3 Michael Stapelberg <michael@i3wm.org>
6 This document contains all the information you need to configure and use the i3
7 window manager. If it does not, please check http://faq.i3wm.org/ first, then
8 contact us on IRC (preferred) or post your question(s) on the mailing list.
10 == Default keybindings
12 For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here is an overview of the default
13 keybindings (click to see the full size image):
15 *Keys to use with $mod (Alt):*
17 image:keyboard-layer1.png["Keys to use with $mod (Alt)",width=600,link="keyboard-layer1.png"]
19 *Keys to use with Shift+$mod:*
21 image:keyboard-layer2.png["Keys to use with Shift+$mod",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]
23 The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
26 Note that when starting i3 without a config file, i3-config-wizard will offer
27 you to create a config file in which the key positions (!) match what you see
28 in the image above, regardless of the keyboard layout you are using. If you
29 prefer to use a config file where the key letters match what you are seeing
30 above, just decline i3-config-wizard’s offer and base your config on
35 Throughout this guide, the keyword +$mod+ will be used to refer to the
36 configured modifier. This is the Alt key (Mod1) by default, with the Windows
37 key (Mod4) being a popular alternative.
39 === Opening terminals and moving around
41 One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
42 for this is $mod+Enter, that is Alt+Enter in the default configuration. By
43 pressing $mod+Enter, a new terminal will be opened. It will fill the whole
44 space available on your screen.
46 image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]
48 If you now open another terminal, i3 will place it next to the current one,
49 splitting the screen size in half. Depending on your monitor, i3 will put the
50 created window beside the existing window (on wide displays) or below the
51 existing window (rotated displays).
53 image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]
55 To move the focus between the two terminals, you can use the direction keys
56 which you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used
57 for these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for
58 compatibility with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +$mod+J+ is left, +$mod+K+
59 is down, +$mod+L+ is up and `$mod+;` is right. So, to switch between the
60 terminals, use +$mod+K+ or +$mod+L+. Of course, you can also use the arrow keys.
62 At the moment, your workspace is split (it contains two terminals) in a
63 specific direction (horizontal by default). Every window can be split
64 horizontally or vertically again, just like the workspace. The terminology is
65 "window" for a container that actually contains an X11 window (like a terminal
66 or browser) and "split container" for containers that consist of one or more
69 TODO: picture of the tree
71 To split a window vertically, press +$mod+v+ before you create the new window.
72 To split it horizontally, press +$mod+h+.
74 === Changing the container layout
76 A split container can have one of the following layouts:
79 Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
80 container. splith distributes the windows horizontally (windows are right next
81 to each other), splitv distributes them vertically (windows are on top of each
84 Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
85 windows at the top of the container.
87 The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
88 a single line which is vertically split.
90 To switch modes, press +$mod+e+ for splith/splitv (it toggles), +$mod+s+ for
91 stacking and +$mod+w+ for tabbed.
93 image:modes.png[Container modes]
95 === Toggling fullscreen mode for a window
97 To display a window in fullscreen mode or to go out of fullscreen mode again,
100 There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will span all
101 available outputs (the command is +fullscreen toggle global+).
103 === Opening other applications
105 Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
106 +dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +$mod+d+ by default. Just type the name
107 (or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The corresponding
108 application has to be in your +$PATH+ for this to work.
110 Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
111 create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
112 <<configuring>> for details.
116 If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
117 provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
118 can press +$mod+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
119 the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
120 any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
121 the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
122 depends on the application.
126 Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
127 the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
128 another workspace, press +$mod+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
129 you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.
131 A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
132 applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one, and the ones with which you
133 work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.
135 If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
136 startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
137 created it on. When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
138 focus to that screen.
140 === Moving windows to workspaces
142 To move a window to another workspace, simply press +$mod+Shift+num+ where
143 +num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
144 Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
145 it does not yet exist.
149 The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
150 and move it to the wanted size.
152 See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
153 columns/rows with your keyboard.
155 === Restarting i3 inplace
157 To restart i3 in place (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
158 to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +$mod+Shift+r+.
162 To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +$mod+Shift+e+.
163 By default, a dialog will ask you to confirm if you really want to quit.
167 Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of
168 a window are not managed automatically by i3, but manually by
169 you. Using this mode violates the tiling paradigm but can be useful
170 for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog windows, or toolbar
171 windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the appropriate
172 hint and are opened in floating mode by default.
174 You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing +$mod+Shift+Space+. By
175 dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
176 around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
177 can also do that by using the <<floating_modifier>>. Another way to resize
178 floating windows using the mouse is to right-click on the titlebar and drag.
180 For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see <<resizingconfig>>.
182 Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.
186 i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
187 windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
188 the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
189 finally the windows themselves. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
190 (of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
191 out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.
193 === The tree consists of Containers
195 The building blocks of our tree are so called +Containers+. A +Container+ can
196 host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
197 like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more +Containers+. A
198 simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
199 single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
202 image::tree-layout2.png["layout2",float="right"]
203 image::tree-shot4.png["shot4",title="Two terminals on standard workspace"]
205 === Orientation and Split Containers
209 It is only natural to use so-called +Split Containers+ in order to build a
210 layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every +Container+ has an
211 orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified) and the orientation depends
212 on the layout the container is in (vertical for splitv and stacking, horizontal
213 for splith and tabbed). So, in our example with the workspace, the default
214 layout of the workspace +Container+ is splith (most monitors are widescreen
215 nowadays). If you change the layout to splitv (+$mod+v+ in the default config)
216 and *then* open two terminals, i3 will configure your windows like this:
218 image::tree-shot2.png["shot2",title="Vertical Workspace Orientation"]
220 An interesting new feature of i3 since version 4 is the ability to split anything:
221 Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with splith layout, that is
222 horizontal orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open
223 another terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new
224 terminal window, it would show up to the right due to the splith layout.
225 Instead, press +$mod+v+ to split the container with the splitv layout (to
226 open a +Horizontal Split Container+, use +$mod+h+). Now you can open a new
227 terminal and it will open below the current one:
229 image::tree-layout1.png["Layout",float="right"]
230 image::tree-shot1.png["shot",title="Vertical Split Container"]
234 You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
239 Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
240 vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
241 you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.
