userguide: quoted strings need to be used, escaping isn’t possible

[i3/i3] / docs / userguide

i3 User’s Guide
===============
Michael Stapelberg <michael@i3wm.org>
March 2013

This document contains all the information you need to configure and use the i3
window manager. If it does not, please check http://faq.i3wm.org/ first, then
contact us on IRC (preferred) or post your question(s) on the mailing list.

== Default keybindings

For the "too long; didn’t read" people, here is an overview of the default
keybindings (click to see the full size image):

*Keys to use with $mod (Alt):*

image:keyboard-layer1.png["Keys to use with $mod (Alt)",width=600,link="keyboard-layer1.png"]

*Keys to use with Shift+$mod:*

image:keyboard-layer2.png["Keys to use with Shift+$mod",width=600,link="keyboard-layer2.png"]

The red keys are the modifiers you need to press (by default), the blue keys
are your homerow.

== Using i3

Throughout this guide, the keyword +$mod+ will be used to refer to the
configured modifier. This is the Alt key (Mod1) by default, with the Windows
key (Mod4) being a popular alternative.

=== Opening terminals and moving around

One very basic operation is opening a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
for this is $mod+Enter, that is Alt+Enter in the default configuration. By
pressing $mod+Enter, a new terminal will be opened.  It will fill the whole
space available on your screen.

image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]

If you now open another terminal, i3 will place it next to the current one,
splitting the screen size in half. Depending on your monitor, i3 will put the
created window beside the existing window (on wide displays) or below the
existing window (rotated displays).

image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]

To move the focus between the two terminals, you can use the direction keys
which you may know from the editor +vi+. However, in i3, your homerow is used
for these keys (in +vi+, the keys are shifted to the left by one for
compatibility with most keyboard layouts). Therefore, +$mod+J+ is left, +$mod+K+
is down, +$mod+L+ is up and `$mod+;` is right. So, to switch between the
terminals, use +$mod+K+ or +$mod+L+. Of course, you can also use the arrow keys.

At the moment, your workspace is split (it contains two terminals) in a
specific direction (horizontal by default). Every window can be split
horizontally or vertically again, just like the workspace. The terminology is
"window" for a container that actually contains an X11 window (like a terminal
or browser) and "split container" for containers that consist of one or more
windows.

TODO: picture of the tree

To split a window vertically, press +$mod+v+ before you create the new window.
To split it horizontally, press +$mod+h+.

=== Changing the container layout

A split container can have one of the following layouts:

splith/splitv::
Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space in the
container. splith distributes the windows horizontally (windows are right next
to each other), splitv distributes them vertically (windows are on top of each
other).
stacking::
Only the focused window in the container is displayed. You get a list of
windows at the top of the container.
tabbed::
The same principle as +stacking+, but the list of windows at the top is only
a single line which is vertically split.

To switch modes, press +$mod+e+ for splith/splitv (it toggles), +$mod+s+ for
stacking and +$mod+w+ for tabbed.

image:modes.png[Container modes]

=== Toggling fullscreen mode for a window

To display a window in fullscreen mode or to go out of fullscreen mode again,
press +$mod+f+.

There is also a global fullscreen mode in i3 in which the client will span all
available outputs (the command is +fullscreen toggle global+).

=== Opening other applications

Aside from opening applications from a terminal, you can also use the handy
+dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +$mod+d+ by default. Just type the name
(or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. The corresponding
application has to be in your +$PATH+ for this to work.

Additionally, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can
create a keybinding for starting the application directly. See the section
<<configuring>> for details.

=== Closing windows

If an application does not provide a mechanism for closing (most applications
provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
can press +$mod+Shift+q+ to kill a window. For applications which support
the WM_DELETE protocol, this will correctly close the application (saving
any modifications or doing other cleanup). If the application doesn’t support
the WM_DELETE protocol your X server will kill the window and the behaviour
depends on the application.

