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232 windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
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233 the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
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234 finally the windows themselves. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
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235 (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
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236 out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.</p></div>
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237 <div class="sect2">
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238 <h3 id="_the_tree_consists_of_containers">3.1. The tree consists of Containers</h3>
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239 <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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240 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
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241 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more <tt>Containers</tt>. A
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242 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
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243 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
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244 like this:</p></div>
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245 <div class="imageblock" style="float:right;">
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246 <div class="content">
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247 <img src="tree-layout2.png" alt="layout2" />
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250 <div class="imageblock">
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251 <div class="content">
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252 <img src="tree-shot4.png" alt="shot4" />
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254 <div class="title">Figure 1. Two terminals on standard workspace</div>
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257 <div class="sect2">
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258 <h3 id="_orientation_and_split_containers">3.2. Orientation and Split Containers</h3>
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259 <div class="paragraph" id="OrientationSplit"><p>It is only natural to use so-called <tt>Split Containers</tt> in order to build a
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260 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every <tt>Container</tt> has an
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261 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified) and the orientation depends
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262 on the layout the container is in (vertical for splitv and stacking, horizontal
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263 for splith and tabbed). So, in our example with the workspace, the default
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264 layout of the workspace <tt>Container</tt> is splith (most monitors are widescreen
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265 nowadays). If you change the layout to splitv (<tt>$mod+v</tt> in the default config)
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266 and <strong>then</strong> open two terminals, i3 will configure your windows like this:</p></div>
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267 <div class="imageblock">
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268 <div class="content">
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269 <img src="tree-shot2.png" alt="shot2" />
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271 <div class="title">Figure 2. Vertical Workspace Orientation</div>
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273 <div class="paragraph"><p>An interesting new feature of i3 since version 4 is the ability to split anything:
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274 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with splith layout, that is
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275 horizontal orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open
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276 another terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new
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277 terminal window, it would show up to the right due to the splith layout.
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278 Instead, press <tt>$mod+v</tt> to split the container with the splitv layout (to
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279 open a <tt>Horizontal Split Container</tt>, use <tt>$mod+h</tt>). Now you can open a new
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280 terminal and it will open below the current one:</p></div>
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281 <div class="imageblock" style="float:right;">
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282 <div class="content">
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283 <img src="tree-layout1.png" alt="Layout" />
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286 <div class="imageblock">
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287 <div class="content">
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288 <img src="tree-shot1.png" alt="shot" />
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290 <div class="title">Figure 3. Vertical Split Container</div>
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292 <div style="clear:both;"></div>
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293 <div class="paragraph"><p>You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
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294 of splits can be.</p></div>
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296 <div class="sect2">
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297 <h3 id="_focus_parent">3.3. Focus parent</h3>
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298 <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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299 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
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300 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.</p></div>
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301 <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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302 The solution is to use <tt>focus parent</tt>, which will focus the <tt>Parent Container</tt> of
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303 the current <tt>Container</tt>. In this case, you would focus the <tt>Vertical Split
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304 Container</tt> which is <strong>inside</strong> the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
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305 windows will be opened to the right of the <tt>Vertical Split Container</tt>:</p></div>
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306 <div class="imageblock">
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307 <div class="content">
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308 <img src="tree-shot3.png" alt="shot3" />
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310 <div class="title">Figure 4. Focus parent, then open new terminal</div>
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313 <div class="sect2">
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314 <h3 id="_implicit_containers">3.4. Implicit containers</h3>
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315 <div class="paragraph"><p>In some cases, i3 needs to implicitly create a container to fulfill your
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317 <div class="paragraph"><p>One example is the following scenario: You start i3 with a single monitor and a
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318 single workspace on which you open three terminal windows. All these terminal
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319 windows are directly attached to one node inside i3’s layout tree, the
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320 workspace node. By default, the workspace node’s orientation is <tt>horizontal</tt>.</p></div>
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321 <div class="paragraph"><p>Now you move one of these terminals down (<tt>$mod+Shift+k</tt> by default). The
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322 workspace node’s orientation will be changed to <tt>vertical</tt>. The terminal window
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323 you moved down is directly attached to the workspace and appears on the bottom
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324 of the screen. A new (horizontal) container was created to accommodate the
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325 other two terminal windows. You will notice this when switching to tabbed mode
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326 (for example). You would end up having one tab called "another container" and
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327 the other one being the terminal window you moved down.</p></div>
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331 <div class="sect1">
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332 <h2 id="configuring">4. Configuring i3</h2>
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333 <div class="sectionbody">
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334 <div class="paragraph"><p>This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependent on your
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335 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.</p></div>
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336 <div class="paragraph"><p>While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
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337 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
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339 <div class="paragraph"><p>For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
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340 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
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341 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
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342 can bind your keys to do useful things.</p></div>
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343 <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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344 (or <tt>~/.config/i3/config</tt> if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
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345 with a text editor.</p></div>
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346 <div class="paragraph"><p>On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
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347 file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
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348 wizard to use either Alt (Mod1) or Windows (Mod4) as modifier in the config
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349 file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
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350 keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command <tt>i3-config-wizard</tt>.
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351 Please note that you must not have <tt>~/.i3/config</tt>, otherwise the wizard will
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353 <div class="sect2">
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354 <h3 id="_comments">4.1. Comments</h3>
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355 <div class="paragraph"><p>It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
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356 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
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357 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:</p></div>
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358 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
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359 <div class="listingblock">
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360 <div class="content">
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361 <pre><tt># This is a comment</tt></pre>
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364 <div class="sect2">
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365 <h3 id="fonts">4.2. Fonts</h3>
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366 <div class="paragraph"><p>i3 has support for both X core fonts and FreeType fonts (through Pango) to
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367 render window titles.</p></div>
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368 <div class="paragraph"><p>To generate an X core font description, you can use <tt>xfontsel(1)</tt>. To see
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369 special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the
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370 ISO-10646 encoding.</p></div>
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371 <div class="paragraph"><p>A FreeType font description is composed by a font family, a style, a weight,
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372 a variant, a stretch and a size.
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373 FreeType fonts support right-to-left rendering and contain often more
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374 Unicode glyphs than X core fonts.</p></div>
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375 <div class="paragraph"><p>If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
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376 and fall back to a working font.</p></div>
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377 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
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378 <div class="listingblock">
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379 <div class="content">
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380 <pre><tt>font <X core font description>
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381 font pango:[family list] [style options] [size]</tt></pre>
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383 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
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384 <div class="listingblock">
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385 <div class="content">
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386 <pre><tt>font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
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387 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
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388 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono, Terminus Bold Semi-Condensed 11
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389 font pango:Terminus 11px</tt></pre>
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392 <div class="sect2">
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393 <h3 id="keybindings">4.3. Keyboard bindings</h3>
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394 <div class="paragraph"><p>A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
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395 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
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396 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).</p></div>
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397 <div class="ulist"><ul>
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400 A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
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401 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
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402 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
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403 mapping of your keys, use <tt>xmodmap -pke</tt>. To interactively enter a key and
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404 see what keysym it is configured to, use <tt>xev</tt>.
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409 Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
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410 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
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411 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using <tt>xmodmap</tt>).
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415 <div class="paragraph"><p>My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
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416 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
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417 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
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419 <div class="paragraph"><p>Some tools (such as <tt>import</tt> or <tt>xdotool</tt>) might be unable to run upon a
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420 KeyPress event, because the keyboard/pointer is still grabbed. For these
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421 situations, the <tt>--release</tt> flag can be used, which will execute the command
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422 after the keys have been released.</p></div>
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423 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
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424 <div class="listingblock">
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425 <div class="content">
\r
426 <pre><tt>bindsym [--release] [Modifiers+]keysym command
\r
427 bindcode [--release] [Modifiers+]keycode command</tt></pre>
\r
429 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
430 <div class="listingblock">
\r
431 <div class="content">
\r
432 <pre><tt># Fullscreen
\r
433 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen
\r
436 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
\r
438 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
\r
439 bindcode 214 exec --no-startup-id /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
\r
441 # Simulate ctrl+v upon pressing $mod+x
\r
442 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v
\r
444 # Take a screenshot upon pressing $mod+x (select an area)
\r
445 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id import /tmp/latest-screenshot.png</tt></pre>
\r
447 <div class="paragraph"><p>Available Modifiers:</p></div>
\r
448 <div class="dlist"><dl>
\r
449 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
450 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control
\r
454 Standard modifiers, see <tt>xmodmap(1)</tt>
\r
457 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
462 Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
\r
463 you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
\r
464 umlauts or special characters <em>and</em> having some comfortably reachable key
\r
465 bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
\r
466 workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).