243 So, how can you open a new terminal window to the *right* of the current one?
244 The solution is to use +focus parent+, which will focus the +Parent Container+ of
245 the current +Container+. In this case, you would focus the +Vertical Split
246 Container+ which is *inside* the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
247 windows will be opened to the right of the +Vertical Split Container+:
249 image::tree-shot3.png["shot3",title="Focus parent, then open new terminal"]
251 === Implicit containers
253 In some cases, i3 needs to implicitly create a container to fulfill your
256 One example is the following scenario: You start i3 with a single monitor and a
257 single workspace on which you open three terminal windows. All these terminal
258 windows are directly attached to one node inside i3’s layout tree, the
259 workspace node. By default, the workspace node’s orientation is +horizontal+.
261 Now you move one of these terminals down (+$mod+Shift+k+ by default). The
262 workspace node’s orientation will be changed to +vertical+. The terminal window
263 you moved down is directly attached to the workspace and appears on the bottom
264 of the screen. A new (horizontal) container was created to accommodate the
265 other two terminal windows. You will notice this when switching to tabbed mode
266 (for example). You would end up having one tab with a representation of the split
267 container (e.g., "H[urxvt firefox]") and the other one being the terminal window
273 This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependent on your
274 ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.
276 While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
277 quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
280 For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
281 you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
282 automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
283 can bind your keys to do useful things.
285 To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
286 (or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
289 On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
290 file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
291 wizard to use either Alt (Mod1) or Windows (Mod4) as modifier in the config
292 file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
293 keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command +i3-config-wizard+.
294 Please note that you must not have +~/.i3/config+, otherwise the wizard will
299 It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
300 properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
301 a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:
312 i3 has support for both X core fonts and FreeType fonts (through Pango) to
313 render window titles.
315 To generate an X core font description, you can use +xfontsel(1)+. To see
316 special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the
319 A FreeType font description is composed by a font family, a style, a weight,
320 a variant, a stretch and a size.
321 FreeType fonts support right-to-left rendering and contain often more
322 Unicode glyphs than X core fonts.
324 If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
325 and fall back to a working font.
328 ------------------------------
329 font <X core font description>
330 font pango:<family list> [<style options>] <size>
331 ------------------------------
334 --------------------------------------------------------------
335 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
336 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
337 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono, Terminus Bold Semi-Condensed 11
338 font pango:Terminus 11px
339 --------------------------------------------------------------
343 === Keyboard bindings
345 A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
346 specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
347 also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).
349 * A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
350 or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
351 are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
352 mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+. To interactively enter a key and
353 see what keysym it is configured to, use +xev+.
355 * Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
356 hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
357 switch to a different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).
359 My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
360 your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
361 If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
364 Some tools (such as +import+ or +xdotool+) might be unable to run upon a
365 KeyPress event, because the keyboard/pointer is still grabbed. For these
366 situations, the +--release+ flag can be used, which will execute the command
367 after the keys have been released.
370 ----------------------------------
371 bindsym [--release] [<Group>+][<Modifiers>+]<keysym> command
372 bindcode [--release] [<Group>+][<Modifiers>+]<keycode> command
373 ----------------------------------
376 --------------------------------
378 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
381 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
383 # Notebook-specific hotkeys
384 bindcode 214 exec --no-startup-id /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
386 # Simulate ctrl+v upon pressing $mod+x
387 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v
389 # Take a screenshot upon pressing $mod+x (select an area)
390 bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id import /tmp/latest-screenshot.png
391 --------------------------------
395 Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
396 Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+
398 Group1, Group2, Group3, Group4::
399 When using multiple keyboard layouts (e.g. with `setxkbmap -layout us,ru`), you
400 can specify in which XKB group (also called “layout”) a keybinding should be
401 active. By default, keybindings are translated in Group1 and are active in all
402 groups. If you want to override keybindings in one of your layouts, specify the
403 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] [<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.
428 --------------------------------
429 # The middle button over a titlebar kills the window
430 bindsym --release button2 kill
432 # The middle button and a modifer over any part of the window kills the window
433 bindsym --whole-window $mod+button2 kill
435 # The right button toggles floating
436 bindsym button3 floating toggle
437 bindsym $mod+button3 floating toggle
439 # The side buttons move the window around
440 bindsym button9 move left
441 bindsym button8 move right
442 --------------------------------
444 [[floating_modifier]]
446 === The floating modifier
448 To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
449 or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
450 click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
451 use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
452 you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
453 it to the position you want.
455 When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
456 pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
457 you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
458 ratio will be preserved).
461 --------------------------------
462 floating_modifier <Modifier>
463 --------------------------------
466 --------------------------------
467 floating_modifier Mod1
468 --------------------------------
470 === Constraining floating window size
472 The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
473 either dimension of +floating_maximum_size+ is specified as -1, that dimension
474 will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
475 +floating_maximum_size+ is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
476 value to constrain the maximum size. +floating_minimum_size+ is treated in a
477 manner analogous to +floating_maximum_size+.
480 ----------------------------------------
481 floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
482 floating_maximum_size <width> x <height>
483 ----------------------------------------
486 --------------------------------------
487 floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
488 floating_maximum_size -1 x -1
489 --------------------------------------
491 === Orientation for new workspaces
493 New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
494 (anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
495 (anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.
497 With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
501 --------------------------------------------
502 default_orientation horizontal|vertical|auto
503 --------------------------------------------
506 ----------------------------
507 default_orientation vertical
508 ----------------------------
510 === Layout mode for new containers
512 This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
516 ---------------------------------------------
517 workspace_layout default|stacking|tabbed
518 ---------------------------------------------
521 ---------------------
522 workspace_layout tabbed
523 ---------------------
525 === Border style for new windows
527 This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
528 +normal+. Note that new_float applies only to windows which are starting out as
529 floating windows, e.g., dialog windows, but not windows that are floated later on.
532 ---------------------------------------------
533 new_window normal|none|pixel
534 new_window normal|pixel <px>
535 new_float normal|none|pixel
536 new_float normal|pixel <px>
537 ---------------------------------------------
540 ---------------------
542 ---------------------
544 The "normal" and "pixel" border styles support an optional border width in
548 ---------------------
549 # The same as new_window none
554 ---------------------
557 === Hiding vertical borders
559 You can hide vertical borders adjacent to the screen edges using
560 +hide_edge_borders+. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
561 to waste even two pixels in displayspace. Default is none.
564 -----------------------------------------------
565 hide_edge_borders none|vertical|horizontal|both
566 -----------------------------------------------
569 ----------------------
570 hide_edge_borders vertical
571 ----------------------
573 === Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)
577 With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
578 encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
579 change their border style, for example.