=== Using workspaces

Workspaces are an easy way to group a set of windows. By default, you are on
the first workspace, as the bar on the bottom left indicates. To switch to
another workspace, press +$mod+num+ where +num+ is the number of the workspace
you want to use. If the workspace does not exist yet, it will be created.

A common paradigm is to put the web browser on one workspace, communication
applications (+mutt+, +irssi+, ...) on another one, and the ones with which you
work, on the third one. Of course, there is no need to follow this approach.

If you have multiple screens, a workspace will be created on each screen at
startup. If you open a new workspace, it will be bound to the screen you
created it on.  When you switch to a workspace on another screen, i3 will set
focus to that screen.

=== Moving windows to workspaces

To move a window to another workspace, simply press +$mod+Shift+num+ where
+num+ is (like when switching workspaces) the number of the target workspace.
Similarly to switching workspaces, the target workspace will be created if
it does not yet exist.

=== Resizing

The easiest way to resize a container is by using the mouse: Grab the border
and move it to the wanted size.

See <<resizingconfig>> for how to configure i3 to be able to resize
columns/rows with your keyboard.

=== Restarting i3 inplace

To restart i3 in place (and thus get into a clean state if there is a bug, or
to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you can use +$mod+Shift+r+.

=== Exiting i3

To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +$mod+Shift+e+.
By default, a dialog will ask you to confirm if you really want to quit.

=== Floating

Floating mode is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of
a window are not managed automatically by i3, but manually by
you. Using this mode violates the tiling paradigm but can be useful
for some corner cases like "Save as" dialog windows, or toolbar
windows (GIMP or similar). Those windows usually set the appropriate
hint and are opened in floating mode by default.

You can toggle floating mode for a window by pressing +$mod+Shift+Space+. By
dragging the window’s titlebar with your mouse you can move the window
around. By grabbing the borders and moving them you can resize the window. You
can also do that by using the <<floating_modifier>>. Another way to resize
floating windows using the mouse is to right-click on the titlebar and drag.

For resizing floating windows with your keyboard, see <<resizingconfig>>.

Floating windows are always on top of tiling windows.

== Tree

i3 stores all information about the X11 outputs, workspaces and layout of the
windows on them in a tree. The root node is the X11 root window, followed by
the X11 outputs, then dock areas and a content container, then workspaces and
finally the windows themselves. In previous versions of i3 we had multiple lists
(of outputs, workspaces) and a table for each workspace. That approach turned
out to be complicated to use (snapping), understand and implement.

=== The tree consists of Containers

The building blocks of our tree are so called +Containers+. A +Container+ can
host a window (meaning an X11 window, one that you can actually see and use,
like a browser). Alternatively, it could contain one or more +Containers+. A
simple example is the workspace: When you start i3 with a single monitor, a
single workspace and you open two terminal windows, you will end up with a tree
like this:

image::tree-layout2.png["layout2",float="right"]
image::tree-shot4.png["shot4",title="Two terminals on standard workspace"]

=== Orientation and Split Containers

[[OrientationSplit]]

It is only natural to use so-called +Split Containers+ in order to build a
layout when using a tree as data structure. In i3, every +Container+ has an
orientation (horizontal, vertical or unspecified) and the orientation depends
on the layout the container is in (vertical for splitv and stacking, horizontal
for splith and tabbed). So, in our example with the workspace, the default
layout of the workspace +Container+ is splith (most monitors are widescreen
nowadays). If you change the layout to splitv (+$mod+v+ in the default config)
and *then* open two terminals, i3 will configure your windows like this:

image::tree-shot2.png["shot2",title="Vertical Workspace Orientation"]

An interesting new feature of i3 since version 4 is the ability to split anything:
Let’s assume you have two terminals on a workspace (with splith layout, that is
horizontal orientation), focus is on the right terminal. Now you want to open
another terminal window below the current one. If you would just open a new
terminal window, it would show up to the right due to the splith layout.
Instead, press +$mod+v+ to split the container with the splitv layout (to
open a +Horizontal Split Container+, use +$mod+h+). Now you can open a new
terminal and it will open below the current one:

image::tree-layout1.png["Layout",float="right"]
image::tree-shot1.png["shot",title="Vertical Split Container"]

unfloat::[]

You probably guessed it already: There is no limit on how deep your hierarchy
of splits can be.