\r
471 <div class="sect2">
\r
472 <h3 id="floating_modifier">4.4. The floating modifier</h3>
\r
473 <div class="paragraph"><p>To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
\r
474 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
\r
475 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
\r
476 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
\r
477 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
\r
478 it to the position you want.</p></div>
\r
479 <div class="paragraph"><p>When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
\r
480 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
\r
481 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
\r
482 ratio will be preserved).</p></div>
\r
483 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
484 <div class="listingblock">
\r
485 <div class="content">
\r
486 <pre><tt>floating_modifier <Modifiers></tt></pre>
\r
488 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
489 <div class="listingblock">
\r
490 <div class="content">
\r
491 <pre><tt>floating_modifier Mod1</tt></pre>
\r
494 <div class="sect2">
\r
495 <h3 id="_constraining_floating_window_size">4.5. Constraining floating window size</h3>
\r
496 <div class="paragraph"><p>The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
\r
497 either dimension of <tt>floating_maximum_size</tt> is specified as -1, that dimension
\r
498 will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
\r
499 <tt>floating_maximum_size</tt> is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
\r
500 value to constrain the maximum size. <tt>floating_minimum_size</tt> is treated in a
\r
501 manner analogous to <tt>floating_maximum_size</tt>.</p></div>
\r
502 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
503 <div class="listingblock">
\r
504 <div class="content">
\r
505 <pre><tt>floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
\r
506 floating_maximum_size <width> x <height></tt></pre>
\r
508 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
509 <div class="listingblock">
\r
510 <div class="content">
\r
511 <pre><tt>floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
\r
512 floating_maximum_size -1 x -1</tt></pre>
\r
515 <div class="sect2">
\r
516 <h3 id="_orientation_for_new_workspaces">4.6. Orientation for new workspaces</h3>
\r
517 <div class="paragraph"><p>New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
\r
518 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
\r
519 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.</p></div>
\r
520 <div class="paragraph"><p>With the <tt>default_orientation</tt> configuration directive, you can override that
\r
521 behavior.</p></div>
\r
522 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
523 <div class="listingblock">
\r
524 <div class="content">
\r
525 <pre><tt>default_orientation <horizontal|vertical|auto></tt></pre>
\r
527 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
528 <div class="listingblock">
\r
529 <div class="content">
\r
530 <pre><tt>default_orientation vertical</tt></pre>
\r
533 <div class="sect2">
\r
534 <h3 id="_layout_mode_for_new_containers">4.7. Layout mode for new containers</h3>
\r
535 <div class="paragraph"><p>This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
\r
537 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
538 <div class="listingblock">
\r
539 <div class="content">
\r
540 <pre><tt>workspace_layout <default|stacking|tabbed></tt></pre>
\r
542 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
543 <div class="listingblock">
\r
544 <div class="content">
\r
545 <pre><tt>workspace_layout tabbed</tt></pre>
\r
548 <div class="sect2">
\r
549 <h3 id="_border_style_for_new_windows">4.8. Border style for new windows</h3>
\r
550 <div class="paragraph"><p>This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
\r
551 "normal". Note that new_float applies only to windows which are starting out as
\r
552 floating windows, e.g. dialog windows.</p></div>
\r
553 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
554 <div class="listingblock">
\r
555 <div class="content">
\r
556 <pre><tt>new_window <normal|1pixel|none|pixel>
\r
557 new_float <normal|1pixel|none|pixel></tt></pre>
\r
559 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
560 <div class="listingblock">
\r
561 <div class="content">
\r
562 <pre><tt>new_window 1pixel</tt></pre>
\r
564 <div class="paragraph"><p>The "normal" and "pixel" border styles support an optional border width in
\r
566 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
567 <div class="listingblock">
\r
568 <div class="content">
\r
569 <pre><tt># The same as new_window none
\r
573 new_window pixel 3</tt></pre>
\r
576 <div class="sect2">
\r
577 <h3 id="_hiding_vertical_borders">4.9. Hiding vertical borders</h3>
\r
578 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can hide vertical borders adjacent to the screen edges using
\r
579 <tt>hide_edge_borders</tt>. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
\r
580 to waste even two pixels in displayspace. Default is none.</p></div>
\r
581 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
582 <div class="listingblock">
\r
583 <div class="content">
\r
584 <pre><tt>hide_edge_borders <none|vertical|horizontal|both></tt></pre>
\r
586 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
587 <div class="listingblock">
\r
588 <div class="content">
\r
589 <pre><tt>hide_edge_borders vertical</tt></pre>
\r
592 <div class="sect2">
\r
593 <h3 id="_arbitrary_commands_for_specific_windows_for_window">4.10. Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)</h3>
\r
594 <div class="paragraph"><p>With the <tt>for_window</tt> command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
\r
595 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
\r
596 change their border style, for example.</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>for_window <criteria> command</tt></pre>
\r
602 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
603 <div class="listingblock">
\r
604 <div class="content">
\r
605 <pre><tt># enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
\r
606 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
\r
608 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
\r
609 for_window [class="urxvt"] border 1pixel
\r
611 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
\r
612 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
\r
613 # directory to ~/work
\r
614 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable</tt></pre>
\r
616 <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
618 <div class="sect2">
\r
619 <h3 id="_variables">4.11. Variables</h3>
\r
620 <div class="paragraph"><p>As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
\r
621 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
\r
622 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
\r
623 variables can be handy.</p></div>
\r
624 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
625 <div class="listingblock">
\r
626 <div class="content">
\r
627 <pre><tt>set $name value</tt></pre>
\r
629 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
630 <div class="listingblock">
\r
631 <div class="content">
\r
632 <pre><tt>set $m Mod1
\r
633 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart</tt></pre>
\r
635 <div class="paragraph"><p>Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. Variables expansion
\r
636 is not recursive so it is not possible to define a variable with a value
\r
637 containing another variable. There is no fancy handling and there are
\r
638 absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more dynamic configuration
\r
639 you should create a little script which generates a configuration file and run
\r
640 it before starting i3 (for example in your <tt>~/.xsession</tt> file).</p></div>
\r
642 <div class="sect2">
\r
643 <h3 id="_automatically_putting_clients_on_specific_workspaces">4.12. Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces</h3>
\r
644 <div class="paragraph" id="assign_workspace"><p>To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
\r
645 can use an <strong>assignment</strong>. You can match windows by using any criteria,
\r
646 see <a href="#command_criteria">[command_criteria]</a>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
\r
647 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
\r
648 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
\r
649 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
\r
650 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
\r
651 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
\r
652 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
\r
653 to match on <em>Firefox</em> in this case.</p></div>
\r
654 <div class="paragraph"><p>Assignments are processed by i3 in the order in which they appear in the config
\r
655 file. The first one which matches the window wins and later assignments are not
\r
656 considered.</p></div>
\r
657 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
658 <div class="listingblock">
\r
659 <div class="content">
\r
660 <pre><tt>assign <criteria> [→] workspace</tt></pre>
\r
662 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
663 <div class="listingblock">
\r
664 <div class="content">
\r
665 <pre><tt># Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
\r
666 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
\r
668 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
\r
669 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
\r
671 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
\r
672 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
\r
674 # Assignment to a named workspace
\r
675 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
\r
677 # Start urxvt -name irssi
\r
678 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3</tt></pre>
\r
680 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
\r
681 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not <tt>-></tt> or something like that.</p></div>
\r
682 <div class="paragraph"><p>To get the class and instance, you can use <tt>xprop</tt>. After clicking on the
\r
683 window, you will see the following output:</p></div>
\r
684 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>xprop</strong>:</p></div>
\r
685 <div class="listingblock">
\r
686 <div class="content">
\r
687 <pre><tt>WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"</tt></pre>
\r
689 <div class="paragraph"><p>The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
\r
690 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).</p></div>
\r
691 <div class="paragraph"><p>Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
\r
692 logfile first (see <a href="http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html">http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html</a>). It includes more
\r
693 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
\r
694 title when starting up.</p></div>
\r
695 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that if you want to start an application just once on a specific
\r
696 workspace, but you don’t want to assign all instances of it permanently, you
\r
697 can make use of i3’s startup-notification support (see <a href="#exec">[exec]</a>) in your config
\r
698 file in the following way:</p></div>
\r
699 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Start iceweasel on workspace 3 (once)</strong>:</p></div>
\r
700 <div class="listingblock">
\r
701 <div class="content">
\r
702 <pre><tt># Start iceweasel on workspace 3, then switch back to workspace 1
\r
703 # (Being a command-line utility, i3-msg does not support startup notifications,
\r
704 # hence the exec --no-startup-id.)
