3 Michael Stapelberg <michael@i3wm.org>
6 This document contains all the information you need to configure and use the i3
7 window manager. If it does not, please check https://www.reddit.com/r/i3wm/
8 first, then contact us on IRC (preferred) or post your question(s) on the
11 == Default keybindings
13 For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here is an overview of the default
14 keybindings (click to see the full size image):
16 *Keys to use with $mod (Alt):*
18 image:keyboard-layer1.png["Keys to use with $mod (Alt)",width=600,link="keyboard-layer1.png"]
20 *Keys to use with Shift+$mod:*
22 image:keyboard-layer2.png["Keys to use with Shift+$mod",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]
24 The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
27 Note that when starting i3 without a config file, i3-config-wizard will offer
28 you to create a config file in which the key positions (!) match what you see
29 in the image above, regardless of the keyboard layout you are using. If you
30 prefer to use a config file where the key letters match what you are seeing
31 above, just decline i3-config-wizard’s offer and base your config on
36 Throughout this guide, the keyword +$mod+ will be used to refer to the
37 configured modifier. This is the Alt key (+Mod1+) by default, with the Windows
38 key (+Mod4+) being a popular alternative.
40 === Opening terminals and moving around
42 One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
43 for this is +$mod+Enter+, that is Alt+Enter (+Mod1+Enter+) in the default
44 configuration. By pressing +$mod+Enter+, a new terminal will be opened. It
45 will fill the whole space available on your screen.
47 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
49 If you now open another terminal, i3 will place it next to the current one,
50 splitting the screen size in half. Depending on your monitor, i3 will put the
51 created window beside the existing window (on wide displays) or below the
52 existing window (rotated displays).
54 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
56 To move the focus between the two terminals, you can use the direction keys
57 which you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used
58 for these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for
59 compatibility with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +$mod+j+ is left, +$mod+k+
60 is down, +$mod+l+ is up and `$mod+;` is right. So, to switch between the
61 terminals, use +$mod+k+ or +$mod+l+. Of course, you can also use the arrow keys.
63 At the moment, your workspace is split (it contains two terminals) in a
64 specific direction (horizontal by default). Every window can be split
65 horizontally or vertically again, just like the workspace. The terminology is
66 "window" for a container that actually contains an X11 window (like a terminal
67 or browser) and "split container" for containers that consist of one or more
70 TODO: picture of the tree
72 To split a window vertically, press +$mod+v+ before you create the new window.
73 To split it horizontally, press +$mod+h+.
75 === Changing the container layout
77 A split container can have one of the following layouts:
80 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
81 container. splith distributes the windows horizontally (windows are right next
82 to each other), splitv distributes them vertically (windows are on top of each
85 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
86 windows at the top of the container.
88 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
89 a single line which is vertically split.
91 To switch modes, press +$mod+e+ for splith/splitv (it toggles), +$mod+s+ for
92 stacking and +$mod+w+ for tabbed.
94 image:modes.png[Container modes]
96 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
98 To display a window in fullscreen mode or to go out of fullscreen mode again,
101 There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will span all
102 available outputs (the command is +fullscreen toggle global+).
104 === Opening other applications
106 Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
107 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +$mod+d+ by default. Just type the name
108 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The corresponding
109 application has to be in your +$PATH+ for this to work.
111 Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
112 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
113 <<configuring>> for details.
117 If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
118 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+w+ to close), you
119 can press +$mod+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
120 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
121 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
122 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
123 depends on the application.
127 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
128 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
129 another workspace, press +$mod+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
130 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
132 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
133 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one, and the ones with which you
134 work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
136 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
137 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
138 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
139 focus to that screen.
141 === Moving windows to workspaces
143 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +$mod+Shift+num+ where
144 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
145 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
146 it does not yet exist.
150 The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
151 and move it to the wanted size.
153 You can also use <<binding_modes>> to define a mode for resizing via the
154 keyboard. To see an example for this, look at the
155 https://github.com/i3/i3/blob/next/etc/config.keycodes[default config] provided
158 === Restarting i3 inplace
160 To restart i3 in place (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
161 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +$mod+Shift+r+.
165 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +$mod+Shift+e+.
166 By default, a dialog will ask you to confirm if you really want to quit.
170 Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of
171 a window are not managed automatically by i3, but manually by
172 you. Using this mode violates the tiling paradigm but can be useful
173 for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog windows, or toolbar
174 windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the appropriate
175 hint and are opened in floating mode by default.
177 You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing +$mod+Shift+Space+. By
178 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
179 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
180 can also do that by using the <<floating_modifier>>. Another way to resize
181 floating windows using the mouse is to right-click on the titlebar and drag.
183 For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see the resizing binding mode
184 provided by the i3 https://github.com/i3/i3/blob/next/etc/config.keycodes[default config].
186 Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.
190 i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
191 windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
192 the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
193 finally the windows themselves. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
194 (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
195 out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.
197 === The tree consists of Containers
199 The building blocks of our tree are so called +Containers+. A +Container+ can
200 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
201 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more +Containers+. A
202 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
203 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
206 image::tree-layout2.png["layout2",float="right"]
207 image::tree-shot4.png["shot4",title="Two terminals on standard workspace"]
210 === Orientation and Split Containers
212 It is only natural to use so-called +Split Containers+ in order to build a
213 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every +Container+ has an
214 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified) and the orientation depends
215 on the layout the container is in (vertical for splitv and stacking, horizontal
216 for splith and tabbed). So, in our example with the workspace, the default
217 layout of the workspace +Container+ is splith (most monitors are widescreen
218 nowadays). If you change the layout to splitv (+$mod+v+ in the default config)
219 and *then* open two terminals, i3 will configure your windows like this:
221 image::tree-shot2.png["shot2",title="Vertical Workspace Orientation"]
223 An interesting new feature of i3 since version 4 is the ability to split anything:
224 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with splith layout, that is
225 horizontal orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open
226 another terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new
227 terminal window, it would show up to the right due to the splith layout.
228 Instead, press +$mod+v+ to split the container with the splitv layout (to
229 open a +Horizontal Split Container+, use +$mod+h+). Now you can open a new
230 terminal and it will open below the current one:
232 image::tree-layout1.png["Layout",float="right"]
233 image::tree-shot1.png["shot",title="Vertical Split Container"]
237 You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
242 Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
243 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
244 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.
246 So, how can you open a new terminal window to the *right* of the current one?
247 The solution is to use +focus parent+, which will focus the +Parent Container+ of
248 the current +Container+. In this case, you would focus the +Vertical Split
249 Container+ which is *inside* the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
250 windows will be opened to the right of the +Vertical Split Container+:
252 image::tree-shot3.png["shot3",title="Focus parent, then open new terminal"]
254 === Implicit containers
256 In some cases, i3 needs to implicitly create a container to fulfill your
259 One example is the following scenario: You start i3 with a single monitor and a
260 single workspace on which you open three terminal windows. All these terminal
261 windows are directly attached to one node inside i3’s layout tree, the
262 workspace node. By default, the workspace node’s orientation is +horizontal+.
264 Now you move one of these terminals down (+$mod+Shift+k+ by default). The
265 workspace node’s orientation will be changed to +vertical+. The terminal window
266 you moved down is directly attached to the workspace and appears on the bottom
267 of the screen. A new (horizontal) container was created to accommodate the
268 other two terminal windows. You will notice this when switching to tabbed mode
269 (for example). You would end up having one tab with a representation of the split
270 container (e.g., "H[urxvt firefox]") and the other one being the terminal window
276 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependent on your
277 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
279 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
280 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
283 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
284 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
285 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
286 can bind your keys to do useful things.