=== Focus parent

Let’s stay with our example from above. We have a terminal on the left and two
vertically split terminals on the right, focus is on the bottom right one. When
you open a new terminal, it will open below the current one.

So, how can you open a new terminal window to the *right* of the current one?
The solution is to use +focus parent+, which will focus the +Parent Container+ of
the current +Container+. In this case, you would focus the +Vertical Split
Container+ which is *inside* the horizontally oriented workspace. Thus, now new
windows will be opened to the right of the +Vertical Split Container+:

image::tree-shot3.png["shot3",title="Focus parent, then open new terminal"]

=== Implicit containers

In some cases, i3 needs to implicitly create a container to fulfill your
command.

One example is the following scenario: You start i3 with a single monitor and a
single workspace on which you open three terminal windows. All these terminal
windows are directly attached to one node inside i3’s layout tree, the
workspace node. By default, the workspace node’s orientation is +horizontal+.

Now you move one of these terminals down (+$mod+Shift+k+ by default). The
workspace node’s orientation will be changed to +vertical+. The terminal window
you moved down is directly attached to the workspace and appears on the bottom
of the screen. A new (horizontal) container was created to accommodate the
other two terminal windows. You will notice this when switching to tabbed mode
(for example). You would end up having one tab called "another container" and
the other one being the terminal window you moved down.

[[configuring]]
== Configuring i3

This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependent on your
ideal working environment so we can’t make reasonable defaults for them.

While not using a programming language for the configuration, i3 stays
quite flexible in regards to the things you usually want your window manager
to do.

For example, you can configure bindings to jump to specific windows,
you can set specific applications to start on specific workspaces, you can
automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3, and you
can bind your keys to do useful things.

To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +\~/.i3/config+
(or +~/.config/i3/config+ if you like the XDG directory scheme) and edit it
with a text editor.

On first start (and on all following starts, unless you have a configuration
file), i3 will offer you to create a configuration file. You can tell the
wizard to use either Alt (Mod1) or Windows (Mod4) as modifier in the config
file. Also, the created config file will use the key symbols of your current
keyboard layout. To start the wizard, use the command +i3-config-wizard+.
Please note that you must not have +~/.i3/config+, otherwise the wizard will
exit.

=== Comments

It is possible and recommended to use comments in your configuration file to
properly document your setup for later reference. Comments are started with
a # and can only be used at the beginning of a line:

*Examples*:
-------------------
# This is a comment
-------------------

[[fonts]]

=== Fonts

i3 has support for both X core fonts and FreeType fonts (through Pango) to
render window titles.

To generate an X core font description, you can use +xfontsel(1)+. To see
special characters (Unicode), you need to use a font which supports the
ISO-10646 encoding.

A FreeType font description is composed by a font family, a style, a weight,
a variant, a stretch and a size.
FreeType fonts support right-to-left rendering and contain often more
Unicode glyphs than X core fonts.

If i3 cannot open the configured font, it will output an error in the logfile
and fall back to a working font.

*Syntax*:
------------------------------
font <X core font description>
font pango:[family list] [style options] [size]
------------------------------

*Examples*:
--------------------------------------------------------------
font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono, Terminus Bold Semi-Condensed 11
font pango:Terminus 11px
--------------------------------------------------------------

[[keybindings]]

=== Keyboard bindings

A keyboard binding makes i3 execute a command (see below) upon pressing a
specific key. i3 allows you to bind either on keycodes or on keysyms (you can
also mix your bindings, though i3 will not protect you from overlapping ones).