582 -------------------------------
583 for_window <criteria> <command>
584 -------------------------------
587 ------------------------------------------------
588 # enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
589 for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable
591 # Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
592 for_window [class="urxvt"] border pixel 1
594 # A less useful, but rather funny example:
595 # makes the window floating as soon as I change
596 # directory to ~/work
597 for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
598 ------------------------------------------------
600 The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.
602 === Don't focus window upon opening
606 When a new window appears, it will be focused. The +no_focus+ directive allows preventing
607 this from happening and can be used in combination with <<command_criteria>>.
609 Note that this does not apply to all cases, e.g., when feeding data into a running application
610 causing it to request being focused. To configure the behavior in such cases, refer to
611 <<focus_on_window_activation>>.
619 -------------------------------
620 no_focus [window_role="pop-up"]
621 -------------------------------
625 As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
626 to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
627 yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
628 variables can be handy.
636 ------------------------
638 bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
639 ------------------------
641 Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. Variables expansion
642 is not recursive so it is not possible to define a variable with a value
643 containing another variable. There is no fancy handling and there are
644 absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more dynamic configuration
645 you should create a little script which generates a configuration file and run
646 it before starting i3 (for example in your +~/.xsession+ file).
648 === Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
652 To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
653 can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
654 see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
655 (and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
656 because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
657 setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
658 starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
659 title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
660 window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
661 to match on 'Firefox' in this case.
663 Assignments are processed by i3 in the order in which they appear in the config
664 file. The first one which matches the window wins and later assignments are not
668 ------------------------------------------------------------
669 assign <criteria> [→] [workspace] <workspace>
670 ------------------------------------------------------------
673 ----------------------
674 # Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
675 assign [class="URxvt"] 2
677 # Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
678 assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2
680 # Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
681 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2
683 # Assignment to a named workspace
684 assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work
686 # Start urxvt -name irssi
687 assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
688 ----------------------
690 Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
691 use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.
693 To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
694 window, you will see the following output:
697 -----------------------------------
698 WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
699 -----------------------------------
701 The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
702 second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).
704 Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
705 logfile first (see http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
706 details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
707 title when starting up.
709 Note that if you want to start an application just once on a specific
710 workspace, but you don’t want to assign all instances of it permanently, you
711 can make use of i3’s startup-notification support (see <<exec>>) in your config
712 file in the following way:
714 *Start iceweasel on workspace 3 (once)*:
715 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
716 # Start iceweasel on workspace 3, then switch back to workspace 1
717 # (Being a command-line utility, i3-msg does not support startup notifications,
718 # hence the exec --no-startup-id.)
719 # (Starting iceweasel with i3’s exec command is important in order to make i3
720 # create a startup notification context, without which the iceweasel window(s)
721 # cannot be matched onto the workspace on which the command was started.)
722 exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 3; exec iceweasel; workspace 1'
723 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
725 === Automatically starting applications on i3 startup
727 By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
728 which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
729 commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
730 also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
731 keyword. These commands will be run in order.
733 See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
734 and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
735 strings if they appear in your command.
738 ---------------------------------------
739 exec [--no-startup-id] <command>
740 exec_always [--no-startup-id] <command>
741 ---------------------------------------
744 --------------------------------
746 exec_always ~/my_script.sh
748 # Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
749 exec --no-startup-id urxvt
750 --------------------------------
752 The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <<exec>>.
756 === Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
758 If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
759 workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
760 will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
761 or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
762 the second screen and so on).
765 -------------------------------------
766 workspace <workspace> output <output>
767 -------------------------------------
769 The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
770 laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
771 available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.
773 If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:
776 ---------------------------
777 workspace 1 output LVDS1
778 workspace 5 output VGA1
779 workspace "2: vim" output VGA1
780 ---------------------------
784 You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.
787 ------------------------------------------------------
788 <colorclass> <border> <background> <text> <indicator>
789 ------------------------------------------------------
791 Where colorclass can be one of:
794 A client which currently has the focus.
795 client.focused_inactive::
796 A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
797 the focus at the moment.
799 A client which is not the focused one of its container.
801 A client which has its urgency hint activated.
803 Background and text color are used to draw placeholder window contents
804 (when restoring layouts). Border and indicator are ignored.
806 Background color which will be used to paint the background of the
807 client window on top of which the client will be rendered. Only clients
808 which do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color. Note
809 that this colorclass only takes a single color.
811 Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:
813 *Examples (default colors)*:
814 ---------------------------------------------------------
815 # class border backgr. text indicator
816 client.focused #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff #2e9ef4
817 client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff #484e50
818 client.unfocused #333333 #222222 #888888 #292d2e
819 client.urgent #2f343a #900000 #ffffff #900000
820 client.placeholder #000000 #0c0c0c #ffffff #000000
822 client.background #ffffff
823 ---------------------------------------------------------
825 Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
826 background color, and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
829 The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
830 For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
831 color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
832 single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
833 from single windows outside of a split container.
835 === Interprocess communication
837 i3 uses Unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
838 programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
839 (to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.
841 The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
842 +/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username, +%p+ is
843 the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
844 filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).
846 You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
847 by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
848 does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
849 recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
850 user can create that directory.
853 ----------------------------
854 ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock
855 ----------------------------
857 You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
860 === Focus follows mouse
862 By default, window focus follows your mouse movements. However, if you have a
863 setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad on your laptop
864 which you do not want to disable completely), you might want to disable 'focus
865 follows mouse' and control focus only by using your keyboard. The mouse will
866 still be useful inside the currently active window (for example to click on
867 links in your browser window).
870 --------------------------
871 focus_follows_mouse yes|no
872 --------------------------
875 ----------------------
876 focus_follows_mouse no
877 ----------------------
881 By default, when switching focus to a window on a different output (e.g.
882 focusing a window on workspace 3 on output VGA-1, coming from workspace 2 on
883 LVDS-1), the mouse cursor is warped to the center of that window.
885 With the +mouse_warping+ option, you can control when the mouse cursor should
886 be warped. +none+ disables warping entirely, whereas +output+ is the default
887 behavior described above.
890 -------------------------
891 mouse_warping output|none
892 -------------------------
899 === Popups during fullscreen mode
901 When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
902 (take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
903 that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
904 There are three things which are possible to do in this situation:
906 1. Display the popup if it belongs to the fullscreen application only. This is
907 the default and should be reasonable behavior for most users.
908 2. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
909 in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
910 you go out of fullscreen).
911 3. Leave fullscreen mode.
914 -----------------------------------------------------
915 popup_during_fullscreen smart|ignore|leave_fullscreen
916 -----------------------------------------------------
919 ------------------------------
920 popup_during_fullscreen smart
921 ------------------------------
925 When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
926 focused when you use +focus down+ on the last container -- the focus wraps. If
927 however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
928 be set on that container. This is the default behavior so you can navigate to
929 all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.