288 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
289 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
292 On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
293 file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
294 wizard to use either Alt (+Mod1+) or Windows (+Mod4+) as modifier in the config
295 file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
296 keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command +i3-config-wizard+.
297 Please note that you must not have +~/.i3/config+, otherwise the wizard will
302 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
303 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
304 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:
314 i3 has support for both X core fonts and FreeType fonts (through Pango) to
315 render window titles.
317 To generate an X core font description, you can use +xfontsel(1)+. To see
318 special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the
321 A FreeType font description is composed by a font family, a style, a weight,
322 a variant, a stretch and a size.
323 FreeType fonts support right-to-left rendering and contain often more
324 Unicode glyphs than X core fonts.
326 If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
327 and fall back to a working font.
330 ------------------------------
331 font <X core font description>
332 font pango:<family list> [<style options>] <size>
333 ------------------------------
336 --------------------------------------------------------------
337 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
338 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
339 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono, Terminus Bold Semi-Condensed 11
340 font pango:Terminus 11px
341 --------------------------------------------------------------
344 === Keyboard bindings
346 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
347 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
348 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
350 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
351 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
352 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
353 mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+. To interactively enter a key and
354 see what keysym it is configured to, use +xev+.
356 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
357 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
358 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
360 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
361 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
362 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
365 Some tools (such as +import+ or +xdotool+) might be unable to run upon a
366 KeyPress event, because the keyboard/pointer is still grabbed. For these
367 situations, the +--release+ flag can be used, which will execute the command
368 after the keys have been released.
371 ----------------------------------
372 bindsym [--release] [<Group>+][<Modifiers>+]<keysym> command
373 bindcode [--release] [<Group>+][<Modifiers>+]<keycode> command
374 ----------------------------------
377 --------------------------------
379 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
382 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
384 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
385 bindcode 214 exec --no-startup-id /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
387 # Simulate ctrl+v upon pressing $mod+x
388 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v
390 # Take a screenshot upon pressing $mod+x (select an area)
391 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id import /tmp/latest-screenshot.png
392 --------------------------------
396 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
397 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
399 Group1, Group2, Group3, Group4::
400 When using multiple keyboard layouts (e.g. with `setxkbmap -layout us,ru`), you
401 can specify in which XKB group (also called “layout”) a keybinding should be
402 active. By default, keybindings are translated in Group1 and are active in all
403 groups. If you want to override keybindings in one of your layouts, specify the
404 corresponding group. For backwards compatibility, the group “Mode_switch” is an
410 A mouse binding makes i3 execute a command upon pressing a specific mouse
411 button in the scope of the clicked container (see <<command_criteria>>). You
412 can configure mouse bindings in a similar way to key bindings.
415 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
416 bindsym [--release] [--border] [--whole-window] [--exclude-titlebar] [<Modifiers>+]button<n> command
417 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
419 By default, the binding will only run when you click on the titlebar of the
420 window. If the +--release+ flag is given, it will run when the mouse button
423 If the +--whole-window+ flag is given, the binding will also run when any part
424 of the window is clicked, with the exception of the border. To have a bind run
425 when the border is clicked, specify the +--border+ flag.
427 If the +--exclude-titlebar+ flag is given, the titlebar will not be considered
431 --------------------------------
432 # The middle button over a titlebar kills the window
433 bindsym --release button2 kill
435 # The middle button and a modifer over any part of the window kills the window
436 bindsym --whole-window $mod+button2 kill
438 # The right button toggles floating
439 bindsym button3 floating toggle
440 bindsym $mod+button3 floating toggle
442 # The side buttons move the window around
443 bindsym button9 move left
444 bindsym button8 move right
445 --------------------------------
450 You can have multiple sets of bindings by using different binding modes. When
451 you switch to another binding mode, all bindings from the current mode are
452 released and only the bindings defined in the new mode are valid for as long as
453 you stay in that binding mode. The only predefined binding mode is +default+,
454 which is the mode i3 starts out with and to which all bindings not defined in a
455 specific binding mode belong.
457 Working with binding modes consists of two parts: defining a binding mode and
458 switching to it. For these purposes, there are one config directive and one
459 command, both of which are called +mode+. The directive is used to define the
460 bindings belonging to a certain binding mode, while the command will switch to
463 It is recommended to use binding modes in combination with <<variables>> in
464 order to make maintenance easier. Below is an example of how to use a binding
467 Note that it is advisable to define bindings for switching back to the default
470 Note that it is possible to use <<pango_markup>> for binding modes, but you
471 need to enable it explicitly by passing the +--pango_markup+ flag to the mode
475 ----------------------------
477 mode [--pango_markup] <name>
481 ----------------------------
484 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
485 # Press $mod+o followed by either f, t, Escape or Return to launch firefox,
486 # thunderbird or return to the default mode, respectively.
487 set $mode_launcher Launch: [f]irefox [t]hunderbird
488 bindsym $mod+o mode "$mode_launcher"
490 mode "$mode_launcher" {
491 bindsym f exec firefox
492 bindsym t exec thunderbird
494 bindsym Escape mode "default"
495 bindsym Return mode "default"
497 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
499 [[floating_modifier]]
500 === The floating modifier
502 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
503 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
504 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
505 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
506 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
507 it to the position you want.
509 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
510 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
511 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
512 ratio will be preserved).
515 --------------------------------
516 floating_modifier <Modifier>
517 --------------------------------
520 --------------------------------
521 floating_modifier Mod1
522 --------------------------------
524 === Constraining floating window size
526 The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
527 either dimension of +floating_maximum_size+ is specified as -1, that dimension
528 will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
529 +floating_maximum_size+ is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
530 value to constrain the maximum size. +floating_minimum_size+ is treated in a
531 manner analogous to +floating_maximum_size+.
534 ----------------------------------------
535 floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
536 floating_maximum_size <width> x <height>
537 ----------------------------------------
540 --------------------------------------
541 floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
542 floating_maximum_size -1 x -1
543 --------------------------------------
545 === Orientation for new workspaces
547 New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
548 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
549 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.
551 With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
555 --------------------------------------------
556 default_orientation horizontal|vertical|auto
557 --------------------------------------------
560 ----------------------------
561 default_orientation vertical
562 ----------------------------
564 === Layout mode for new containers
566 This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
570 ---------------------------------------------
571 workspace_layout default|stacking|tabbed
572 ---------------------------------------------
575 ---------------------
576 workspace_layout tabbed
577 ---------------------
579 === Border style for new windows
581 This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
582 +normal+. Note that new_float applies only to windows which are starting out as
583 floating windows, e.g., dialog windows, but not windows that are floated later on.
586 ---------------------------------------------
587 new_window normal|none|pixel
588 new_window normal|pixel <px>
589 new_float normal|none|pixel
590 new_float normal|pixel <px>
591 ---------------------------------------------
594 ---------------------
596 ---------------------
598 The "normal" and "pixel" border styles support an optional border width in
602 ---------------------
603 # The same as new_window none
608 ---------------------
611 [[_hiding_vertical_borders]]
612 === Hiding borders adjacent to the screen edges
614 You can hide container borders adjacent to the screen edges using
615 +hide_edge_borders+. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
616 to waste even two pixels in displayspace. The "smart" setting hides borders on
617 workspaces with only one window visible, but keeps them on workspaces with
618 multiple windows visible. Default is none.