\r
705 # (Starting iceweasel with i3’s exec command is important in order to make i3
\r
706 # create a startup notification context, without which the iceweasel window(s)
\r
707 # cannot be matched onto the workspace on which the command was started.)
\r
708 exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 3; exec iceweasel; workspace 1'</tt></pre>
\r
711 <div class="sect2">
\r
712 <h3 id="_automatically_starting_applications_on_i3_startup">4.13. Automatically starting applications on i3 startup</h3>
\r
713 <div class="paragraph"><p>By using the <tt>exec</tt> keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
\r
714 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. <tt>exec</tt>
\r
715 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
\r
716 also when restarting i3 you should use the <tt>exec_always</tt>
\r
717 keyword. These commands will be run in order.</p></div>
\r
718 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
719 <div class="listingblock">
\r
720 <div class="content">
\r
721 <pre><tt>exec [--no-startup-id] command
\r
722 exec_always [--no-startup-id] command</tt></pre>
\r
724 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
725 <div class="listingblock">
\r
726 <div class="content">
\r
727 <pre><tt>exec chromium
\r
728 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
\r
730 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
\r
731 exec --no-startup-id urxvt</tt></pre>
\r
733 <div class="paragraph"><p>The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <a href="#exec">[exec]</a>.</p></div>
\r
735 <div class="sect2">
\r
736 <h3 id="workspace_screen">4.14. Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens</h3>
\r
737 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
\r
738 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
\r
739 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
\r
740 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
\r
741 the second screen and so on).</p></div>
\r
742 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
743 <div class="listingblock">
\r
744 <div class="content">
\r
745 <pre><tt>workspace <workspace> output <output></tt></pre>
\r
747 <div class="paragraph"><p>The <em>output</em> is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
\r
748 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
\r
749 available outputs by running <tt>xrandr --current</tt>.</p></div>
\r
750 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:</p></div>
\r
751 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
752 <div class="listingblock">
\r
753 <div class="content">
\r
754 <pre><tt>workspace 1 output LVDS1
\r
755 workspace 5 output VGA1
\r
756 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1</tt></pre>
\r
759 <div class="sect2">
\r
760 <h3 id="_changing_colors">4.15. Changing colors</h3>
\r
761 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.</p></div>
\r
762 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
763 <div class="listingblock">
\r
764 <div class="content">
\r
765 <pre><tt>colorclass border background text indicator</tt></pre>
\r
767 <div class="paragraph"><p>Where colorclass can be one of:</p></div>
\r
768 <div class="dlist"><dl>
\r
769 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
774 A client which currently has the focus.
\r
777 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
778 client.focused_inactive
\r
782 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
\r
783 the focus at the moment.
\r
786 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
791 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
\r
794 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
799 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
\r
802 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
807 Background and text color are used to draw placeholder window contents
\r
808 (when restoring layouts). Border and indicator are ignored.
\r
812 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can also specify the color to be used to paint the background of the client
\r
813 windows. This color will be used to paint the window on top of which the client
\r
814 will be rendered.</p></div>
\r
815 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
816 <div class="listingblock">
\r
817 <div class="content">
\r
818 <pre><tt>client.background color</tt></pre>
\r
820 <div class="paragraph"><p>Only clients that do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color
\r
821 used to paint it.</p></div>
\r
822 <div class="paragraph"><p>Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:</p></div>
\r
823 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples (default colors)</strong>:</p></div>
\r
824 <div class="listingblock">
\r
825 <div class="content">
\r
826 <pre><tt># class border backgr. text indicator
\r
827 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff #2e9ef4
\r
828 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff #484e50
\r
829 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888 #292d2e
\r
830 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff #900000
\r
831 client.placeholder #000000 #0c0c0c #ffffff #000000</tt></pre>
\r
833 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
\r
834 background color, and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
\r
835 the window.</p></div>
\r
836 <div class="paragraph"><p>The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
\r
837 For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
\r
838 color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
\r
839 single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
\r
840 from single windows outside of a split container.</p></div>
\r
842 <div class="sect2">
\r
843 <h3 id="_interprocess_communication">4.16. Interprocess communication</h3>
\r
844 <div class="paragraph"><p>i3 uses Unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
\r
845 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
\r
846 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.</p></div>
\r
847 <div class="paragraph"><p>The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
\r
848 <tt>/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p</tt> where <tt>%u</tt> is your UNIX username, <tt>%p</tt> is
\r
849 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
\r
850 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).</p></div>
\r
851 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can override the default path through the environment-variable <tt>I3SOCK</tt> or
\r
852 by specifying the <tt>ipc-socket</tt> directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
\r
853 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
\r
854 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
\r
855 user can create that directory.</p></div>
\r
856 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
857 <div class="listingblock">
\r
858 <div class="content">
\r
859 <pre><tt>ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock</tt></pre>
\r
861 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can then use the <tt>i3-msg</tt> application to perform any command listed in
\r
862 the next section.</p></div>
\r
864 <div class="sect2">
\r
865 <h3 id="_focus_follows_mouse">4.17. Focus follows mouse</h3>
\r
866 <div class="paragraph"><p>By default, window focus follows your mouse movements. However, if you have a
\r
867 setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad on your laptop
\r
868 which you do not want to disable completely), you might want to disable <em>focus
\r
869 follows mouse</em> and control focus only by using your keyboard. The mouse will
\r
870 still be useful inside the currently active window (for example to click on
\r
871 links in your browser window).</p></div>
\r
872 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
873 <div class="listingblock">
\r
874 <div class="content">
\r
875 <pre><tt>focus_follows_mouse <yes|no></tt></pre>
\r
877 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
878 <div class="listingblock">
\r
879 <div class="content">
\r
880 <pre><tt>focus_follows_mouse no</tt></pre>
\r
883 <div class="sect2">
\r
884 <h3 id="_mouse_warping">4.18. Mouse warping</h3>
\r
885 <div class="paragraph"><p>By default, when switching focus to a window on a different output (e.g.
\r
886 focusing a window on workspace 3 on output VGA-1, coming from workspace 2 on
\r
887 LVDS-1), the mouse cursor is warped to the center of that window.</p></div>
\r
888 <div class="paragraph"><p>With the <tt>mouse_warping</tt> option, you can control when the mouse cursor should
\r
889 be warped. <tt>none</tt> disables warping entirely, whereas <tt>output</tt> is the default
\r
890 behavior described above.</p></div>
\r
891 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
892 <div class="listingblock">
\r
893 <div class="content">
\r
894 <pre><tt>mouse_warping <output|none></tt></pre>
\r
896 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
897 <div class="listingblock">
\r
898 <div class="content">
\r
899 <pre><tt>mouse_warping none</tt></pre>
\r
902 <div class="sect2">
\r
903 <h3 id="_popups_during_fullscreen_mode">4.19. Popups during fullscreen mode</h3>
\r
904 <div class="paragraph"><p>When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
\r
905 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
\r
906 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
\r
907 There are three things which are possible to do in this situation:</p></div>
\r
908 <div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
\r
911 Display the popup if it belongs to the fullscreen application only. This is
\r
912 the default and should be reasonable behavior for most users.
\r
917 Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
\r
918 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
\r
919 you go out of fullscreen).