931 If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
932 parent+ to switch to different containers, you can use the
933 +force_focus_wrapping+ configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
937 ---------------------------
938 force_focus_wrapping yes|no
939 ---------------------------
942 ------------------------
943 force_focus_wrapping yes
944 ------------------------
948 As explained in-depth in <http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html>, some X11
949 video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
950 Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
951 inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
952 reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
955 For people who cannot modify their +~/.xsession+ to add the
956 +--force-xinerama+ commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:
959 ---------------------
960 force_xinerama yes|no
961 ---------------------
968 Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like +HDMI1+) when using
969 Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: +xinerama-0+, +xinerama-1+, …
971 === Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace
973 This configuration directive enables automatic +workspace back_and_forth+ (see
974 <<back_and_forth>>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.
976 For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
977 mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
978 came from now, you can just press $mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".
981 ------------------------------------
982 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes|no
983 ------------------------------------
986 ---------------------------------
987 workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes
988 ---------------------------------
990 === Delaying urgency hint reset on workspace change
992 If an application on another workspace sets an urgency hint, switching to this
993 workspace may lead to immediate focus of the application, which also means the
994 window decoration color would be immediately reset to +client.focused+. This
995 may make it unnecessarily hard to tell which window originally raised the
998 In order to prevent this, you can tell i3 to delay resetting the urgency state
999 by a certain time using the +force_display_urgency_hint+ directive. Setting the
1000 value to 0 disables this feature.
1002 The default is 500ms.
1005 ---------------------------------------
1006 force_display_urgency_hint <timeout> ms
1007 ---------------------------------------
1010 ---------------------------------
1011 force_display_urgency_hint 500 ms
1012 ---------------------------------
1014 === Delaying exiting on zero displays
1016 Outputs may disappear momentarily and come back later. For example,
1017 using a docking station that does not announce the undock (e.g. ACPI Undock
1018 event triggered through manually pushing a button before actually ejecting
1019 the notebook). During the removal of the notebook from the docking station,
1020 all outputs disappear momentarily.
1022 To prevent i3 from exiting when no output is available momentarily, you can
1023 tell i3 to delay a certain time first and check available outputs again using
1024 the +delay_exit_on_zero_displays+ directive. Setting the value to 0 disables
1027 The default is 500ms.
1030 ----------------------------------------
1031 delay_exit_on_zero_displays <timeout> ms
1032 ----------------------------------------
1035 ----------------------------------
1036 delay_exit_on_zero_displays 500 ms
1037 ----------------------------------
1039 === Focus on window activation
1041 [[focus_on_window_activation]]
1043 If a window is activated, e.g., via +google-chrome www.google.com+, it may request
1044 to take focus. Since this may not preferable, different reactions can be configured.
1046 Note that this may not affect windows that are being opened. To prevent new windows
1047 from being focused, see <<no_focus>>.
1050 --------------------------------------------------
1051 focus_on_window_activation smart|urgent|focus|none
1052 --------------------------------------------------
1054 The different modes will act as follows:
1057 This is the default behavior. If the window requesting focus is on an active
1058 workspace, it will receive the focus. Otherwise, the urgency hint will be set.
1060 The window will always be marked urgent, but the focus will not be stolen.
1062 The window will always be focused and not be marked urgent.
1064 The window will neither be focused, nor be marked urgent.
1066 === Drawing marks on window decoration
1068 If activated, marks on windows are drawn in their window decoration. However,
1069 any mark starting with an underscore in its name (+_+) will not be drawn even if
1070 this option is activated.
1072 The default for this option is +yes+.
1084 [[line_continuation]]
1086 === Line continuation
1088 Config files support line continuation, meaning when you end a line in a
1089 backslash character (`\`), the line-break will be ignored by the parser. This
1090 feature can be used to create more readable configuration files.
1098 == Configuring i3bar
1100 The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
1101 i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
1104 1. It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
1105 you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
1106 just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
1107 2. It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
1108 While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
1109 each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
1110 3. It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
1111 don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.
1113 That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
1114 because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
1115 are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
1116 sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
1117 configuration infrastructure in place.
1119 Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a +bar+ block. You can have
1120 multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):
1123 ---------------------------
1125 status_command i3status
1127 ---------------------------
1131 By default i3 will just pass +i3bar+ and let your shell handle the execution,
1132 searching your +$PATH+ for a correct version.
1133 If you have a different +i3bar+ somewhere or the binary is not in your +$PATH+ you can
1134 tell i3 what to execute.
1136 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1137 have to have correct quoting etc.
1140 -----------------------
1141 i3bar_command <command>
1142 -----------------------
1145 -------------------------------------------------
1147 i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
1149 -------------------------------------------------
1152 === Statusline command
1154 i3bar can run a program and display every line of its +stdout+ output on the
1155 right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
1156 your current IP address, battery status or date/time.
1158 The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
1159 have to have correct quoting etc. Note that for signal handling, depending on
1160 your shell (users of dash(1) are known to be affected), you have to use the
1161 shell’s exec command so that signals are passed to your program, not to the
1165 ------------------------
1166 status_command <command>
1167 ------------------------
1170 -------------------------------------------------
1172 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
1174 # For dash(1) users who want signal handling to work:
1175 status_command exec ~/.bin/my_status_command
1177 -------------------------------------------------
1181 You can either have i3bar be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
1182 (+dock+ mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (+hide+ mode).
1183 It is also possible to force i3bar to always stay hidden (+invisible+
1184 mode). The modifier key can be configured using the +modifier+ option.
1186 The mode option can be changed during runtime through the +bar mode+ command.
1187 On reload the mode will be reverted to its configured value.
1189 The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
1190 i3bar sends the +SIGSTOP+ and +SIGCONT+ signals to the statusline process to
1193 Invisible mode allows to permanently maximize screen space, as the bar is never
1194 shown. Thus, you can configure i3bar to not disturb you by popping up because
1195 of an urgency hint or because the modifier key is pressed.
1197 In order to control whether i3bar is hidden or shown in hide mode, there exists
1198 the hidden_state option, which has no effect in dock mode or invisible mode. It
1199 indicates the current hidden_state of the bar: (1) The bar acts like in normal
1200 hide mode, it is hidden and is only unhidden in case of urgency hints or by
1201 pressing the modifier key (+hide+ state), or (2) it is drawn on top of the
1202 currently visible workspace (+show+ state).
1204 Like the mode, the hidden_state can also be controlled through i3, this can be
1205 done by using the +bar hidden_state+ command.