621 -----------------------------------------------
622 hide_edge_borders none|vertical|horizontal|both|smart
623 -----------------------------------------------
626 ----------------------
627 hide_edge_borders vertical
628 ----------------------
631 === Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)
633 With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
634 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
635 change their border style, for example.
638 -------------------------------
639 for_window <criteria> <command>
640 -------------------------------
643 ------------------------------------------------
644 # enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
645 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
647 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
648 for_window [class="urxvt"] border pixel 1
650 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
651 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
652 # directory to ~/work
653 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
654 ------------------------------------------------
656 The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.
659 === Don't focus window upon opening
661 When a new window appears, it will be focused. The +no_focus+ directive allows preventing
662 this from happening and must be used in combination with <<command_criteria>>.
664 Note that this does not apply to all cases, e.g., when feeding data into a running application
665 causing it to request being focused. To configure the behavior in such cases, refer to
666 <<focus_on_window_activation>>.
668 +no_focus+ will also be ignored for the first window on a workspace as there shouldn't be
669 a reason to not focus the window in this case. This allows for better usability in
670 combination with +workspace_layout+.
678 -------------------------------
679 no_focus [window_role="pop-up"]
680 -------------------------------
685 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
686 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
687 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
688 variables can be handy.
696 ------------------------
698 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
699 ------------------------
701 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. Variables expansion
702 is not recursive so it is not possible to define a variable with a value
703 containing another variable. There is no fancy handling and there are
704 absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more dynamic configuration
705 you should create a little script which generates a configuration file and run
706 it before starting i3 (for example in your +~/.xsession+ file).
708 Also see <<xresources>> to learn how to create variables based on resources
709 loaded from the X resource database.
714 <<variables>> can also be created using a value configured in the X resource
715 database. This is useful, for example, to avoid configuring color values within
716 the i3 configuration. Instead, the values can be configured, once, in the X
717 resource database to achieve an easily maintainable, consistent color theme
718 across many X applications.
720 Defining a resource will load this resource from the resource database and
721 assign its value to the specified variable. A fallback must be specified in
722 case the resource cannot be loaded from the database.
725 ----------------------------------------------------
726 set_from_resource $<name> <resource_name> <fallback>
727 ----------------------------------------------------
730 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
731 # The ~/.Xresources should contain a line such as
733 # and must be loaded properly, e.g., by using
735 # This value is picked up on by other applications (e.g., the URxvt terminal
736 # emulator) and can be used in i3 like this:
737 set_from_resource $black i3wm.color0 #000000
738 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
741 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
743 To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
744 can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
745 see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
746 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
747 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
748 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
749 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
750 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
751 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
752 to match on 'Firefox' in this case.
754 Assignments are processed by i3 in the order in which they appear in the config
755 file. The first one which matches the window wins and later assignments are not
759 ------------------------------------------------------------
760 assign <criteria> [→] [workspace] <workspace>
761 ------------------------------------------------------------
764 ----------------------
765 # Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
766 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
768 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
769 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
771 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
772 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
774 # Assignment to a named workspace
775 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
777 # Start urxvt -name irssi
778 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
779 ----------------------
781 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
782 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
784 To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
785 window, you will see the following output:
788 -----------------------------------
789 WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
790 -----------------------------------
792 The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
793 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).
795 Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
796 logfile first (see http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
797 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
798 title when starting up.
800 Note that if you want to start an application just once on a specific
801 workspace, but you don’t want to assign all instances of it permanently, you
802 can make use of i3’s startup-notification support (see <<exec>>) in your config
803 file in the following way:
805 *Start iceweasel on workspace 3 (once)*:
806 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
807 # Start iceweasel on workspace 3, then switch back to workspace 1
808 # (Being a command-line utility, i3-msg does not support startup notifications,
809 # hence the exec --no-startup-id.)
810 # (Starting iceweasel with i3’s exec command is important in order to make i3
811 # create a startup notification context, without which the iceweasel window(s)
812 # cannot be matched onto the workspace on which the command was started.)
813 exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 3; exec iceweasel; workspace 1'
814 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
816 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
818 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
819 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
820 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
821 also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
822 keyword. These commands will be run in order.
824 See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
825 and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
826 strings (as shown in <<exec_quoting>>) if they appear in your command.
829 ---------------------------------------
830 exec [--no-startup-id] <command>
831 exec_always [--no-startup-id] <command>
832 ---------------------------------------
835 --------------------------------
837 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
839 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
840 exec --no-startup-id urxvt
841 --------------------------------
843 The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <<exec>>.
846 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
848 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
849 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
850 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
851 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
852 the second screen and so on).
855 -------------------------------------
856 workspace <workspace> output <output>
857 -------------------------------------
859 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
860 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
861 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
863 If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:
866 ---------------------------
867 workspace 1 output LVDS1
868 workspace 5 output VGA1
869 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1
870 ---------------------------
874 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.
877 --------------------------------------------------------------------
878 <colorclass> <border> <background> <text> <indicator> <child_border>
879 --------------------------------------------------------------------
881 Where colorclass can be one of:
884 A client which currently has the focus.
885 client.focused_inactive::
886 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
887 the focus at the moment.
889 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
891 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
893 Background and text color are used to draw placeholder window contents
894 (when restoring layouts). Border and indicator are ignored.
896 Background color which will be used to paint the background of the
897 client window on top of which the client will be rendered. Only clients
898 which do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color. Note
899 that this colorclass only takes a single color.
901 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
903 *Examples (default colors)*:
904 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
905 # class border backgr. text indicator child_border
906 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff #2e9ef4 #285577
907 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff #484e50 #5f676a
908 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888 #292d2e #222222
909 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff #900000 #900000
910 client.placeholder #000000 #0c0c0c #ffffff #000000 #0c0c0c
912 client.background #ffffff
913 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
915 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
916 "child_border", and "border" color is only the two thin lines around the
919 The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
920 For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
921 color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
922 single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
923 from single windows outside of a split container.
925 === Interprocess communication
927 i3 uses Unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
928 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
929 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
931 The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
932 +/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username, +%p+ is
933 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
934 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).
936 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
937 by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
938 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
939 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
940 user can create that directory.
943 ----------------------------
944 ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock
945 ----------------------------
947 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
950 === Focus follows mouse
952 By default, window focus follows your mouse movements as the mouse crosses
953 window borders. However, if you have a setup where your mouse usually is in your
954 way (like a touchpad on your laptop which you do not want to disable
955 completely), you might want to disable 'focus follows mouse' and control focus
956 only by using your keyboard. The mouse will still be useful inside the
957 currently active window (for example to click on links in your browser window).
960 --------------------------
961 focus_follows_mouse yes|no
962 --------------------------
965 ----------------------
966 focus_follows_mouse no
967 ----------------------
971 By default, when switching focus to a window on a different output (e.g.
972 focusing a window on workspace 3 on output VGA-1, coming from workspace 2 on
973 LVDS-1), the mouse cursor is warped to the center of that window.
975 With the +mouse_warping+ option, you can control when the mouse cursor should
976 be warped. +none+ disables warping entirely, whereas +output+ is the default
977 behavior described above.
980 -------------------------
981 mouse_warping output|none
982 -------------------------
989 === Popups during fullscreen mode
991 When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
992 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
993 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
994 There are three things which are possible to do in this situation:
996 1. Display the popup if it belongs to the fullscreen application only. This is
997 the default and should be reasonable behavior for most users.