\r
924 Leave fullscreen mode.
\r
928 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
929 <div class="listingblock">
\r
930 <div class="content">
\r
931 <pre><tt>popup_during_fullscreen <smart|ignore|leave_fullscreen></tt></pre>
\r
933 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
934 <div class="listingblock">
\r
935 <div class="content">
\r
936 <pre><tt>popup_during_fullscreen smart</tt></pre>
\r
939 <div class="sect2">
\r
940 <h3 id="_focus_wrapping">4.20. Focus wrapping</h3>
\r
941 <div class="paragraph"><p>When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
\r
942 focused when you use <tt>focus down</tt> on the last container — the focus wraps. If
\r
943 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
\r
944 be set on that container. This is the default behavior so you can navigate to
\r
945 all your windows without having to use <tt>focus parent</tt>.</p></div>
\r
946 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you want the focus to <strong>always</strong> wrap and you are aware of using <tt>focus
\r
947 parent</tt> to switch to different containers, you can use the
\r
948 <tt>force_focus_wrapping</tt> configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
\r
949 will always wrap.</p></div>
\r
950 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
951 <div class="listingblock">
\r
952 <div class="content">
\r
953 <pre><tt>force_focus_wrapping <yes|no></tt></pre>
\r
955 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
956 <div class="listingblock">
\r
957 <div class="content">
\r
958 <pre><tt>force_focus_wrapping yes</tt></pre>
\r
961 <div class="sect2">
\r
962 <h3 id="_forcing_xinerama">4.21. Forcing Xinerama</h3>
\r
963 <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
964 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
\r
965 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
\r
966 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
\r
967 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
\r
968 that’s it).</p></div>
\r
969 <div class="paragraph"><p>For people who cannot modify their <tt>~/.xsession</tt> to add the
\r
970 <tt>--force-xinerama</tt> commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:</p></div>
\r
971 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
972 <div class="listingblock">
\r
973 <div class="content">
\r
974 <pre><tt>force_xinerama <yes|no></tt></pre>
\r
976 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
977 <div class="listingblock">
\r
978 <div class="content">
\r
979 <pre><tt>force_xinerama yes</tt></pre>
\r
981 <div class="paragraph"><p>Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like <tt>HDMI1</tt>) when using
\r
982 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: <tt>xinerama-0</tt>, <tt>xinerama-1</tt>, …</p></div>
\r
984 <div class="sect2">
\r
985 <h3 id="_automatic_back_and_forth_when_switching_to_the_current_workspace">4.22. Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace</h3>
\r
986 <div class="paragraph"><p>This configuration directive enables automatic <tt>workspace back_and_forth</tt> (see
\r
987 <a href="#back_and_forth">[back_and_forth]</a>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.</p></div>
\r
988 <div class="paragraph"><p>For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
\r
989 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
\r
990 came from now, you can just press $mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".</p></div>
\r
991 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
992 <div class="listingblock">
\r
993 <div class="content">
\r
994 <pre><tt>workspace_auto_back_and_forth <yes|no></tt></pre>
\r
996 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
997 <div class="listingblock">
\r
998 <div class="content">
\r
999 <pre><tt>workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes</tt></pre>
\r
1002 <div class="sect2">
\r
1003 <h3 id="_delaying_urgency_hint_reset_on_workspace_change">4.23. Delaying urgency hint reset on workspace change</h3>
\r
1004 <div class="paragraph"><p>If an application on another workspace sets an urgency hint, switching to this
\r
1005 workspace may lead to immediate focus of the application, which also means the
\r
1006 window decoration color would be immediately reset to <tt>client.focused</tt>. This
\r
1007 may make it unnecessarily hard to tell which window originally raised the
\r
1009 <div class="paragraph"><p>In order to prevent this, you can tell i3 to delay resetting the urgency state
\r
1010 by a certain time using the <tt>force_display_urgency_hint</tt> directive. Setting the
\r
1011 value to 0 disables this feature.</p></div>
\r
1012 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default is 500ms.</p></div>
\r
1013 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1014 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1015 <div class="content">
\r
1016 <pre><tt>force_display_urgency_hint <timeout> ms</tt></pre>
\r
1018 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1019 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1020 <div class="content">
\r
1021 <pre><tt>force_display_urgency_hint 500 ms</tt></pre>
\r
1026 <div class="sect1">
\r
1027 <h2 id="_configuring_i3bar">5. Configuring i3bar</h2>
\r
1028 <div class="sectionbody">
\r
1029 <div class="paragraph"><p>The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
\r
1030 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
\r
1031 several advantages:</p></div>
\r
1032 <div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
\r
1035 It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
\r
1036 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
\r
1037 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
\r
1042 It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
\r
1043 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
\r
1044 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
\r
1049 It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
\r
1050 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
\r
1054 <div class="paragraph"><p>That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
\r
1055 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
\r
1056 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
\r
1057 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
\r
1058 configuration infrastructure in place.</p></div>
\r
1059 <div class="paragraph"><p>Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a <tt>bar</tt> block. You can have
\r
1060 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):</p></div>
\r
1061 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1062 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1063 <div class="content">
\r
1065 status_command i3status
\r
1068 <div class="sect2">
\r
1069 <h3 id="_i3bar_command">5.1. i3bar command</h3>
\r
1070 <div class="paragraph"><p>By default i3 will just pass <tt>i3bar</tt> and let your shell handle the execution,
\r
1071 searching your <tt>$PATH</tt> for a correct version.
\r
1072 If you have a different <tt>i3bar</tt> somewhere or the binary is not in your <tt>$PATH</tt> you can
\r
1073 tell i3 what to execute.</p></div>
\r
1074 <div class="paragraph"><p>The specified command will be passed to <tt>sh -c</tt>, so you can use globbing and
\r
1075 have to have correct quoting etc.</p></div>
\r
1076 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1077 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1078 <div class="content">
\r
1079 <pre><tt>i3bar_command command</tt></pre>
\r
1081 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1082 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1083 <div class="content">
\r
1085 i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
\r
1089 <div class="sect2">
\r
1090 <h3 id="status_command">5.2. Statusline command</h3>
\r
1091 <div class="paragraph"><p>i3bar can run a program and display every line of its <tt>stdout</tt> output on the
\r
1092 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
\r
1093 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.</p></div>
\r
1094 <div class="paragraph"><p>The specified command will be passed to <tt>sh -c</tt>, so you can use globbing and
\r
1095 have to have correct quoting etc.</p></div>
\r
1096 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1097 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1098 <div class="content">
\r
1099 <pre><tt>status_command command</tt></pre>
\r
1101 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1102 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1103 <div class="content">
\r
1105 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
\r
1109 <div class="sect2">
\r
1110 <h3 id="_display_mode">5.3. Display mode</h3>
\r
1111 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can either have i3bar be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
\r
1112 (<tt>dock</tt> mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (<tt>hide</tt> mode).
\r
1113 It is also possible to force i3bar to always stay hidden (<tt>invisible</tt>
\r
1114 mode). The modifier key can be configured using the <tt>modifier</tt> option.</p></div>
\r
1115 <div class="paragraph"><p>The mode option can be changed during runtime through the <tt>bar mode</tt> command.
\r
1116 On reload the mode will be reverted to its configured value.</p></div>
\r
1117 <div class="paragraph"><p>The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
\r
1118 i3bar sends the <tt>SIGSTOP</tt> and <tt>SIGCONT</tt> signals to the statusline process to
\r
1119 save battery power.</p></div>
\r
1120 <div class="paragraph"><p>Invisible mode allows to permanently maximize screen space, as the bar is never
\r
1121 shown. Thus, you can configure i3bar to not disturb you by popping up because
\r
1122 of an urgency hint or because the modifier key is pressed.</p></div>
\r
1123 <div class="paragraph"><p>In order to control whether i3bar is hidden or shown in hide mode, there exists
\r
1124 the hidden_state option, which has no effect in dock mode or invisible mode. It
\r
1125 indicates the current hidden_state of the bar: (1) The bar acts like in normal
\r
1126 hide mode, it is hidden and is only unhidden in case of urgency hints or by
\r
1127 pressing the modifier key (<tt>hide</tt> state), or (2) it is drawn on top of the
\r
1128 currently visible workspace (<tt>show</tt> state).</p></div>
\r
1129 <div class="paragraph"><p>Like the mode, the hidden_state can also be controlled through i3, this can be
\r
1130 done by using the <tt>bar hidden_state</tt> command.</p></div>
\r
1131 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default mode is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
\r
1132 the windows key). The default value for the hidden_state is hide.</p></div>
\r
1133 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1134 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1135 <div class="content">
\r
1136 <pre><tt>mode <dock|hide|invisible>
\r
1137 hidden_state <hide|show>
\r
1138 modifier <Modifier></tt></pre>
\r
1140 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1141 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1142 <div class="content">
\r
1149 <div class="paragraph"><p>Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see <tt>xmodmap(1)</tt>).</p></div>
\r
1151 <div class="sect2">
\r
1152 <h3 id="_bar_id">5.4. Bar ID</h3>
\r
1153 <div class="paragraph"><p>Specifies the bar ID for the configured bar instance. If this option is missing,
\r
1154 the ID is set to <em>bar-x</em>, where x corresponds to the position of the embedding
\r
1155 bar block in the config file (<em>bar-0</em>, <em>bar-1</em>, …).</p></div>
\r
1156 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1157 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1158 <div class="content">
\r
1159 <pre><tt>id <bar_id></tt></pre>
\r
1161 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1162 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1163 <div class="content">
\r
1169 <div class="sect2">
\r
1170 <h3 id="i3bar_position">5.5. Position</h3>
\r
1171 <div class="paragraph"><p>This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.</p></div>
\r