1207 The default mode is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
1208 the windows key). The default value for the hidden_state is hide.
1211 -------------------------
1212 mode dock|hide|invisible
1213 hidden_state hide|show
1215 ------------------------
1226 Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see +xmodmap(1)+).
1228 === Mouse button commands
1230 Specifies a command to run when a button was pressed on i3bar to override the
1231 default behavior. This is useful, e.g., for disabling the scroll wheel action
1232 or running scripts that implement custom behavior for these buttons.
1234 A button is always named +button<n>+, where 1 to 5 are default buttons as follows and higher
1235 numbers can be special buttons on devices offering more buttons:
1240 Middle mouse button.
1248 Please note that the old +wheel_up_cmd+ and +wheel_down_cmd+ commands are deprecated
1249 and will be removed in a future release. We strongly recommend using the more general
1250 +bindsym+ with +button4+ and +button5+ instead.
1253 ----------------------------
1254 bindsym button<n> <command>
1255 ----------------------------
1258 ---------------------------------------------------------
1260 # disable clicking on workspace buttons
1262 # execute custom script when scrolling downwards
1263 bindsym button5 exec ~/.i3/scripts/custom_wheel_down
1265 ---------------------------------------------------------
1269 Specifies the bar ID for the configured bar instance. If this option is missing,
1270 the ID is set to 'bar-x', where x corresponds to the position of the embedding
1271 bar block in the config file ('bar-0', 'bar-1', ...).
1274 ---------------------
1276 ---------------------
1279 ---------------------
1283 ---------------------
1288 This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.
1290 The default is bottom.
1298 ---------------------
1302 ---------------------
1306 You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
1307 handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
1308 options for different outputs by using multiple 'bar' blocks.
1310 To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
1311 directive multiple times.
1319 -------------------------------
1320 # big monitor: everything
1322 # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
1325 status_command i3status
1328 # laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
1331 status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
1337 -------------------------------
1341 i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
1342 NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.
1344 You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
1345 you can turn off the functionality entirely.
1348 ---------------------------------
1349 tray_output none|primary|<output>
1350 ---------------------------------
1353 -------------------------
1354 # disable system tray
1359 # show tray icons on the primary monitor
1364 # show tray icons on the big monitor
1368 -------------------------
1370 Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
1371 -------------------------
1372 xrandr --output <output> --primary
1373 -------------------------
1375 Note that when you use multiple bar configuration blocks, either specify
1376 `tray_output primary` in all of them or explicitly specify `tray_output none`
1377 in bars which should not display the tray, otherwise the different instances
1378 might race each other in trying to display tray icons.
1382 The tray is shown on the right-hand side of the bar. By default, a padding of 2
1383 pixels is used for the upper, lower and right-hand side of the tray area and
1384 between the individual icons.
1387 -------------------------
1388 tray_padding <px> [px]
1389 -------------------------
1392 -------------------------
1395 -------------------------
1399 Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <<fonts>>.
1402 ---------------------
1404 ---------------------
1407 --------------------------------------------------------------
1409 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
1410 font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
1412 --------------------------------------------------------------
1414 === Custom separator symbol
1416 Specifies a custom symbol to be used for the separator as opposed to the vertical,
1417 one pixel thick separator.
1420 -------------------------
1421 separator_symbol <symbol>
1422 -------------------------
1425 ------------------------
1427 separator_symbol ":|:"
1429 ------------------------
1431 === Workspace buttons
1433 Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
1434 you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.
1436 The default is to show workspace buttons.
1439 ------------------------
1440 workspace_buttons yes|no
1441 ------------------------
1444 ------------------------
1446 workspace_buttons no
1448 ------------------------
1450 === Strip workspace numbers
1452 Specifies whether workspace numbers should be displayed within the workspace
1453 buttons. This is useful if you want to have a named workspace that stays in
1454 order on the bar according to its number without displaying the number prefix.
1456 When +strip_workspace_numbers+ is set to +yes+, any workspace that has a name of
1457 the form "[n]:[NAME]" will display only the name. You could use this, for
1458 instance, to display Roman numerals rather than digits by naming your
1459 workspaces to "1:I", "2:II", "3:III", "4:IV", ...
1461 The default is to display the full name within the workspace button.
1464 ------------------------------
1465 strip_workspace_numbers yes|no
1466 ------------------------------
1469 ----------------------------
1471 strip_workspace_numbers yes
1473 ----------------------------
1475 === Binding Mode indicator
1477 Specifies whether the current binding mode indicator should be shown or not.
1478 This is useful if you want to hide the workspace buttons but still be able
1479 to see the current binding mode indicator.
1480 For an example of a +mode+ definition, see <<resizingconfig>>.
1482 The default is to show the mode indicator.
1485 -----------------------------
1486 binding_mode_indicator yes|no
1487 -----------------------------
1490 -----------------------------
1492 binding_mode_indicator no
1494 -----------------------------
1498 As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
1499 be configured at the moment:
1502 Background color of the bar.
1504 Text color to be used for the statusline.
1506 Text color to be used for the separator.
1508 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1511 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1512 is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
1513 You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
1514 using multiple monitors.
1515 inactive_workspace::
1516 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1517 does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
1518 will be the case for most workspaces.
1520 Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
1521 contains a window with the urgency hint set.
1523 Border, background and text color for the binding mode indicator. If not used,
1524 the colors will be taken from +urgent_workspace+.
1527 ----------------------------------------
1533 <colorclass> <border> <background> <text>
1535 ----------------------------------------
1537 *Example (default colors)*:
1538 --------------------------------------
1545 focused_workspace #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
1546 active_workspace #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
1547 inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
1548 urgent_workspace #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1549 binding_mode #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
1552 --------------------------------------
1556 Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
1557 at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
1558 do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:
1561 --------------------------
1562 # execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
1564 --------------------------
1566 [[command_chaining]]
1568 Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
1569 specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
1570 the following keybinding:
1573 --------------------------------------------------------
1574 bindsym $mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3
1575 --------------------------------------------------------
1577 [[command_criteria]]
1579 Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command - that is, which containers
1580 should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. The criteria
1581 are specified before any command in a pair of square brackets and are separated
1584 When using multiple commands, separate them by using a +,+ (a comma) instead of
1585 a semicolon. Criteria apply only until the next semicolon, so if you use a
1586 semicolon to separate commands, only the first one will be executed for the
1590 ------------------------------------
1591 # if you want to kill all windows which have the class Firefox, use:
1592 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill
1594 # same thing, but case-insensitive
1595 bindsym $mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill
1597 # kill only the About dialog from Firefox
1598 bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox" window_role="About"] kill
1600 # enable floating mode and move container to workspace 4
1601 for_window [class="^evil-app$"] floating enable, move container to workspace 4
1602 ------------------------------------
1604 The criteria which are currently implemented are:
1607 Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS)
1609 Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS)
1611 Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE).