998 2. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
999 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
1000 you go out of fullscreen).
1001 3. Leave fullscreen mode.
1004 -----------------------------------------------------
1005 popup_during_fullscreen smart|ignore|leave_fullscreen
1006 -----------------------------------------------------
1009 ------------------------------
1010 popup_during_fullscreen smart
1011 ------------------------------
1015 When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
1016 focused when you use +focus down+ on the last container -- the focus wraps. If
1017 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
1018 be set on that container. This is the default behavior so you can navigate to
1019 all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.
1021 If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
1022 parent+ to switch to different containers, you can use the
1023 +force_focus_wrapping+ configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
1027 ---------------------------
1028 force_focus_wrapping yes|no
1029 ---------------------------
1032 ------------------------
1033 force_focus_wrapping yes
1034 ------------------------
1036 === Forcing Xinerama
1038 As explained in-depth in <http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html>, some X11
1039 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
1040 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
1041 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
1042 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
1045 For people who cannot modify their +~/.xsession+ to add the
1046 +--force-xinerama+ commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:
1049 ---------------------
1050 force_xinerama yes|no
1051 ---------------------
1058 Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like +HDMI1+) when using
1059 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: +xinerama-0+, +xinerama-1+, …
1061 === Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace
1063 This configuration directive enables automatic +workspace back_and_forth+ (see
1064 <<back_and_forth>>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.
1066 For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
1067 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
1068 came from now, you can just press $mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".
1071 ------------------------------------
1072 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes|no
1073 ------------------------------------
1076 ---------------------------------
1077 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes
1078 ---------------------------------
1080 === Delaying urgency hint reset on workspace change
1082 If an application on another workspace sets an urgency hint, switching to this
1083 workspace may lead to immediate focus of the application, which also means the
1084 window decoration color would be immediately reset to +client.focused+. This
1085 may make it unnecessarily hard to tell which window originally raised the
1088 In order to prevent this, you can tell i3 to delay resetting the urgency state
1089 by a certain time using the +force_display_urgency_hint+ directive. Setting the
1090 value to 0 disables this feature.
1092 The default is 500ms.
1095 ---------------------------------------
1096 force_display_urgency_hint <timeout> ms
1097 ---------------------------------------
1100 ---------------------------------
1101 force_display_urgency_hint 500 ms
1102 ---------------------------------
1104 [[focus_on_window_activation]]
1105 === Focus on window activation
1107 If a window is activated, e.g., via +google-chrome www.google.com+, it may request
1108 to take focus. Since this may not preferable, different reactions can be configured.
1110 Note that this may not affect windows that are being opened. To prevent new windows
1111 from being focused, see <<no_focus>>.
1114 --------------------------------------------------
1115 focus_on_window_activation smart|urgent|focus|none
1116 --------------------------------------------------
1118 The different modes will act as follows:
1121 This is the default behavior. If the window requesting focus is on an active
1122 workspace, it will receive the focus. Otherwise, the urgency hint will be set.
1124 The window will always be marked urgent, but the focus will not be stolen.
1126 The window will always be focused and not be marked urgent.
1128 The window will neither be focused, nor be marked urgent.
1131 === Drawing marks on window decoration
1133 If activated, marks (see <<vim_like_marks>>) on windows are drawn in their window
1134 decoration. However, any mark starting with an underscore in its name (+_+) will
1135 not be drawn even if this option is activated.
1137 The default for this option is +yes+.
1149 [[line_continuation]]
1150 === Line continuation
1152 Config files support line continuation, meaning when you end a line in a
1153 backslash character (`\`), the line-break will be ignored by the parser. This
1154 feature can be used to create more readable configuration files.
1155 Commented lines are not continued.
1162 # this line is not continued \
1163 bindsym Mod1+F fullscreen toggle
1166 == Configuring i3bar
1168 The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
1169 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
1172 1. It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
1173 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
1174 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
1175 2. It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
1176 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
1177 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
1178 3. It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
1179 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
1181 That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
1182 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
1183 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
1184 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
1185 configuration infrastructure in place.
1187 Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a +bar+ block. You can have
1188 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):
1191 ---------------------------
1193 status_command i3status
1195 ---------------------------
1199 By default i3 will just pass +i3bar+ and let your shell handle the execution,
1200 searching your +$PATH+ for a correct version.
1201 If you have a different +i3bar+ somewhere or the binary is not in your +$PATH+ you can
1202 tell i3 what to execute.
1204 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1205 have to have correct quoting etc.
1208 -----------------------
1209 i3bar_command <command>
1210 -----------------------
1213 -------------------------------------------------
1215 i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
1217 -------------------------------------------------
1220 === Statusline command
1222 i3bar can run a program and display every line of its +stdout+ output on the
1223 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
1224 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.
1226 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1227 have to have correct quoting etc. Note that for signal handling, depending on
1228 your shell (users of dash(1) are known to be affected), you have to use the
1229 shell’s exec command so that signals are passed to your program, not to the
1233 ------------------------
1234 status_command <command>
1235 ------------------------
1238 -------------------------------------------------
1240 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
1242 # For dash(1) users who want signal handling to work:
1243 status_command exec ~/.bin/my_status_command
1245 -------------------------------------------------
1249 You can either have i3bar be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
1250 (+dock+ mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (+hide+ mode).
1251 It is also possible to force i3bar to always stay hidden (+invisible+
1252 mode). The modifier key can be configured using the +modifier+ option.
1254 The mode option can be changed during runtime through the +bar mode+ command.
1255 On reload the mode will be reverted to its configured value.
1257 The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
1258 i3bar sends the +SIGSTOP+ and +SIGCONT+ signals to the statusline process to
1261 Invisible mode allows to permanently maximize screen space, as the bar is never
1262 shown. Thus, you can configure i3bar to not disturb you by popping up because
1263 of an urgency hint or because the modifier key is pressed.
1265 In order to control whether i3bar is hidden or shown in hide mode, there exists
1266 the hidden_state option, which has no effect in dock mode or invisible mode. It
1267 indicates the current hidden_state of the bar: (1) The bar acts like in normal
1268 hide mode, it is hidden and is only unhidden in case of urgency hints or by
1269 pressing the modifier key (+hide+ state), or (2) it is drawn on top of the
1270 currently visible workspace (+show+ state).
1272 Like the mode, the hidden_state can also be controlled through i3, this can be
1273 done by using the +bar hidden_state+ command.
1275 The default mode is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
1276 the windows key). The default value for the hidden_state is hide.
1279 -------------------------
1280 mode dock|hide|invisible
1281 hidden_state hide|show
1282 modifier <Modifier>|none
1283 ------------------------
1294 Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see +xmodmap(1)+). You can
1295 also use "none" if you don't want any modifier to trigger this behavior.
1297 === Mouse button commands
1299 Specifies a command to run when a button was pressed on i3bar to override the
1300 default behavior. This is useful, e.g., for disabling the scroll wheel action
1301 or running scripts that implement custom behavior for these buttons.
1303 A button is always named +button<n>+, where 1 to 5 are default buttons as follows and higher
1304 numbers can be special buttons on devices offering more buttons:
1309 Middle mouse button.
1317 Please note that the old +wheel_up_cmd+ and +wheel_down_cmd+ commands are deprecated
1318 and will be removed in a future release. We strongly recommend using the more general
1319 +bindsym+ with +button4+ and +button5+ instead.