1172 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default is bottom.</p></div>
\r
1173 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1174 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1175 <div class="content">
\r
1176 <pre><tt>position <top|bottom></tt></pre>
\r
1178 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1179 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1180 <div class="content">
\r
1186 <div class="sect2">
\r
1187 <h3 id="_output_s">5.6. Output(s)</h3>
\r
1188 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
\r
1189 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
\r
1190 options for different outputs by using multiple <em>bar</em> blocks.</p></div>
\r
1191 <div class="paragraph"><p>To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
\r
1192 directive multiple times.</p></div>
\r
1193 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1194 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1195 <div class="content">
\r
1196 <pre><tt>output <output></tt></pre>
\r
1198 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1199 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1200 <div class="content">
\r
1201 <pre><tt># big monitor: everything
\r
1203 # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
\r
1206 status_command i3status
\r
1209 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
\r
1212 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
\r
1214 background #000000
\r
1215 statusline #ffffff
\r
1220 <div class="sect2">
\r
1221 <h3 id="_tray_output">5.7. Tray output</h3>
\r
1222 <div class="paragraph"><p>i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
\r
1223 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.</p></div>
\r
1224 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
\r
1225 you can turn off the functionality entirely.</p></div>
\r
1226 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1227 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1228 <div class="content">
\r
1229 <pre><tt>tray_output <none|primary|output></tt></pre>
\r
1231 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1232 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1233 <div class="content">
\r
1234 <pre><tt># disable system tray
\r
1239 # show tray icons on the primary monitor
\r
1240 tray_output primary
\r
1242 # show tray icons on the big monitor
\r
1247 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:</p></div>
\r
1248 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1249 <div class="content">
\r
1250 <pre><tt>xrandr --output <output> --primary</tt></pre>
\r
1253 <div class="sect2">
\r
1254 <h3 id="_font">5.8. Font</h3>
\r
1255 <div class="paragraph"><p>Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <a href="#fonts">[fonts]</a>.</p></div>
\r
1256 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1257 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1258 <div class="content">
\r
1259 <pre><tt>font <font></tt></pre>
\r
1261 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1262 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1263 <div class="content">
\r
1265 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
\r
1266 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
\r
1270 <div class="sect2">
\r
1271 <h3 id="_workspace_buttons">5.9. Workspace buttons</h3>
\r
1272 <div class="paragraph"><p>Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
\r
1273 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.</p></div>
\r
1274 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default is to show workspace buttons.</p></div>
\r
1275 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1276 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1277 <div class="content">
\r
1278 <pre><tt>workspace_buttons <yes|no></tt></pre>
\r
1280 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1281 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1282 <div class="content">
\r
1284 workspace_buttons no
\r
1288 <div class="sect2">
\r
1289 <h3 id="_strip_workspace_numbers">5.10. Strip workspace numbers</h3>
\r
1290 <div class="paragraph"><p>Specifies whether workspace numbers should be displayed within the workspace
\r
1291 buttons. This is useful if you want to have a named workspace that stays in
\r
1292 order on the bar according to its number without displaying the number prefix.</p></div>
\r
1293 <div class="paragraph"><p>When <tt>strip_workspace_numbers</tt> is set to <tt>yes</tt>, any workspace that has a name of
\r
1294 the form "[n]:[NAME]" will display only the name. You could use this, for
\r
1295 instance, to display Roman numerals rather than digits by naming your
\r
1296 workspaces to "1:I", "2:II", "3:III", "4:IV", …</p></div>
\r
1297 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default is to display the full name within the workspace button.</p></div>
\r
1298 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1299 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1300 <div class="content">
\r
1301 <pre><tt>strip_workspace_numbers <yes|no></tt></pre>
\r
1303 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1304 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1305 <div class="content">
\r
1307 strip_workspace_numbers yes
\r
1311 <div class="sect2">
\r
1312 <h3 id="_binding_mode_indicator">5.11. Binding Mode indicator</h3>
\r
1313 <div class="paragraph"><p>Specifies whether the current binding mode indicator should be shown or not.
\r
1314 This is useful if you want to hide the workspace buttons but still be able
\r
1315 to see the current binding mode indicator.
\r
1316 For an example of a <tt>mode</tt> definition, see <a href="#resizingconfig">[resizingconfig]</a>.</p></div>
\r
1317 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default is to show the mode indicator.</p></div>
\r
1318 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1319 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1320 <div class="content">
\r
1321 <pre><tt>binding_mode_indicator <yes|no></tt></pre>
\r
1323 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1324 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1325 <div class="content">
\r
1327 binding_mode_indicator no
\r
1331 <div class="sect2">
\r
1332 <h3 id="_colors">5.12. Colors</h3>
\r
1333 <div class="paragraph"><p>As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
\r
1334 be configured at the moment:</p></div>
\r
1335 <div class="dlist"><dl>
\r
1336 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1341 Background color of the bar.
\r
1344 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1349 Text color to be used for the statusline.
\r
1352 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1357 Text color to be used for the separator.
\r
1360 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1365 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
\r
1369 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1374 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
\r
1375 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
\r
1376 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
\r
1377 using multiple monitors.
\r
1380 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1381 inactive_workspace
\r
1385 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
\r
1386 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
\r
1387 will be the case for most workspaces.
\r
1390 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1395 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
\r
1396 contains a window with the urgency hint set. Also applies to <tt>mode</tt> indicators.
\r
1400 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1401 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1402 <div class="content">
\r
1404 background <color>
\r
1405 statusline <color>
\r
1406 separator <color>
\r
1408 colorclass <border> <background> <text>
\r
1411 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example (default colors)</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1412 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1413 <div class="content">
\r
1416 background #000000
\r
1417 statusline #ffffff
\r
1420 focused_workspace #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
\r
1421 active_workspace #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
\r
1422 inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
\r
1423 urgent_workspace #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
\r
1430 <div class="sect1">
\r
1431 <h2 id="_list_of_commands">6. List of commands</h2>
\r
1432 <div class="sectionbody">
\r
1433 <div class="paragraph"><p>Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
\r
1434 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
\r
1435 do this is to use the <tt>i3-msg</tt> utility:</p></div>
\r
1436 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1437 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1438 <div class="content">
\r
1439 <pre><tt># execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
\r
1440 i3-msg border none</tt></pre>
\r
1442 <div class="paragraph"><p>Commands can be chained by using <tt>;</tt> (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
\r
1443 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
\r
1444 the following keybinding:</p></div>
\r
1445 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1446 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1447 <div class="content">
\r
1448 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3</tt></pre>
\r
1450 <div class="paragraph" id="command_criteria"><p>Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command - that is, which containers
\r
1451 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. The criteria
\r
1452 are specified before any command in a pair of square brackets and are separated
\r
1453 by space.</p></div>
\r
1454 <div class="paragraph"><p>When using multiple commands, separate them by using a <tt>,</tt> (a comma) instead of
\r
1455 a semicolon. Criteria apply only until the next semicolon, so if you use a
\r
1456 semicolon to separate commands, only the first one will be executed for the
\r
1457 matched window(s).</p></div>
\r
1458 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1459 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1460 <div class="content">
\r
1461 <pre><tt># if you want to kill all windows which have the class Firefox, use:
\r
1462 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
\r
1464 # same thing, but case-insensitive
\r
1465 bindsym $mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
\r
1467 # kill only the About dialog from Firefox
\r
1468 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox" window_role="About"] kill
\r
1470 # enable floating mode and move container to workspace 4
\r
1471 for_window [class="^evil-app$"] floating enable, move container to workspace 4</tt></pre>
\r
1473 <div class="paragraph"><p>The criteria which are currently implemented are:</p></div>
\r
1474 <div class="dlist"><dl>
\r
1475 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1480 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS)
\r
1483 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1488 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS)
\r
1491 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1496 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE).
\r
1499 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1504 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via <tt>xwininfo</tt> for example.
\r
1507 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1512 Compares the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
\r
1515 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1520 Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
\r
1521 Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
\r
1522 (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
\r
1525 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1530 Compares the mark set for this container, see <a href="#vim_like_marks">[vim_like_marks]</a>.
\r
1533 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1538 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
\r
1539 interface. Handy for scripting.