1613 Compare the window type (_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE). Possible values are
1614 +normal+, +dialog+, +utility+, +toolbar+, +splash+, +menu+, +dropdown_menu+,
1615 +popup_menu+ and +toolti+.
1617 Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
1619 Compares the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
1621 Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
1622 Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
1623 (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
1625 Compares the workspace name of the workspace the window belongs to.
1627 Compares the mark set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>.
1629 Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
1630 interface. Handy for scripting.
1632 The criteria +class+, +instance+, +role+, +title+, +workspace+ and +mark+ are
1633 actually regular expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for
1634 information on how to use them.
1638 === Executing applications (exec)
1640 What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
1641 The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
1642 shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
1643 searched in your +$PATH+.
1645 See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
1646 and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
1647 strings if they appear in your command.
1650 --------------------------------
1651 exec [--no-startup-id] <command>
1652 --------------------------------
1655 ------------------------------
1657 bindsym $mod+g exec gimp
1659 # Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
1660 bindsym $mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt
1661 ------------------------------
1663 The +--no-startup-id+ parameter disables startup-notification support for this
1664 particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
1665 window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
1666 will change the X11 cursor to +watch+ (a clock) while the application is
1667 launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
1668 and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
1669 cursor for 60 seconds.
1671 === Splitting containers
1673 The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
1674 can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
1675 new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
1676 get placed below the current one (splitv).
1678 If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
1679 nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
1680 orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window). Use
1681 +layout toggle split+ to change the layout of any split container from splitv
1682 to splith or vice-versa.
1685 -------------------------
1686 split vertical|horizontal
1687 -------------------------
1690 ------------------------------
1691 bindsym $mod+v split vertical
1692 bindsym $mod+h split horizontal
1693 ------------------------------
1695 === Manipulating layout
1697 Use +layout toggle split+, +layout stacking+, +layout tabbed+, +layout splitv+
1698 or +layout splith+ to change the current container layout to splith/splitv,
1699 stacking, tabbed layout, splitv or splith, respectively.
1701 To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen enable+ (or
1702 +fullscreen enable global+ for the global mode), to leave either fullscreen
1703 mode use +fullscreen disable+, and to toggle between these two states use
1704 +fullscreen toggle+ (or +fullscreen toggle global+).
1706 Likewise, to make the current window floating (or tiling again) use +floating
1707 enable+ respectively +floating disable+ (or +floating toggle+):
1710 --------------------------------------------
1711 layout default|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith
1712 layout toggle [split|all]
1713 --------------------------------------------
1717 bindsym $mod+s layout stacking
1718 bindsym $mod+l layout toggle split
1719 bindsym $mod+w layout tabbed
1721 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
1722 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle
1724 # Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
1725 bindsym $mod+x layout toggle all
1728 bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle
1730 # Toggle floating/tiling
1731 bindsym $mod+t floating toggle
1734 [[_focusing_moving_containers]]
1736 === Focusing containers
1738 To change focus, you can use the +focus+ command. The following options are
1741 left|right|up|down::
1742 Sets focus to the nearest container in the given direction.
1744 Sets focus to the parent container of the current container.
1746 The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
1749 Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
1751 Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
1753 Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
1755 Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
1756 corresponding output.
1759 ----------------------------------------------
1760 focus left|right|down|up
1761 focus parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle
1762 focus output left|right|up|down|<output>
1763 ----------------------------------------------
1766 -------------------------------------------------
1767 # Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right
1768 bindsym $mod+j focus left
1769 bindsym $mod+k focus down
1770 bindsym $mod+l focus up
1771 bindsym $mod+semicolon focus right
1773 # Focus parent container
1774 bindsym $mod+u focus parent
1776 # Focus last floating/tiling container
1777 bindsym $mod+g focus mode_toggle
1779 # Focus the output right to the current one
1780 bindsym $mod+x focus output right
1782 # Focus the big output
1783 bindsym $mod+x focus output HDMI-2
1784 -------------------------------------------------
1786 === Moving containers
1788 Use the +move+ command to move a container.
1791 -----------------------------------------------------
1792 # Moves the container into the given direction.
1793 # The optional pixel argument specifies how far the
1794 # container should be moved if it is floating and
1795 # defaults to 10 pixels.
1796 move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
1798 # Moves the container either to a specific location
1799 # or to the center of the screen. If 'absolute' is
1800 # used, it is moved to the center of all outputs.
1801 move [absolute] position [[<px> px] [<px> px]|center]
1803 # Moves the container to the current position of the
1804 # mouse cursor. Only affects floating containers.
1806 -----------------------------------------------------
1809 -------------------------------------------------------
1810 # Move container to the left, bottom, top, right
1811 bindsym $mod+j move left
1812 bindsym $mod+k move down
1813 bindsym $mod+l move up
1814 bindsym $mod+semicolon move right
1816 # Move container, but make floating containers
1817 # move more than the default
1818 bindsym $mod+j move left 20 px
1820 # Move floating container to the center of all outputs
1821 bindsym $mod+c move absolute position center
1823 # Move container to the current position of the cursor
1824 bindsym $mod+m move position mouse
1825 -------------------------------------------------------
1827 === Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces
1829 To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
1830 number or name of the workspace. To move containers to specific workspaces, use
1831 +move container to workspace+.
1833 You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
1834 +workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
1835 workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
1836 combination. To restrict those to the current output, use +workspace
1837 next_on_output+ and +workspace prev_on_output+. Similarly, you can use +move
1838 container to workspace next+, +move container to workspace prev+ to move a
1839 container to the next/previous workspace and +move container to workspace current+
1840 (the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).
1842 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
1845 Workspace names are parsed as
1846 https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
1850 To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use +workspace
1851 back_and_forth+; likewise, you can move containers to the previously focused
1852 workspace using +move container to workspace back_and_forth+.