1322 ----------------------------
1323 bindsym button<n> <command>
1324 ----------------------------
1327 ---------------------------------------------------------
1329 # disable clicking on workspace buttons
1331 # execute custom script when scrolling downwards
1332 bindsym button5 exec ~/.i3/scripts/custom_wheel_down
1334 ---------------------------------------------------------
1338 Specifies the bar ID for the configured bar instance. If this option is missing,
1339 the ID is set to 'bar-x', where x corresponds to the position of the embedding
1340 bar block in the config file ('bar-0', 'bar-1', ...).
1343 ---------------------
1345 ---------------------
1348 ---------------------
1352 ---------------------
1357 This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.
1359 The default is bottom.
1367 ---------------------
1371 ---------------------
1375 You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
1376 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
1377 options for different outputs by using multiple 'bar' blocks.
1379 To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
1380 directive multiple times.
1384 output primary|<output>
1388 -------------------------------
1389 # big monitor: everything
1391 # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
1394 status_command i3status
1397 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
1400 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
1407 # show bar on the primary monitor and on HDMI2
1411 status_command i3status
1414 -------------------------------
1415 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1416 -------------------------
1417 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1418 -------------------------
1422 i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
1423 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.
1425 You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
1426 you can turn off the functionality entirely.
1428 You can use multiple +tray_output+ directives in your config to specify a list
1429 of outputs on which you want the tray to appear. The first available output in
1430 that list as defined by the order of the directives will be used for the tray
1434 ---------------------------------
1435 tray_output none|primary|<output>
1436 ---------------------------------
1439 -------------------------
1440 # disable system tray
1445 # show tray icons on the primary monitor
1450 # show tray icons on the big monitor
1454 -------------------------
1456 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1457 -------------------------
1458 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1459 -------------------------
1461 Note that when you use multiple bar configuration blocks, either specify
1462 `tray_output primary` in all of them or explicitly specify `tray_output none`
1463 in bars which should not display the tray, otherwise the different instances
1464 might race each other in trying to display tray icons.
1468 The tray is shown on the right-hand side of the bar. By default, a padding of 2
1469 pixels is used for the upper, lower and right-hand side of the tray area and
1470 between the individual icons.
1473 -------------------------
1474 tray_padding <px> [px]
1475 -------------------------
1478 -------------------------
1481 -------------------------
1485 Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <<fonts>>.
1488 ---------------------
1490 ---------------------
1493 --------------------------------------------------------------
1495 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
1496 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
1498 --------------------------------------------------------------
1500 === Custom separator symbol
1502 Specifies a custom symbol to be used for the separator as opposed to the vertical,
1503 one pixel thick separator.
1506 -------------------------
1507 separator_symbol <symbol>
1508 -------------------------
1511 ------------------------
1513 separator_symbol ":|:"
1515 ------------------------
1517 === Workspace buttons
1519 Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
1520 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.
1522 The default is to show workspace buttons.
1525 ------------------------
1526 workspace_buttons yes|no
1527 ------------------------
1530 ------------------------
1532 workspace_buttons no
1534 ------------------------
1536 === Strip workspace numbers
1538 Specifies whether workspace numbers should be displayed within the workspace
1539 buttons. This is useful if you want to have a named workspace that stays in
1540 order on the bar according to its number without displaying the number prefix.
1542 When +strip_workspace_numbers+ is set to +yes+, any workspace that has a name of
1543 the form "[n]:[NAME]" will display only the name. You could use this, for
1544 instance, to display Roman numerals rather than digits by naming your
1545 workspaces to "1:I", "2:II", "3:III", "4:IV", ...
1547 The default is to display the full name within the workspace button.
1550 ------------------------------
1551 strip_workspace_numbers yes|no
1552 ------------------------------
1555 ----------------------------
1557 strip_workspace_numbers yes
1559 ----------------------------
1561 === Binding Mode indicator
1563 Specifies whether the current binding mode indicator should be shown or not.
1564 This is useful if you want to hide the workspace buttons but still be able
1565 to see the current binding mode indicator. See <<binding_modes>> to learn what
1566 modes are and how to use them.
1568 The default is to show the mode indicator.
1571 -----------------------------
1572 binding_mode_indicator yes|no
1573 -----------------------------
1576 -----------------------------
1578 binding_mode_indicator no
1580 -----------------------------
1584 As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
1585 be configured at the moment:
1588 Background color of the bar.
1590 Text color to be used for the statusline.
1592 Text color to be used for the separator.
1593 focused_background::
1594 Background color of the bar on the currently focused monitor output. If
1595 not used, the color will be taken from +background+.
1596 focused_statusline::
1597 Text color to be used for the statusline on the currently focused
1598 monitor output. If not used, the color will be taken from +statusline+.
1600 Text color to be used for the separator on the currently focused
1601 monitor output. If not used, the color will be taken from +separator+.
1603 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1606 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1607 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
1608 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
1609 using multiple monitors.
1610 inactive_workspace::
1611 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1612 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
1613 will be the case for most workspaces.
1615 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1616 contains a window with the urgency hint set.
1618 Border, background and text color for the binding mode indicator. If not used,
1619 the colors will be taken from +urgent_workspace+.
1622 ----------------------------------------
1628 <colorclass> <border> <background> <text>
1630 ----------------------------------------
1632 *Example (default colors)*:
1633 --------------------------------------
1640 focused_workspace #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
1641 active_workspace #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
1642 inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
1643 urgent_workspace #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1644 binding_mode #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1647 --------------------------------------
1651 Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
1652 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
1653 do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:
1656 --------------------------
1657 # execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
1659 --------------------------
1661 [[command_chaining]]
1663 Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
1664 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
1665 the following keybinding:
1668 --------------------------------------------------------
1669 bindsym $mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3
1670 --------------------------------------------------------
1672 [[command_criteria]]
1674 Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command - that is, which containers
1675 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. The criteria
1676 are specified before any command in a pair of square brackets and are separated
1679 When using multiple commands, separate them by using a +,+ (a comma) instead of
1680 a semicolon. Criteria apply only until the next semicolon, so if you use a
1681 semicolon to separate commands, only the first one will be executed for the
1685 ------------------------------------
1686 # if you want to kill all windows which have the class Firefox, use:
1687 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
1689 # same thing, but case-insensitive
1690 bindsym $mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
1692 # kill only the About dialog from Firefox
1693 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox" window_role="About"] kill
1695 # enable floating mode and move container to workspace 4
1696 for_window [class="^evil-app$"] floating enable, move container to workspace 4
1698 # move all floating windows to the scratchpad
1699 bindsym $mod+x [floating] move scratchpad
1700 ------------------------------------
1702 The criteria which are currently implemented are:
1705 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS). Use the
1706 special value +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows having the same window
1707 class as the currently focused window.
1709 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS). Use the
1710 special value +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows having the same window
1711 instance as the currently focused window.
1713 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE). Use the special value
1714 +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows having the same window role as the
1715 currently focused window.
1717 Compare the window type (_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE). Possible values are
1718 +normal+, +dialog+, +utility+, +toolbar+, +splash+, +menu+, +dropdown_menu+,
1719 +popup_menu+, +tooltip+ and +notification+.
1721 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
1723 Compares the X11 window title (\_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
1724 Use the special value +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows having the
1725 same window title as the currently focused window.