\r
1543 <div class="paragraph"><p>The criteria <tt>class</tt>, <tt>instance</tt>, <tt>role</tt>, <tt>title</tt> and <tt>mark</tt> are actually
\r
1544 regular expressions (PCRE). See <tt>pcresyntax(3)</tt> or <tt>perldoc perlre</tt> for
\r
1545 information on how to use them.</p></div>
\r
1546 <div class="sect2">
\r
1547 <h3 id="exec">6.1. Executing applications (exec)</h3>
\r
1548 <div class="paragraph"><p>What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
\r
1549 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
\r
1550 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
\r
1551 searched in your $PATH.</p></div>
\r
1552 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1553 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1554 <div class="content">
\r
1555 <pre><tt>exec [--no-startup-id] command</tt></pre>
\r
1557 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1558 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1559 <div class="content">
\r
1560 <pre><tt># Start the GIMP
\r
1561 bindsym $mod+g exec gimp
\r
1563 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
\r
1564 bindsym $mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt</tt></pre>
\r
1566 <div class="paragraph"><p>The <tt>--no-startup-id</tt> parameter disables startup-notification support for this
\r
1567 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
\r
1568 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
\r
1569 will change the X11 cursor to <tt>watch</tt> (a clock) while the application is
\r
1570 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
\r
1571 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
\r
1572 cursor for 60 seconds.</p></div>
\r
1574 <div class="sect2">
\r
1575 <h3 id="_splitting_containers">6.2. Splitting containers</h3>
\r
1576 <div class="paragraph"><p>The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
\r
1577 can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
\r
1578 new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
\r
1579 get placed below the current one (splitv).</p></div>
\r
1580 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
\r
1581 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
\r
1582 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window). Use
\r
1583 <tt>layout toggle split</tt> to change the layout of any split container from splitv
\r
1584 to splith or vice-versa.</p></div>
\r
1585 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1586 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1587 <div class="content">
\r
1588 <pre><tt>split <vertical|horizontal></tt></pre>
\r
1590 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1591 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1592 <div class="content">
\r
1593 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+v split vertical
\r
1594 bindsym $mod+h split horizontal</tt></pre>
\r
1597 <div class="sect2">
\r
1598 <h3 id="_manipulating_layout">6.3. Manipulating layout</h3>
\r
1599 <div class="paragraph"><p>Use <tt>layout toggle split</tt>, <tt>layout stacking</tt>, <tt>layout tabbed</tt>, <tt>layout splitv</tt>
\r
1600 or <tt>layout splith</tt> to change the current container layout to splith/splitv,
\r
1601 stacking, tabbed layout, splitv or splith, respectively.</p></div>
\r
1602 <div class="paragraph"><p>To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use <tt>fullscreen</tt>, to make
\r
1603 it floating (or tiling again) use <tt>floating enable</tt> respectively <tt>floating disable</tt>
\r
1604 (or <tt>floating toggle</tt>):</p></div>
\r
1605 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1606 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1607 <div class="content">
\r
1608 <pre><tt>layout <default|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith>
\r
1609 layout toggle [split|all]</tt></pre>
\r
1611 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1612 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1613 <div class="content">
\r
1614 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+s layout stacking
\r
1615 bindsym $mod+l layout toggle split
\r
1616 bindsym $mod+w layout tabbed
\r
1618 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
\r
1619 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle
\r
1621 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
\r
1622 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle all
\r
1624 # Toggle fullscreen
\r
1625 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen
\r
1627 # Toggle floating/tiling
\r
1628 bindsym $mod+t floating toggle</tt></pre>
\r
1631 <div class="sect2">
\r
1632 <h3 id="_focusing_moving_containers">6.4. Focusing/Moving containers</h3>
\r
1633 <div class="paragraph"><p>To change the focus, use the focus command: <tt>focus left</tt>, <tt>focus right</tt>, <tt>focus
\r
1634 down</tt> and <tt>focus up</tt>.</p></div>
\r
1635 <div class="paragraph"><p>There are a few special parameters you can use for the focus command:</p></div>
\r
1636 <div class="dlist"><dl>
\r
1637 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1642 Sets focus to the <tt>Parent Container</tt> of the current <tt>Container</tt>.
\r
1645 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1650 The opposite of <tt>focus parent</tt>, sets the focus to the last focused
\r
1654 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1659 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
\r
1662 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1667 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
\r
1670 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1675 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
\r
1678 <dt class="hdlist1">
\r
1683 Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
\r
1684 corresponding output.
\r
1688 <div class="paragraph"><p>For moving, use <tt>move left</tt>, <tt>move right</tt>, <tt>move down</tt> and <tt>move up</tt>.</p></div>
\r
1689 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1690 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1691 <div class="content">
\r
1692 <pre><tt>focus <left|right|down|up>
\r
1693 focus <parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle>
\r
1694 focus output <<left|right|down|up>|output>
\r
1695 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
\r
1696 move [absolute] position [[<px> px] [<px> px]|center]</tt></pre>
\r
1698 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that the amount of pixels you can specify for the <tt>move</tt> command is only
\r
1699 relevant for floating containers. The default amount is 10 pixels.</p></div>
\r
1700 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1701 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1702 <div class="content">
\r
1703 <pre><tt># Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right:
\r
1704 bindsym $mod+j focus left
\r
1705 bindsym $mod+k focus down
\r
1706 bindsym $mod+l focus up
\r
1707 bindsym $mod+semicolon focus right
\r
1709 # Focus parent container
\r
1710 bindsym $mod+u focus parent
\r
1712 # Focus last floating/tiling container
\r
1713 bindsym $mod+g focus mode_toggle
\r
1715 # Focus the output right to the current one
\r
1716 bindsym $mod+x focus output right
\r
1718 # Focus the big output
\r
1719 bindsym $mod+x focus output HDMI-2
\r
1721 # Move container to the left, bottom, top, right:
\r
1722 bindsym $mod+j move left
\r
1723 bindsym $mod+k move down
\r
1724 bindsym $mod+l move up
\r
1725 bindsym $mod+semicolon move right
\r
1727 # Move container, but make floating containers
\r
1728 # move more than the default
\r
1729 bindsym $mod+j move left 20 px
\r
1731 # Move floating container to the center
\r
1733 bindsym $mod+c move absolute position center</tt></pre>
\r
1736 <div class="sect2">
\r
1737 <h3 id="_changing_named_workspaces_moving_to_workspaces">6.5. Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces</h3>
\r
1738 <div class="paragraph"><p>To change to a specific workspace, use the <tt>workspace</tt> command, followed by the
\r
1739 number or name of the workspace. To move containers to specific workspaces, use
\r
1740 <tt>move container to workspace</tt>.</p></div>
\r
1741 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
\r
1742 <tt>workspace next</tt> and <tt>workspace prev</tt>, which is handy, for example, if you have
\r
1743 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
\r
1744 combination. To restrict those to the current output, use <tt>workspace
\r
1745 next_on_output</tt> and <tt>workspace prev_on_output</tt>. Similarly, you can use <tt>move
\r
1746 container to workspace next</tt>, <tt>move container to workspace prev</tt> to move a
\r
1747 container to the next/previous workspace and <tt>move container to workspace current</tt>
\r
1748 (the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).</p></div>
\r
1749 <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
1750 RandR output.</p></div>
\r
1751 <div class="paragraph" id="back_and_forth"><p>To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use <tt>workspace
\r
1752 back_and_forth</tt>; likewise, you can move containers to the previously focused
\r
1753 workspace using <tt>move container to workspace back_and_forth</tt>.</p></div>
\r
1754 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1755 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1756 <div class="content">
\r
1757 <pre><tt>workspace <next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output>
\r
1758 workspace back_and_forth
\r
1759 workspace <name>
\r
1760 workspace number <name>
\r
1762 move [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
\r
1763 move [window|container] [to] workspace number <name>
\r
1764 move [window|container] [to] workspace <prev|next|current></tt></pre>
\r
1766 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1767 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1768 <div class="content">
\r
1769 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1
\r
1770 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2
\r
1773 bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
\r
1774 bindsym $mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
\r
1777 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
\r
1778 bindsym $mod+b workspace back_and_forth
\r
1779 bindsym $mod+Shift+b move container to workspace back_and_forth
\r
1781 # move the whole workspace to the next output
\r
1782 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
\r
1784 # move firefox to current workspace
\r
1785 bindsym $mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current</tt></pre>
\r
1787 <div class="sect3">
\r
1788 <h4 id="_named_workspaces">6.5.1. Named workspaces</h4>
\r
1789 <div class="paragraph"><p>Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
\r
1790 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:</p></div>
\r
1791 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1792 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1793 <div class="content">
\r
1794 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+1 workspace mail
\r
1797 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you want the workspace to have a number <strong>and</strong> a name, just prefix the
\r
1798 number, like this:</p></div>
\r
1799 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1800 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1801 <div class="content">
\r
1802 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1: mail
\r
1803 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2: www
\r
1806 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
\r
1807 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
\r
1808 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
\r
1809 will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use <tt>workspace number 1</tt>
\r
1810 to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
\r
1811 it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
\r
1812 dynamically. To combine both commands you can use <tt>workspace number 1: mail</tt> to
\r
1813 specify a default name if there’s currently no workspace starting with a "1".</p></div>
\r
1815 <div class="sect3">
\r
1816 <h4 id="_renaming_workspaces">6.5.2. Renaming workspaces</h4>
\r
1817 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
\r
1818 numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
\r
1819 reflect what’s actually on them. You can also omit the old name to rename
\r
1820 the currently focused workspace. This is handy if you want to use the
\r
1821 rename command with <tt>i3-input</tt>.</p></div>
\r
1822 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1823 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1824 <div class="content">
\r
1825 <pre><tt>rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
\r
1826 rename workspace to <new_name></tt></pre>
\r
1828 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1829 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1830 <div class="content">
\r
1831 <pre><tt>i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
\r
1832 i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
\r
1833 i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
\r
1834 i3-msg 'rename workspace to "2: mail"
\r
1835 bindsym $mod+r exec i3-input -F 'rename workspace to "%s"' -P 'New name: '</tt></pre>
\r
1839 <div class="sect2">
\r
1840 <h3 id="_moving_workspaces_to_a_different_screen">6.6. Moving workspaces to a different screen</h3>
\r
1841 <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
1842 RandR output.</p></div>
\r
1844 <div class="sect2">
\r
1845 <h3 id="_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs">6.7. Moving containers/workspaces to RandR outputs</h3>
\r
1846 <div class="paragraph" id="move_to_outputs"><p>To move a container to another RandR output (addressed by names like <tt>LVDS1</tt> or
\r
1847 <tt>VGA1</tt>) or to a RandR output identified by a specific direction (like <tt>left</tt>,
\r
1848 <tt>right</tt>, <tt>up</tt> or <tt>down</tt>), there are two commands:</p></div>
\r
1849 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1850 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1851 <div class="content">
\r
1852 <pre><tt>move container to output <<left|right|down|up>|<output>>
\r
1853 move workspace to output <<left|right|down|up>|<output>></tt></pre>
\r
1855 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1856 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1857 <div class="content">
\r
1858 <pre><tt># Move the current workspace to the next output
\r
1859 # (effectively toggles when you only have two outputs)
\r
1860 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
\r
1862 # Put this window on the presentation output.