1855 -----------------------------------
1856 workspace next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output
1857 workspace back_and_forth
1859 workspace number <name>
1861 move [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
1862 move [window|container] [to] workspace number <name>
1863 move [window|container] [to] workspace prev|next|current
1864 -----------------------------------
1867 -------------------------
1868 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1
1869 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2
1870 bindsym $mod+3 workspace 3:<span foreground="red">vim</span>
1873 bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
1874 bindsym $mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
1877 # switch between the current and the previously focused one
1878 bindsym $mod+b workspace back_and_forth
1879 bindsym $mod+Shift+b move container to workspace back_and_forth
1881 # move the whole workspace to the next output
1882 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
1884 # move firefox to current workspace
1885 bindsym $mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current
1886 -------------------------
1888 ==== Named workspaces
1890 Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
1891 workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:
1894 -------------------------
1895 bindsym $mod+1 workspace mail
1897 -------------------------
1899 If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
1903 -------------------------
1904 bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1: mail
1905 bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2: www
1907 -------------------------
1909 Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
1910 names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
1911 workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
1912 will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use +workspace number 1+
1913 to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
1914 it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
1915 dynamically. To combine both commands you can use +workspace number 1: mail+ to
1916 specify a default name if there's currently no workspace starting with a "1".
1918 ==== Renaming workspaces
1920 You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
1921 numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
1922 reflect what’s actually on them. You can also omit the old name to rename
1923 the currently focused workspace. This is handy if you want to use the
1924 rename command with +i3-input+.
1927 ----------------------------------------------------
1928 rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
1929 rename workspace to <new_name>
1930 ----------------------------------------------------
1933 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
1934 i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
1935 i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
1936 i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
1937 i3-msg 'rename workspace to "2: mail"
1938 bindsym $mod+r exec i3-input -F 'rename workspace to "%s"' -P 'New name: '
1939 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
1941 === Moving workspaces to a different screen
1943 See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
1946 === Moving containers/workspaces to RandR outputs
1950 To move a container to another RandR output (addressed by names like +LVDS1+ or
1951 +VGA1+) or to a RandR output identified by a specific direction (like +left+,
1952 +right+, +up+ or +down+), there are two commands:
1955 ----------------------------------------------------
1956 move container to output left|right|down|up|<output>
1957 move workspace to output left|right|down|up|<output>
1958 ----------------------------------------------------
1961 --------------------------------------------------------
1962 # Move the current workspace to the next output
1963 # (effectively toggles when you only have two outputs)
1964 bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right
1966 # Put this window on the presentation output.
1967 bindsym $mod+x move container to output VGA1
1968 --------------------------------------------------------
1970 === Moving containers/workspaces to marks
1972 To move a container to another container with a specific mark (see <<vim_like_marks>>),
1973 you can use the following command.
1975 The window will be moved right after the marked container in the tree, i.e., it ends up
1976 in the same position as if you had opened a new window when the marked container was
1977 focused. If the mark is on a split container, the window will appear as a new child
1978 after the currently focused child within that container.
1981 ------------------------------------
1982 move window|container to mark <mark>
1983 ------------------------------------
1986 --------------------------------------------------------
1987 for_window [instance="tabme"] move window to mark target
1988 --------------------------------------------------------
1992 === Resizing containers/windows
1994 If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
1998 -------------------------------------------------------
1999 resize grow|shrink <direction> [<px> px [or <ppt> ppt]]
2000 -------------------------------------------------------
2002 Direction can either be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. Or you can be
2003 less specific and use +width+ or +height+, in which case i3 will take/give
2004 space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
2005 how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or shrunk (the default
2006 is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
2007 many percentage points a *tiling container* should be grown or shrunk (the
2008 default is 10 percentage points).
2010 I recommend using the resize command inside a so called +mode+:
2012 .Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
2013 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
2015 # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode
2017 # Pressing left will shrink the window’s width.
2018 # Pressing right will grow the window’s width.
2019 # Pressing up will shrink the window’s height.
2020 # Pressing down will grow the window’s height.
2021 bindsym j resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
2022 bindsym k resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
2023 bindsym l resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
2024 bindsym semicolon resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
2026 # same bindings, but for the arrow keys
2027 bindsym Left resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
2028 bindsym Down resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
2029 bindsym Up resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
2030 bindsym Right resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt
2032 # back to normal: Enter or Escape
2033 bindsym Return mode "default"
2034 bindsym Escape mode "default"
2038 bindsym $mod+r mode "resize"
2039 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
2041 === Jumping to specific windows
2043 Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
2044 specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
2045 jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
2046 important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mail client,
2047 it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
2048 with criteria for that.
2051 ----------------------------------------------------
2052 [class="class"] focus
2053 [title="title"] focus
2054 ----------------------------------------------------
2057 ------------------------------------------------
2058 # Get me to the next open VIM instance
2059 bindsym $mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
2060 ------------------------------------------------
2062 === VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
2066 This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
2067 specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
2068 focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
2069 an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You can unmark the label in the same
2070 way, using the unmark command. If you don't specify a label, unmark removes all
2071 marks. You do not need to ensure that your windows have unique classes or
2072 titles, and you do not need to change your configuration file.
2074 As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
2075 window, you cannot simply bind it to a key. +i3-input+ is a tool created
2076 for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
2077 can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.
2079 The additional +--toggle+ option will remove the mark if the window already has
2080 this mark, add it if the window has none or replace the current mark if it has
2083 Refer to +show_marks+ if you don't want marks to be shown in the window decoration.
2086 ------------------------------
2087 mark [--toggle] <identifier>
2088 [con_mark="identifier"] focus
2090 ------------------------------
2092 *Example (in a terminal)*:
2093 ------------------------------
2095 $ i3-msg '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
2096 $ i3-msg unmark irssi
2097 ------------------------------
2099 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2100 TODO: make i3-input replace %s
2102 ---------------------------------------
2103 # Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
2104 bindsym $mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '
2106 # Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
2107 bindsym $mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
2108 ---------------------------------------
2110 Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
2111 seperate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
2112 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2114 === Window title format
2116 By default, i3 will simply print the X11 window title. Using +title_format+,
2117 this can be customized by setting the format to the desired output. This
2119 https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
2120 and the following placeholders which will be replaced:
2123 The X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
2125 The X11 window class (second part of WM_CLASS). This corresponds to the
2126 +class+ criterion, see <<command_criteria>>.
2128 The X11 window instance (first part of WM_CLASS). This corresponds to the
2129 +instance+ criterion, see <<command_criteria>>.
2131 Using the <<for_window>> directive, you can set the title format for any window
2132 based on <<command_criteria>>.
2135 ---------------------
2136 title_format <format>
2137 ---------------------
2140 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2141 # give the focused window a prefix
2142 bindsym $mod+p title_format "Important | %title"
2144 # print all window titles bold
2145 for_window [class=".*"] title_format "<b>%title</b>"
2147 # print window titles of firefox windows red
2148 for_window [class="(?i)firefox"] title_format "<span foreground='red'>%title</span>"
2149 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2151 === Changing border style
2153 To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
2154 border (including window title), +border pixel 1+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
2155 and +border none+ to make the client borderless.