1727 Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
1728 Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
1729 (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
1731 Compares the workspace name of the workspace the window belongs to. Use
1732 the special value +\_\_focused__+ to match all windows in the currently
1735 Compares the marks set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>. A
1736 match is made if any of the container's marks matches the specified
1739 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
1740 interface. Handy for scripting. Use the special value +\_\_focused__+
1741 to match only the currently focused window.
1743 Only matches floating windows. This criterion requires no value.
1745 Only matches tiling windows. This criterion requires no value.
1747 The criteria +class+, +instance+, +role+, +title+, +workspace+ and +mark+ are
1748 actually regular expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for
1749 information on how to use them.
1752 === Executing applications (exec)
1754 What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
1755 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
1756 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
1757 searched in your +$PATH+.
1759 See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
1760 and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
1761 strings (as shown in <<exec_quoting>>) if they appear in your command.
1764 --------------------------------
1765 exec [--no-startup-id] <command>
1766 --------------------------------
1769 ------------------------------
1771 bindsym $mod+g exec gimp
1773 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
1774 bindsym $mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt
1775 ------------------------------
1777 The +--no-startup-id+ parameter disables startup-notification support for this
1778 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
1779 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
1780 will change the X11 cursor to +watch+ (a clock) while the application is
1781 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
1782 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
1783 cursor for 60 seconds.
1786 If the command to be executed contains a +;+ (semicolon) and/or a +,+ (comma),
1787 the entire command must be quoted. For example, to have a keybinding for the
1788 shell command +notify-send Hello, i3+, you would add an entry to your
1789 configuration file like this:
1792 ------------------------------
1793 # Execute a command with a comma in it
1794 bindsym $mod+p exec "notify-send Hello, i3"
1795 ------------------------------
1797 If however a command with a comma and/or semicolon itself requires quotes, you
1798 must escape the internal quotation marks with double backslashes, like this:
1801 ------------------------------
1802 # Execute a command with a comma, semicolon and internal quotes
1803 bindsym $mod+p exec "notify-send \\"Hello, i3; from $USER\\""
1804 ------------------------------
1806 === Splitting containers
1808 The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
1809 can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
1810 new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
1811 get placed below the current one (splitv).
1813 If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
1814 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
1815 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window).
1816 The +toggle+ option will toggle the orientation of the split container if it
1817 contains a single window. Otherwise it makes the current window a split
1818 container with opposite orientation compared to the parent container.
1819 Use +layout toggle split+ to change the layout of any split container from
1820 splitv to splith or vice-versa. You can also define a custom sequence of layouts
1821 to cycle through with +layout toggle+, see <<manipulating_layout>>.
1824 --------------------------------
1825 split vertical|horizontal|toggle
1826 --------------------------------
1829 -------------------------------
1830 bindsym $mod+v split vertical
1831 bindsym $mod+h split horizontal
1832 bindsym $mod+t split toggle
1833 -------------------------------
1835 === Manipulating layout
1837 Use +layout toggle split+, +layout stacking+, +layout tabbed+, +layout splitv+
1838 or +layout splith+ to change the current container layout to splith/splitv,
1839 stacking, tabbed layout, splitv or splith, respectively.
1841 Specify up to four layouts after +layout toggle+ to cycle through them. Every
1842 time the command is executed, the layout specified after the currently active
1843 one will be applied. If the currently active layout is not in the list, the
1844 first layout in the list will be activated.
1846 To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen enable+ (or
1847 +fullscreen enable global+ for the global mode), to leave either fullscreen
1848 mode use +fullscreen disable+, and to toggle between these two states use
1849 +fullscreen toggle+ (or +fullscreen toggle global+).
1851 Likewise, to make the current window floating (or tiling again) use +floating
1852 enable+ respectively +floating disable+ (or +floating toggle+):
1855 --------------------------------------------
1856 layout default|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith
1857 layout toggle [split|all]
1858 layout toggle [split|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith] [split|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith]…
1859 --------------------------------------------
1863 bindsym $mod+s layout stacking
1864 bindsym $mod+l layout toggle split
1865 bindsym $mod+w layout tabbed
1867 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
1868 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle
1870 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
1871 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle all
1873 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith:
1874 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle stacking tabbed splith
1876 # Toggle between splitv/tabbed
1877 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle splitv tabbed
1879 # Toggle between last split layout/tabbed/stacking
1880 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle split tabbed stacking
1883 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
1885 # Toggle floating/tiling
1886 bindsym $mod+t floating toggle
1889 [[_focusing_moving_containers]]
1890 === Focusing containers
1892 To change focus, you can use the +focus+ command. The following options are
1895 left|right|up|down::
1896 Sets focus to the nearest container in the given direction.
1898 Sets focus to the parent container of the current container.
1900 The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
1903 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
1905 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
1907 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
1909 Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
1910 corresponding output.
1913 ----------------------------------------------
1914 focus left|right|down|up
1915 focus parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle
1916 focus output left|right|up|down|<output>
1917 ----------------------------------------------
1920 -------------------------------------------------
1921 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right
1922 bindsym $mod+j focus left
1923 bindsym $mod+k focus down
1924 bindsym $mod+l focus up
1925 bindsym $mod+semicolon focus right
1927 # Focus parent container
1928 bindsym $mod+u focus parent
1930 # Focus last floating/tiling container
1931 bindsym $mod+g focus mode_toggle
1933 # Focus the output right to the current one
1934 bindsym $mod+x focus output right
1936 # Focus the big output
1937 bindsym $mod+x focus output HDMI-2
1938 -------------------------------------------------
1940 === Moving containers
1942 Use the +move+ command to move a container.
1945 -----------------------------------------------------
1946 # Moves the container into the given direction.
1947 # The optional pixel argument specifies how far the
1948 # container should be moved if it is floating and
1949 # defaults to 10 pixels.
1950 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
1952 # Moves the container either to a specific location
1953 # or to the center of the screen. If 'absolute' is
1954 # used, it is moved to the center of all outputs.
1955 move [absolute] position <pos_x> [px] <pos_y> [px]
1956 move [absolute] position center
1958 # Moves the container to the current position of the
1959 # mouse cursor. Only affects floating containers.
1961 -----------------------------------------------------
1964 -------------------------------------------------------
1965 # Move container to the left, bottom, top, right
1966 bindsym $mod+j move left
1967 bindsym $mod+k move down
1968 bindsym $mod+l move up
1969 bindsym $mod+semicolon move right
1971 # Move container, but make floating containers
1972 # move more than the default
1973 bindsym $mod+j move left 20 px
1975 # Move floating container to the center of all outputs
1976 bindsym $mod+c move absolute position center
1978 # Move container to the current position of the cursor
1979 bindsym $mod+m move position mouse
1980 -------------------------------------------------------
1982 === Sticky floating windows
1984 If you want a window to stick to the glass, i.e., have it stay on screen even
1985 if you switch to another workspace, you can use the +sticky+ command. For
1986 example, this can be useful for notepads, a media player or a video chat
1989 Note that while any window can be made sticky through this command, it will
1990 only take effect if the window is floating.
1993 ----------------------------
1994 sticky enable|disable|toggle
1995 ----------------------------
1998 ------------------------------------------------------
1999 # make a terminal sticky that was started as a notepad
2000 for_window [instance=notepad] sticky enable
2001 ------------------------------------------------------
2003 === Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces
2005 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
2006 number or name of the workspace. Pass the optional flag
2007 +--no-auto-back-and-forth+ to disable <<back_and_forth>> for this specific call
2010 To move containers to specific workspaces, use +move container to workspace+.
2012 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
2013 +workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
2014 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
2015 combination. To restrict those to the current output, use +workspace
2016 next_on_output+ and +workspace prev_on_output+. Similarly, you can use +move
2017 container to workspace next+, +move container to workspace prev+ to move a
2018 container to the next/previous workspace and +move container to workspace current+
2019 (the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).