* A keysym (key symbol) is a description for a specific symbol, like "a"
  or "b", but also more strange ones like "underscore" instead of "_". These
  are the ones you use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current
  mapping of your keys, use +xmodmap -pke+. To interactively enter a key and
  see what keysym it is configured to, use +xev+.

* Keycodes do not need to have a symbol assigned (handy for custom vendor
  hotkeys on some notebooks) and they will not change their meaning as you
  switch to a different keyboard layout (when using +xmodmap+).

My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts but you want to keep
your bindings in the same physical location on the keyboard, use keycodes.
If you don’t switch layouts, and want a clean and simple config file, use
keysyms.

Some tools (such as +import+ or +xdotool+) might be unable to run upon a
KeyPress event, because the keyboard/pointer is still grabbed. For these
situations, the +--release+ flag can be used, which will execute the command
after the keys have been released.

*Syntax*:
----------------------------------
bindsym [--release] [Modifiers+]keysym command
bindcode [--release] [Modifiers+]keycode command
----------------------------------

*Examples*:
--------------------------------
# Fullscreen
bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle

# Restart
bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart

# Notebook-specific hotkeys
bindcode 214 exec --no-startup-id /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh

# Simulate ctrl+v upon pressing $mod+x
bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id xdotool key --clearmodifiers ctrl+v

# Take a screenshot upon pressing $mod+x (select an area)
bindsym --release $mod+x exec --no-startup-id import /tmp/latest-screenshot.png
--------------------------------

Available Modifiers:

Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control::
Standard modifiers, see +xmodmap(1)+

Mode_switch::
Unlike other window managers, i3 can use Mode_switch as a modifier. This allows
you to remap capslock (for example) to Mode_switch and use it for both: typing
umlauts or special characters 'and' having some comfortably reachable key
bindings. For example, when typing, capslock+1 or capslock+2 for switching
workspaces is totally convenient. Try it :-).

[[mousebindings]]

=== Mouse bindings

A mouse binding makes i3 execute a command upon pressing a specific mouse
button in the scope of the clicked container (see <<command_criteria>>). You
can configure mouse bindings in a similar way to key bindings.

*Syntax*:
----------------------------------
bindsym [--release] [--whole-window] [Modifiers+]button[n] command
----------------------------------

By default, the binding will only run when you click on the titlebar of the
window. If the +--whole-window+ flag is given, it will run when any part of the
window is clicked. If the +--release+ flag is given, it will run when the mouse
button is released.

*Examples*:
--------------------------------
# The middle button over a titlebar kills the window
bindsym --release button2 kill

# The middle button and a modifer over any part of the window kills the window
bindsym --whole-window $mod+button2 kill

# The right button toggles floating
bindsym button3 floating toggle
bindsym $mod+button3 floating toggle

# The side buttons move the window around
bindsym button9 move left
bindsym button8 move right
--------------------------------

[[floating_modifier]]

=== The floating modifier

To move floating windows with your mouse, you can either grab their titlebar
or configure the so called floating modifier which you can then press and
click anywhere in the window itself to move it. The most common setup is to
use the same key you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Then
you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button, and drag
it to the position you want.

When holding the floating modifier, you can resize a floating window by
pressing the right mouse button on it and moving around while holding it. If
you hold the shift button as well, the resize will be proportional (the aspect
ratio will be preserved).

*Syntax*:
--------------------------------
floating_modifier <Modifiers>
--------------------------------

*Example*:
--------------------------------
floating_modifier Mod1
--------------------------------

=== Constraining floating window size

The maximum and minimum dimensions of floating windows can be specified. If
either dimension of +floating_maximum_size+ is specified as -1, that dimension
will be unconstrained with respect to its maximum value. If either dimension of
+floating_maximum_size+ is undefined, or specified as 0, i3 will use a default
value to constrain the maximum size. +floating_minimum_size+ is treated in a
manner analogous to +floating_maximum_size+.