2157 There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.
2160 -----------------------------------------------
2161 border normal|pixel [<n>]
2164 # legacy syntax, equivalent to "border pixel 1"
2166 -----------------------------------------------
2169 ----------------------------------------------
2170 # use window title, but no border
2171 bindsym $mod+t border normal 0
2172 # use no window title and a thick border
2173 bindsym $mod+y border pixel 3
2174 # use neither window title nor border
2175 bindsym $mod+u border none
2176 ----------------------------------------------
2180 === Enabling shared memory logging
2182 As described in http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html, i3 can log to a shared
2183 memory buffer, which you can dump using +i3-dump-log+. The +shmlog+ command
2184 allows you to enable or disable the shared memory logging at runtime.
2186 Note that when using +shmlog <size_in_bytes>+, the current log will be
2187 discarded and a new one will be started.
2190 ------------------------------
2191 shmlog <size_in_bytes>
2192 shmlog on|off|toggle
2193 ------------------------------
2197 # Enable/disable logging
2198 bindsym $mod+x shmlog toggle
2200 # or, from a terminal:
2201 # increase the shared memory log buffer to 50 MiB
2202 i3-msg shmlog $((50*1024*1024))
2205 === Enabling debug logging
2207 The +debuglog+ command allows you to enable or disable debug logging at
2208 runtime. Debug logging is much more verbose than non-debug logging. This
2209 command does not activate shared memory logging (shmlog), and as such is most
2210 likely useful in combination with the above-described <<shmlog>> command.
2213 ----------------------
2214 debuglog on|off|toggle
2215 ----------------------
2218 ------------------------
2219 # Enable/disable logging
2220 bindsym $mod+x debuglog toggle
2221 ------------------------
2223 === Reloading/Restarting/Exiting
2225 You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
2226 restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
2227 (if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
2228 your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
2229 however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).
2232 ----------------------------
2233 bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
2234 bindsym $mod+Shift+w reload
2235 bindsym $mod+Shift+e exit
2236 ----------------------------
2240 There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. +move
2241 scratchpad+ will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
2242 invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
2243 Instead, when using +scratchpad show+, the window will be shown again, as a
2244 floating window, centered on your current workspace (using +scratchpad show+ on
2245 a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
2246 keybinding to toggle). Note that this is just a normal floating window, so if
2247 you want to "remove it from scratchpad", you can simple make it tiling again
2248 (+floating toggle+).
2250 As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
2251 editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
2252 running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
2253 player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?
2263 ------------------------------------------------
2264 # Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
2265 bindsym $mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad
2267 # Show the first scratchpad window
2268 bindsym $mod+minus scratchpad show
2270 # Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
2271 bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show
2272 ------------------------------------------------
2276 There is a no operation command +nop+ which allows you to override default
2277 behavior. This can be useful for, e.g., disabling a focus change on clicks with
2278 the middle mouse button.
2280 The optional +comment+ argument is ignored, but will be printed to the log file
2281 for debugging purposes.
2289 ----------------------------------------------
2290 # Disable focus change for clicks on titlebars
2291 # with the middle mouse button
2293 ----------------------------------------------
2297 There are two options in the configuration of each i3bar instance that can be
2298 changed during runtime by invoking a command through i3. The commands +bar
2299 hidden_state+ and +bar mode+ allow setting the current hidden_state
2300 respectively mode option of each bar. It is also possible to toggle between
2301 hide state and show state as well as between dock mode and hide mode. Each
2302 i3bar instance can be controlled individually by specifying a bar_id, if none
2303 is given, the command is executed for all bar instances.
2307 bar hidden_state hide|show|toggle [<bar_id>]
2309 bar mode dock|hide|invisible|toggle [<bar_id>]
2313 ------------------------------------------------
2314 # Toggle between hide state and show state
2315 bindsym $mod+m bar hidden_state toggle
2317 # Toggle between dock mode and hide mode
2318 bindsym $mod+n bar mode toggle
2320 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to switch to hide mode
2321 bindsym $mod+b bar mode hide bar-1
2323 # Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to always stay hidden
2324 bindsym $mod+Shift+b bar mode invisible bar-1
2325 ------------------------------------------------
2329 == Multiple monitors
2331 As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
2332 with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
2333 handle multiple monitors.
2335 When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
2336 workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
2338 When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
2339 workspace. The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
2340 would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
2341 switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
2342 need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
2343 where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
2344 active monitor. It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.
2346 The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
2347 users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
2348 They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
2349 several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
2350 and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
2351 create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
2352 screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
2353 screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
2355 === Configuring your monitors
2357 To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
2358 a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
2359 you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
2360 Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
2361 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2363 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
2364 VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
2365 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2366 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2367 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2369 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2370 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2374 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2376 Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
2377 course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
2378 connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
2379 check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
2381 The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
2382 combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
2383 to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
2385 So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
2386 -------------------------------------------
2387 xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
2388 -------------------------------------------
2389 This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
2390 connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
2391 When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
2392 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2394 Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
2395 VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
2396 1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
2399 1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
2401 800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2402 640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
2404 LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
2405 1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
2406 1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
2408 800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
2409 640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
2413 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2414 Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
2415 only what you can see in xrandr.
2417 See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
2419 === Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
2421 There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
2422 have more than one monitor:
2424 1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
2425 allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
2426 1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
2427 <<workspace_screen>>.
2428 2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
2429 (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
2430 <<assign_workspace>>.
2431 3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
2432 track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
2433 quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
2434 4. For information on how to move existing workspaces between monitors,
2435 see <<_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs>>.
2437 == i3 and the rest of your software world
2439 === Displaying a status line
2441 A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
2442 some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
2443 approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
2445 If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
2446 (self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
2447 this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
2448 possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
2449 i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
2450 i3bar. See <<status_command>> for how to display i3status in i3bar.
2452 Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
2453 want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
2454 position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
2455 on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
2456 see <<i3bar_position>>.
2458 === Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
2460 When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
2461 on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
2462 simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
2463 which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
2467 ==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
2468 This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
2469 turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
2470 clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
2471 -----------------------------------------------------
2472 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
2473 -----------------------------------------------------
2474 i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
2475 your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
2476 our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
2478 ==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
2479 This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
2480 somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
2481 -----------------------------------------------------
2482 xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
2483 -----------------------------------------------------
2484 Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
2485 and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
2487 Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
2488 display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
2489 software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).