2021 +workspace next+ cycles through either numbered or named workspaces. But when it
2022 reaches the last numbered/named workspace, it looks for named workspaces after
2023 exhausting numbered ones and looks for numbered ones after exhausting named ones.
2025 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
2028 Workspace names are parsed as
2029 https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
2033 To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use +workspace
2034 back_and_forth+; likewise, you can move containers to the previously focused
2035 workspace using +move container to workspace back_and_forth+.
2038 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2039 workspace next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output
2040 workspace back_and_forth
2041 workspace [--no-auto-back-and-forth] <name>
2042 workspace [--no-auto-back-and-forth] number <name>
2044 move [--no-auto-back-and-forth] [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
2045 move [--no-auto-back-and-forth] [window|container] [to] workspace number <name>
2046 move [window|container] [to] workspace prev|next|current
2047 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2050 -------------------------
2051 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1
2052 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2
2053 bindsym $mod+3 workspace 3:<span foreground="red">vim</span>
2056 bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
2057 bindsym $mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
2060 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
2061 bindsym $mod+b workspace back_and_forth
2062 bindsym $mod+Shift+b move container to workspace back_and_forth
2064 # move the whole workspace to the next output
2065 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
2067 # move firefox to current workspace
2068 bindsym $mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current
2069 -------------------------
2071 ==== Named workspaces
2073 Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
2074 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:
2077 -------------------------
2078 bindsym $mod+1 workspace mail
2080 -------------------------
2082 If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
2086 -------------------------
2087 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1: mail
2088 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2: www
2090 -------------------------
2092 Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
2093 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
2094 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
2095 will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use +workspace number 1+
2096 to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
2097 it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
2098 dynamically. To combine both commands you can use +workspace number 1: mail+ to
2099 specify a default name if there's currently no workspace starting with a "1".
2101 ==== Renaming workspaces
2103 You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
2104 numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
2105 reflect what’s actually on them. You can also omit the old name to rename
2106 the currently focused workspace. This is handy if you want to use the
2107 rename command with +i3-input+.
2110 ----------------------------------------------------
2111 rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
2112 rename workspace to <new_name>
2113 ----------------------------------------------------
2116 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
2117 i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
2118 i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
2119 i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
2120 i3-msg 'rename workspace to "2: mail"'
2121 bindsym $mod+r exec i3-input -F 'rename workspace to "%s"' -P 'New name: '
2122 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
2124 If you want to rename workspaces on demand while keeping the navigation stable,
2125 you can use a setup like this:
2128 -------------------------
2129 bindsym $mod+1 workspace number "1: www"
2130 bindsym $mod+2 workspace number "2: mail"
2132 -------------------------
2134 If a workspace does not exist, the command +workspace number "1: mail"+ will
2135 create workspace "1: mail".
2137 If a workspace with number 1 does already exist, the command will switch to this
2138 workspace and ignore the text part. So even when the workspace has been renamed
2139 to "1: web", the above command will still switch to it.
2141 === Moving workspaces to a different screen
2143 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
2147 [[_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs]]
2148 === Moving containers/workspaces to RandR outputs
2150 To move a container to another RandR output (addressed by names like +LVDS1+ or
2151 +VGA1+) or to a RandR output identified by a specific direction (like +left+,
2152 +right+, +up+ or +down+), there are two commands:
2155 ------------------------------------------------------------
2156 move container to output left|right|down|up|current|<output>
2157 move workspace to output left|right|down|up|current|<output>
2158 ------------------------------------------------------------
2161 --------------------------------------------------------
2162 # Move the current workspace to the next output
2163 # (effectively toggles when you only have two outputs)
2164 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
2166 # Put this window on the presentation output.
2167 bindsym $mod+x move container to output VGA1
2168 --------------------------------------------------------
2170 === Moving containers/windows to marks
2172 To move a container to another container with a specific mark (see <<vim_like_marks>>),
2173 you can use the following command.
2175 The window will be moved right after the marked container in the tree, i.e., it ends up
2176 in the same position as if you had opened a new window when the marked container was
2177 focused. If the mark is on a split container, the window will appear as a new child
2178 after the currently focused child within that container.
2181 ------------------------------------
2182 move window|container to mark <mark>
2183 ------------------------------------
2186 --------------------------------------------------------
2187 for_window [instance="tabme"] move window to mark target
2188 --------------------------------------------------------
2191 === Resizing containers/windows
2193 If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
2197 -------------------------------------------------------
2198 resize grow|shrink <direction> [<px> px [or <ppt> ppt]]
2199 resize set <width> [px] <height> [px]
2200 -------------------------------------------------------
2202 Direction can either be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. Or you can be
2203 less specific and use +width+ or +height+, in which case i3 will take/give
2204 space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
2205 how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or shrunk (the default
2206 is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
2207 many percentage points a *tiling container* should be grown or shrunk (the
2208 default is 10 percentage points). Note that +resize set+ will only work for
2209 floating containers.
2211 It is recommended to define bindings for resizing in a dedicated binding mode.
2212 See <<binding_modes>> and the example in the i3
2213 https://github.com/i3/i3/blob/next/etc/config.keycodes[default config] for more
2217 ------------------------------------------------
2218 for_window [class="urxvt"] resize set 640 480
2219 ------------------------------------------------
2221 === Jumping to specific windows
2223 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
2224 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
2225 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
2226 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mail client,
2227 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
2228 with criteria for that.
2231 ----------------------------------------------------
2232 [class="class"] focus
2233 [title="title"] focus
2234 ----------------------------------------------------
2237 ------------------------------------------------
2238 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
2239 bindsym $mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
2240 ------------------------------------------------
2243 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
2245 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
2246 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
2247 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
2248 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You can unmark the label in the same
2249 way, using the unmark command. If you don't specify a label, unmark removes all
2250 marks. You do not need to ensure that your windows have unique classes or
2251 titles, and you do not need to change your configuration file.
2253 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
2254 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
2255 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
2256 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
2258 The additional +--toggle+ option will remove the mark if the window already has
2259 this mark or add it otherwise. Note that you may need to use this in
2260 combination with +--add+ (see below) as any other marks will otherwise be
2263 By default, a window can only have one mark. You can use the +--add+ flag to
2264 put more than one mark on a window.
2266 Refer to <<show_marks>> if you don't want marks to be shown in the window decoration.
2269 ----------------------------------------------
2270 mark [--add|--replace] [--toggle] <identifier>
2271 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
2273 ----------------------------------------------
2275 *Example (in a terminal)*:
2276 ---------------------------------------------------------
2277 # marks the focused container
2280 # focus the container with the mark "irssi"
2281 '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
2283 # remove the mark "irssi" from whichever container has it
2286 # remove all marks on all firefox windows
2287 [class="(?i)firefox"] unmark
2288 ---------------------------------------------------------
2290 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2291 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
2293 ---------------------------------------
2294 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
2295 bindsym $mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
2297 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
2298 bindsym $mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
2299 ---------------------------------------
2301 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
2302 separate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
2303 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2306 === Window title format
2308 By default, i3 will simply print the X11 window title. Using +title_format+,
2309 this can be customized by setting the format to the desired output. This
2311 https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
2312 and the following placeholders which will be replaced:
2315 For normal windows, this is the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME
2316 as fallback). When used on containers without a window (e.g., a split
2317 container inside a tabbed/stacked layout), this will be the tree
2318 representation of the container (e.g., "H[xterm xterm]").