\r
1863 bindsym $mod+x move container to output VGA1</tt></pre>
\r
1866 <div class="sect2">
\r
1867 <h3 id="resizingconfig">6.8. Resizing containers/windows</h3>
\r
1868 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
\r
1869 <tt>resize</tt> command:</p></div>
\r
1870 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1871 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1872 <div class="content">
\r
1873 <pre><tt>resize <grow|shrink> <direction> [<px> px [or <ppt> ppt]]</tt></pre>
\r
1875 <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
1876 less specific and use <tt>width</tt> or <tt>height</tt>, in which case i3 will take/give
\r
1877 space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
\r
1878 how many pixels a <strong>floating container</strong> should be grown or shrunk (the default
\r
1879 is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
\r
1880 many percentage points a <strong>tiling container</strong> should be grown or shrunk (the
\r
1881 default is 10 percentage points).</p></div>
\r
1882 <div class="paragraph"><p>I recommend using the resize command inside a so called <tt>mode</tt>:</p></div>
\r
1883 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1884 <div class="title">Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing</div>
\r
1885 <div class="content">
\r
1886 <pre><tt>mode "resize" {
\r
1887 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
\r
1889 # Pressing left will shrink the window’s width.
\r
1890 # Pressing right will grow the window’s width.
\r
1891 # Pressing up will shrink the window’s height.
\r
1892 # Pressing down will grow the window’s height.
\r
1893 bindsym j resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
\r
1894 bindsym k resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
\r
1895 bindsym l resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
\r
1896 bindsym semicolon resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
\r
1898 # same bindings, but for the arrow keys
\r
1899 bindsym Left resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
\r
1900 bindsym Down resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
\r
1901 bindsym Up resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
\r
1902 bindsym Right resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
\r
1904 # back to normal: Enter or Escape
\r
1905 bindsym Return mode "default"
\r
1906 bindsym Escape mode "default"
\r
1909 # Enter resize mode
\r
1910 bindsym $mod+r mode "resize"</tt></pre>
\r
1913 <div class="sect2">
\r
1914 <h3 id="_jumping_to_specific_windows">6.9. Jumping to specific windows</h3>
\r
1915 <div class="paragraph"><p>Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
\r
1916 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
\r
1917 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
\r
1918 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mail client,
\r
1919 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the <tt>focus</tt> command
\r
1920 with criteria for that.</p></div>
\r
1921 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1922 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1923 <div class="content">
\r
1924 <pre><tt>[class="class"] focus
\r
1925 [title="title"] focus</tt></pre>
\r
1927 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1928 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1929 <div class="content">
\r
1930 <pre><tt># Get me to the next open VIM instance
\r
1931 bindsym $mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus</tt></pre>
\r
1934 <div class="sect2">
\r
1935 <h3 id="_vim_like_marks_mark_goto">6.10. VIM-like marks (mark/goto)</h3>
\r
1936 <div class="paragraph" id="vim_like_marks"><p>This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
\r
1937 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
\r
1938 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
\r
1939 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You can unmark the label in the same
\r
1940 way, using the unmark command. If you don’t specify a label, unmark removes all
\r
1941 marks. You do not need to ensure that your windows have unique classes or
\r
1942 titles, and you do not need to change your configuration file.</p></div>
\r
1943 <div class="paragraph"><p>As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
\r
1944 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. <tt>i3-input</tt> is a tool created
\r
1945 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
\r
1946 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.</p></div>
\r
1947 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1948 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1949 <div class="content">
\r
1950 <pre><tt>mark identifier
\r
1951 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
\r
1952 unmark identifier</tt></pre>
\r
1954 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Example (in a terminal)</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1955 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1956 <div class="content">
\r
1957 <pre><tt>$ i3-msg mark irssi
\r
1958 $ i3-msg '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
\r
1959 $ i3-msg unmark irssi</tt></pre>
\r
1962 <div class="sect2">
\r
1963 <h3 id="_changing_border_style">6.11. Changing border style</h3>
\r
1964 <div class="paragraph"><p>To change the border of the current client, you can use <tt>border normal</tt> to use the normal
\r
1965 border (including window title), <tt>border 1pixel</tt> to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
\r
1966 and <tt>border none</tt> to make the client borderless.</p></div>
\r
1967 <div class="paragraph"><p>There is also <tt>border toggle</tt> which will toggle the different border styles.</p></div>
\r
1968 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1969 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1970 <div class="content">
\r
1971 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+t border normal
\r
1972 bindsym $mod+y border 1pixel
\r
1973 bindsym $mod+u border none</tt></pre>
\r
1976 <div class="sect2">
\r
1977 <h3 id="shmlog">6.12. Enabling shared memory logging</h3>
\r
1978 <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
1979 memory buffer, which you can dump using <tt>i3-dump-log</tt>. The <tt>shmlog</tt> command
\r
1980 allows you to enable or disable the shared memory logging at runtime.</p></div>
\r
1981 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that when using <tt>shmlog <size_in_bytes></tt>, the current log will be
\r
1982 discarded and a new one will be started.</p></div>
\r
1983 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1984 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1985 <div class="content">
\r
1986 <pre><tt>shmlog <size_in_bytes>
\r
1987 shmlog <on|off|toggle></tt></pre>
\r
1989 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
1990 <div class="listingblock">
\r
1991 <div class="content">
\r
1992 <pre><tt># Enable/disable logging
\r
1993 bindsym $mod+x shmlog toggle
\r
1995 # or, from a terminal:
\r
1996 # increase the shared memory log buffer to 50 MiB
\r
1997 i3-msg shmlog $((50*1024*1024))</tt></pre>
\r
2000 <div class="sect2">
\r
2001 <h3 id="_enabling_debug_logging">6.13. Enabling debug logging</h3>
\r
2002 <div class="paragraph"><p>The <tt>debuglog</tt> command allows you to enable or disable debug logging at
\r
2003 runtime. Debug logging is much more verbose than non-debug logging. This
\r
2004 command does not activate shared memory logging (shmlog), and as such is most
\r
2005 likely useful in combination with the above-described <a href="#shmlog">[shmlog]</a> command.</p></div>
\r
2006 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2007 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2008 <div class="content">
\r
2009 <pre><tt>debuglog <on|off|toggle></tt></pre>
\r
2011 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2012 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2013 <div class="content">
\r
2014 <pre><tt># Enable/disable logging
\r
2015 bindsym $mod+x debuglog toggle</tt></pre>
\r
2018 <div class="sect2">
\r
2019 <h3 id="_reloading_restarting_exiting">6.14. Reloading/Restarting/Exiting</h3>
\r
2020 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can make i3 reload its configuration file with <tt>reload</tt>. You can also
\r
2021 restart i3 inplace with the <tt>restart</tt> command to get it out of some weird state
\r
2022 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
\r
2023 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the <tt>exit</tt> command,
\r
2024 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).</p></div>
\r
2025 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2026 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2027 <div class="content">
\r
2028 <pre><tt>bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
\r
2029 bindsym $mod+Shift+w reload
\r
2030 bindsym $mod+Shift+e exit</tt></pre>
\r
2033 <div class="sect2">
\r
2034 <h3 id="_scratchpad">6.15. Scratchpad</h3>
\r
2035 <div class="paragraph"><p>There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. <tt>move
\r
2036 scratchpad</tt> will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
\r
2037 invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
\r
2038 Instead, when using <tt>scratchpad show</tt>, the window will be shown again, as a
\r
2039 floating window, centered on your current workspace (using <tt>scratchpad show</tt> on
\r
2040 a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
\r
2041 keybinding to toggle). Note that this is just a normal floating window, so if
\r
2042 you want to "remove it from scratchpad", you can simple make it tiling again
\r
2043 (<tt>floating toggle</tt>).</p></div>
\r
2044 <div class="paragraph"><p>As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
\r
2045 editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
\r
2046 running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
\r
2047 player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?</p></div>
\r
2048 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2049 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2050 <div class="content">
\r
2051 <pre><tt>move scratchpad
\r
2053 scratchpad show</tt></pre>
\r
2055 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2056 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2057 <div class="content">
\r
2058 <pre><tt># Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
\r
2059 bindsym $mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad
\r
2061 # Show the first scratchpad window
\r
2062 bindsym $mod+minus scratchpad show
\r
2064 # Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
\r
2065 bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show</tt></pre>
\r
2068 <div class="sect2">
\r
2069 <h3 id="_i3bar_control">6.16. i3bar control</h3>
\r