*Syntax*:
----------------------------------------
floating_minimum_size <width> x <height>
floating_maximum_size <width> x <height>
----------------------------------------

*Example*:
--------------------------------------
floating_minimum_size 75 x 50
floating_maximum_size -1 x -1
--------------------------------------

=== Orientation for new workspaces

New workspaces get a reasonable default orientation: Wide-screen monitors
(anything wider than high) get horizontal orientation, rotated monitors
(anything higher than wide) get vertical orientation.

With the +default_orientation+ configuration directive, you can override that
behavior.

*Syntax*:
----------------------------------------------
default_orientation <horizontal|vertical|auto>
----------------------------------------------

*Example*:
----------------------------
default_orientation vertical
----------------------------

=== Layout mode for new containers

This option determines in which mode new containers on workspace level will
start.
///////////////////////////////
See also <<stack-limit>>.
//////////////////////////////

*Syntax*:
---------------------------------------------
workspace_layout <default|stacking|tabbed>
---------------------------------------------
/////////////////////////////////////////////
new_container stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
/////////////////////////////////////////////

*Example*:
---------------------
workspace_layout tabbed
---------------------

=== Border style for new windows

This option determines which border style new windows will have. The default is
"normal". Note that new_float applies only to windows which are starting out as
floating windows, e.g. dialog windows.

*Syntax*:
---------------------------------------------
new_window <normal|1pixel|none|pixel>
new_float <normal|1pixel|none|pixel>
---------------------------------------------

*Example*:
---------------------
new_window 1pixel
---------------------

The "normal" and "pixel" border styles support an optional border width in
pixels:

*Example*:
---------------------
# The same as new_window none
new_window pixel 0

# A 3 px border
new_window pixel 3
---------------------


=== Hiding vertical borders

You can hide vertical borders adjacent to the screen edges using
+hide_edge_borders+. This is useful if you are using scrollbars, or do not want
to waste even two pixels in displayspace. Default is none.

*Syntax*:
----------------------------
hide_edge_borders <none|vertical|horizontal|both>
----------------------------

*Example*:
----------------------
hide_edge_borders vertical
----------------------

=== Arbitrary commands for specific windows (for_window)

With the +for_window+ command, you can let i3 execute any command when it
encounters a specific window. This can be used to set windows to floating or to
change their border style, for example.

*Syntax*:
-----------------------------
for_window <criteria> command
-----------------------------

*Examples*:
------------------------------------------------
# enable floating mode for all XTerm windows
for_window [class="XTerm"] floating enable

# Make all urxvts use a 1-pixel border:
for_window [class="urxvt"] border 1pixel

# A less useful, but rather funny example:
# makes the window floating as soon as I change
# directory to ~/work
for_window [title="x200: ~/work"] floating enable
------------------------------------------------

The valid criteria are the same as those for commands, see <<command_criteria>>.

=== Variables

As you learned in the section about keyboard bindings, you will have
to configure lots of bindings containing modifier keys. If you want to save
yourself some typing and be able to change the modifier you use later,
variables can be handy.

*Syntax*:
--------------
set $name value
--------------

*Example*:
------------------------
set $m Mod1
bindsym $m+Shift+r restart
------------------------

Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing. Variables expansion
is not recursive so it is not possible to define a variable with a value
containing another variable. There is no fancy handling and there are
absolutely no plans to change this. If you need a more dynamic configuration
you should create a little script which generates a configuration file and run
it before starting i3 (for example in your +~/.xsession+ file).

=== Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces

[[assign_workspace]]

To automatically make a specific window show up on a specific workspace, you
can use an *assignment*. You can match windows by using any criteria,
see <<command_criteria>>. It is recommended that you match on window classes
(and instances, when appropriate) instead of window titles whenever possible
because some applications first create their window, and then worry about
setting the correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind. The window
starts up being named Firefox, and only when Vimperator is loaded does the
title change. As i3 will get the title as soon as the application maps the
window (mapping means actually displaying it on the screen), you’d need to have
to match on 'Firefox' in this case.

Assignments are processed by i3 in the order in which they appear in the config
file. The first one which matches the window wins and later assignments are not
considered.