2320 The X11 window class (second part of WM_CLASS). This corresponds to the
2321 +class+ criterion, see <<command_criteria>>.
2323 The X11 window instance (first part of WM_CLASS). This corresponds to the
2324 +instance+ criterion, see <<command_criteria>>.
2326 Using the <<for_window>> directive, you can set the title format for any window
2327 based on <<command_criteria>>.
2330 ---------------------
2331 title_format <format>
2332 ---------------------
2335 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2336 # give the focused window a prefix
2337 bindsym $mod+p title_format "Important | %title"
2339 # print all window titles bold
2340 for_window [class=".*"] title_format "<b>%title</b>"
2342 # print window titles of firefox windows red
2343 for_window [class="(?i)firefox"] title_format "<span foreground='red'>%title</span>"
2344 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2346 === Changing border style
2348 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
2349 border (including window title), +border pixel 1+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
2350 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
2352 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
2354 Note that "pixel" refers to logical pixel. On HiDPI displays, a logical pixel
2355 may be represented by multiple physical pixels, so +pixel 1+ might not
2356 necessarily translate into a single pixel row wide border.
2359 -----------------------------------------------
2360 border normal|pixel [<n>]
2363 # legacy syntax, equivalent to "border pixel 1"
2365 -----------------------------------------------
2368 ----------------------------------------------
2369 # use window title, but no border
2370 bindsym $mod+t border normal 0
2371 # use no window title and a thick border
2372 bindsym $mod+y border pixel 3
2373 # use neither window title nor border
2374 bindsym $mod+u border none
2375 ----------------------------------------------
2378 === Enabling shared memory logging
2380 As described in http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html, i3 can log to a shared
2381 memory buffer, which you can dump using +i3-dump-log+. The +shmlog+ command
2382 allows you to enable or disable the shared memory logging at runtime.
2384 Note that when using +shmlog <size_in_bytes>+, the current log will be
2385 discarded and a new one will be started.
2388 ------------------------------
2389 shmlog <size_in_bytes>
2390 shmlog on|off|toggle
2391 ------------------------------
2395 # Enable/disable logging
2396 bindsym $mod+x shmlog toggle
2398 # or, from a terminal:
2399 # increase the shared memory log buffer to 50 MiB
2400 i3-msg shmlog $((50*1024*1024))
2403 === Enabling debug logging
2405 The +debuglog+ command allows you to enable or disable debug logging at
2406 runtime. Debug logging is much more verbose than non-debug logging. This
2407 command does not activate shared memory logging (shmlog), and as such is most
2408 likely useful in combination with the above-described <<shmlog>> command.
2411 ----------------------
2412 debuglog on|off|toggle
2413 ----------------------
2416 ------------------------
2417 # Enable/disable logging
2418 bindsym $mod+x debuglog toggle
2419 ------------------------
2421 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
2423 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
2424 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
2425 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
2426 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
2427 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
2430 ----------------------------
2431 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
2432 bindsym $mod+Shift+w reload
2433 bindsym $mod+Shift+e exit
2434 ----------------------------
2438 There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. +move
2439 scratchpad+ will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
2440 invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
2441 Instead, when using +scratchpad show+, the window will be shown again, as a
2442 floating window, centered on your current workspace (using +scratchpad show+ on
2443 a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
2444 keybinding to toggle). Note that this is just a normal floating window, so if
2445 you want to "remove it from scratchpad", you can simple make it tiling again
2446 (+floating toggle+).
2448 As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
2449 editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
2450 running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
2451 player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?
2461 ------------------------------------------------
2462 # Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
2463 bindsym $mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad
2465 # Show the first scratchpad window
2466 bindsym $mod+minus scratchpad show
2468 # Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
2469 bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show
2470 ------------------------------------------------
2474 There is a no operation command +nop+ which allows you to override default
2475 behavior. This can be useful for, e.g., disabling a focus change on clicks with
2476 the middle mouse button.
2478 The optional +comment+ argument is ignored, but will be printed to the log file
2479 for debugging purposes.
2487 ----------------------------------------------
2488 # Disable focus change for clicks on titlebars
2489 # with the middle mouse button
2491 ----------------------------------------------
2495 There are two options in the configuration of each i3bar instance that can be
2496 changed during runtime by invoking a command through i3. The commands +bar
2497 hidden_state+ and +bar mode+ allow setting the current hidden_state
2498 respectively mode option of each bar. It is also possible to toggle between
2499 hide state and show state as well as between dock mode and hide mode. Each
2500 i3bar instance can be controlled individually by specifying a bar_id, if none
2501 is given, the command is executed for all bar instances.
2505 bar hidden_state hide|show|toggle [<bar_id>]
2507 bar mode dock|hide|invisible|toggle [<bar_id>]
2511 ------------------------------------------------
2512 # Toggle between hide state and show state
2513 bindsym $mod+m bar hidden_state toggle
2515 # Toggle between dock mode and hide mode
2516 bindsym $mod+n bar mode toggle
2518 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to switch to hide mode
2519 bindsym $mod+b bar mode hide bar-1
2521 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to always stay hidden
2522 bindsym $mod+Shift+b bar mode invisible bar-1
2523 ------------------------------------------------
2526 == Multiple monitors
2528 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
2529 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
2530 handle multiple monitors.
2532 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
2533 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
2535 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
2536 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
2537 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
2538 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
2539 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
2540 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
2541 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
2543 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
2544 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
2545 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
2546 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
2547 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
2548 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
2549 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
2550 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
2552 === Configuring your monitors
2554 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
2555 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
2556 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
2557 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
2558 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2560 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
2561 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
2562 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2563 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2564 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2566 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2567 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2571 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2573 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
2574 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
2575 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
2576 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
2578 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
2579 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
2580 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
2582 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
2583 -------------------------------------------
2584 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
2585 -------------------------------------------
2586 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
2587 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
2588 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
2589 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2591 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
2592 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
2593 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
2596 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
2598 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2599 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
2601 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2602 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2603 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2605 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2606 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2610 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2611 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
2612 only what you can see in xrandr.
2614 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
2616 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
2618 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
2619 have more than one monitor:
2621 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
2622 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
2623 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
2624 <<workspace_screen>>.
2625 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
2626 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
2627 <<assign_workspace>>.
2628 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
2629 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
2630 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
2631 4. For information on how to move existing workspaces between monitors,
2632 see <<move_to_outputs>>.
2634 == i3 and the rest of your software world
2636 === Displaying a status line
2638 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
2639 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
2640 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
2642 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
2643 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
2644 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
2645 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
2646 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
2647 i3bar. See <<status_command>> for how to display i3status in i3bar.
2649 Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
2650 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
2651 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
2652 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
2653 see <<i3bar_position>>.
2656 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
2658 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
2659 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
2660 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
2661 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
2664 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
2665 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
2666 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
2667 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
2668 -----------------------------------------------------
2669 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
2670 -----------------------------------------------------
2671 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
2672 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
2673 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
2675 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
2676 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
2677 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
2678 -----------------------------------------------------
2679 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
2680 -----------------------------------------------------
2681 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
2682 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
2684 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
2685 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
2686 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).