2070 <div class="paragraph"><p>There are two options in the configuration of each i3bar instance that can be
\r
2071 changed during runtime by invoking a command through i3. The commands <tt>bar
\r
2072 hidden_state</tt> and <tt>bar mode</tt> allow setting the current hidden_state
\r
2073 respectively mode option of each bar. It is also possible to toggle between
\r
2074 hide state and show state as well as between dock mode and hide mode. Each
\r
2075 i3bar instance can be controlled individually by specifying a bar_id, if none
\r
2076 is given, the command is executed for all bar instances.</p></div>
\r
2077 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Syntax</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2078 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2079 <div class="content">
\r
2080 <pre><tt>bar hidden_state hide|show|toggle [<bar_id>]
\r
2082 bar mode dock|hide|invisible|toggle [<bar_id>]</tt></pre>
\r
2084 <div class="paragraph"><p><strong>Examples</strong>:</p></div>
\r
2085 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2086 <div class="content">
\r
2087 <pre><tt># Toggle between hide state and show state
\r
2088 bindsym $mod+m bar hidden_state toggle
\r
2090 # Toggle between dock mode and hide mode
\r
2091 bindsym $mod+n bar mode toggle
\r
2093 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to switch to hide mode
\r
2094 bindsym $mod+b bar mode hide bar-1
\r
2096 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to always stay hidden
\r
2097 bindsym $mod+Shift+b bar mode invisible bar-1</tt></pre>
\r
2102 <div class="sect1">
\r
2103 <h2 id="multi_monitor">7. Multiple monitors</h2>
\r
2104 <div class="sectionbody">
\r
2105 <div class="paragraph"><p>As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
\r
2106 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
\r
2107 handle multiple monitors.</p></div>
\r
2108 <div class="paragraph"><p>When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
\r
2109 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.</p></div>
\r
2110 <div class="paragraph"><p>When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
\r
2111 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
\r
2112 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
\r
2113 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
\r
2114 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
\r
2115 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
\r
2116 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.</p></div>
\r
2117 <div class="paragraph"><p>The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
\r
2118 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
\r
2119 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
\r
2120 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
\r
2121 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
\r
2122 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
\r
2123 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
\r
2124 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).</p></div>
\r
2125 <div class="sect2">
\r
2126 <h3 id="_configuring_your_monitors">7.1. Configuring your monitors</h3>
\r
2127 <div class="paragraph"><p>To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
\r
2128 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
\r
2129 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
\r
2130 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:</p></div>
\r
2131 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2132 <div class="content">
\r
2134 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
\r
2135 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
\r
2136 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
\r
2137 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
\r
2138 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
\r
2140 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
\r
2141 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
\r
2144 640x350 85.1</tt></pre>
\r
2146 <div class="paragraph"><p>Several things are important here: You can see that <tt>LVDS1</tt> is connected (of
\r
2147 course, it is the internal flat panel) but <tt>VGA1</tt> is not. If you have a monitor
\r
2148 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
\r
2149 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.</p></div>
\r
2150 <div class="paragraph"><p>The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
\r
2151 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
\r
2152 to be increased by editing <tt>/etc/X11/xorg.conf</tt>.</p></div>
\r
2153 <div class="paragraph"><p>So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:</p></div>
\r
2154 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2155 <div class="content">
\r
2156 <pre><tt>xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1</tt></pre>
\r
2158 <div class="paragraph"><p>This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
\r
2159 connected to <tt>VGA1</tt> and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
\r
2160 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:</p></div>
\r
2161 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2162 <div class="content">
\r
2164 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
\r
2165 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
\r
2166 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
\r
2169 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
\r
2171 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
\r
2172 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
\r
2174 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
\r
2175 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
\r
2176 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
\r
2178 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
\r
2179 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
\r
2182 640x350 85.1</tt></pre>
\r
2184 <div class="paragraph"><p>Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
\r
2185 only what you can see in xrandr.</p></div>
\r
2186 <div class="paragraph"><p>See also <a href="#presentations">[presentations]</a> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.</p></div>
\r
2188 <div class="sect2">
\r
2189 <h3 id="_interesting_configuration_for_multi_monitor_environments">7.2. Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments</h3>
\r
2190 <div class="paragraph"><p>There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
\r
2191 have more than one monitor:</p></div>
\r
2192 <div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
\r
2195 You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
\r
2196 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
\r
2197 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
\r
2198 <a href="#workspace_screen">[workspace_screen]</a>.
\r
2203 If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
\r
2204 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
\r
2205 <a href="#assign_workspace">[assign_workspace]</a>.
\r
2210 If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
\r
2211 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
\r
2212 quickly switch between windows. See <a href="#vim_like_marks">[vim_like_marks]</a>.
\r
2217 For information on how to move existing workspaces between monitors,
\r
2218 see <a href="#_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs">[_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs]</a>.
\r
2225 <div class="sect1">
\r
2226 <h2 id="_i3_and_the_rest_of_your_software_world">8. i3 and the rest of your software world</h2>
\r
2227 <div class="sectionbody">
\r
2228 <div class="sect2">
\r
2229 <h3 id="_displaying_a_status_line">8.1. Displaying a status line</h3>
\r
2230 <div class="paragraph"><p>A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
\r
2231 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
\r
2232 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.</p></div>
\r
2233 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
\r
2234 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
\r
2235 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
\r
2236 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
\r
2237 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
\r
2238 i3bar. See <a href="#status_command">[status_command]</a> for how to display i3status in i3bar.</p></div>
\r
2239 <div class="paragraph"><p>Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
\r
2240 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
\r
2241 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
\r
2242 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
\r
2243 see <a href="#i3bar_position">[i3bar_position]</a>.</p></div>
\r
2245 <div class="sect2">
\r
2246 <h3 id="_giving_presentations_multi_monitor">8.2. Giving presentations (multi-monitor)</h3>
\r
2247 <div class="paragraph"><p>When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
\r
2248 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
\r
2249 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
\r
2250 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
\r
2252 <div class="sect3">
\r
2253 <h4 id="presentations">8.2.1. Case 1: everybody gets the same output</h4>
\r
2254 <div class="paragraph"><p>This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
\r
2255 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
\r
2256 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:</p></div>
\r
2257 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2258 <div class="content">
\r
2259 <pre><tt>xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1</tt></pre>
\r
2261 <div class="paragraph"><p>i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
\r
2262 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
\r
2263 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).</p></div>
\r
2265 <div class="sect3">
\r
2266 <h4 id="_case_2_you_can_see_more_than_your_audience">8.2.2. Case 2: you can see more than your audience</h4>
\r
2267 <div class="paragraph"><p>This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
\r
2268 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:</p></div>
\r
2269 <div class="listingblock">
\r
2270 <div class="content">
\r
2271 <pre><tt>xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1</tt></pre>
\r
2273 <div class="paragraph"><p>Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
\r
2274 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <a href="#multi_monitor">[multi_monitor]</a>).</p></div>
\r
2275 <div class="paragraph"><p>Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
\r
2276 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
\r
2277 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).</p></div>
\r
2283 <div id="footnotes"><hr /></div>
\r
2284 <div id="footer" lang="de">
\r
2285 © 2009-2011 Michael Stapelberg, <a href="/impress.html">Impressum</a>
\r
projects / i3 / i3.github.io / blob