*Syntax*:
------------------------------------------------------------
assign <criteria> [→] workspace
------------------------------------------------------------

*Examples*:
----------------------
# Assign URxvt terminals to workspace 2
assign [class="URxvt"] 2

# Same thing, but more precise (exact match instead of substring)
assign [class="^URxvt$"] 2

# Same thing, but with a beautiful arrow :)
assign [class="^URxvt$"] → 2

# Assignment to a named workspace
assign [class="^URxvt$"] → work

# Start urxvt -name irssi
assign [class="^URxvt$" instance="^irssi$"] → 3
----------------------

Note that the arrow is not required, it just looks good :-). If you decide to
use it, it has to be a UTF-8 encoded arrow, not `->` or something like that.

To get the class and instance, you can use +xprop+. After clicking on the
window, you will see the following output:

*xprop*:
-----------------------------------
WM_CLASS(STRING) = "irssi", "URxvt"
-----------------------------------

The first part of the WM_CLASS is the instance ("irssi" in this example), the
second part is the class ("URxvt" in this example).

Should you have any problems with assignments, make sure to check the i3
logfile first (see http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html). It includes more
details about the matching process and the window’s actual class, instance and
title when starting up.

Note that if you want to start an application just once on a specific
workspace, but you don’t want to assign all instances of it permanently, you
can make use of i3’s startup-notification support (see <<exec>>) in your config
file in the following way:

*Start iceweasel on workspace 3 (once)*:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Start iceweasel on workspace 3, then switch back to workspace 1
# (Being a command-line utility, i3-msg does not support startup notifications,
#  hence the exec --no-startup-id.)
# (Starting iceweasel with i3’s exec command is important in order to make i3
#  create a startup notification context, without which the iceweasel window(s)
#  cannot be matched onto the workspace on which the command was started.)
exec --no-startup-id i3-msg 'workspace 3; exec iceweasel; workspace 1'
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

=== Automatically starting applications on i3 startup

By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure
which commands will be performed by i3 on initial startup. +exec+
commands will not run when restarting i3, if you need a command to run
also when restarting i3 you should use the +exec_always+
keyword. These commands will be run in order.

See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
strings if they appear in your command.

*Syntax*:
-------------------
exec [--no-startup-id] command
exec_always [--no-startup-id] command
-------------------

*Examples*:
--------------------------------
exec chromium
exec_always ~/my_script.sh

# Execute the terminal emulator urxvt, which is not yet startup-notification aware.
exec --no-startup-id urxvt
--------------------------------

The flag --no-startup-id is explained in <<exec>>.

[[workspace_screen]]

=== Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens

If you assign clients to workspaces, it might be handy to put the
workspaces on specific screens. Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens
will determine which workspace i3 uses for a new screen when adding screens
or when starting (e.g., by default it will use 1 for the first screen, 2 for
the second screen and so on).

*Syntax*:
----------------------------------
workspace <workspace> output <output>
----------------------------------

The 'output' is the name of the RandR output you attach your screen to. On a
laptop, you might have VGA1 and LVDS1 as output names. You can see the
available outputs by running +xrandr --current+.

If you use named workspaces, they must be quoted:

*Examples*:
---------------------------
workspace 1 output LVDS1
workspace 5 output VGA1
workspace "2: vim" output VGA1
---------------------------

=== Changing colors

You can change all colors which i3 uses to draw the window decorations.

*Syntax*:
--------------------------------------------
colorclass border background text indicator
--------------------------------------------

Where colorclass can be one of:

client.focused::
        A client which currently has the focus.
client.focused_inactive::
        A client which is the focused one of its container, but it does not have
        the focus at the moment.
client.unfocused::
        A client which is not the focused one of its container.
client.urgent::
        A client which has its urgency hint activated.
client.placeholder::
        Background and text color are used to draw placeholder window contents
        (when restoring layouts). Border and indicator are ignored.

You can also specify the color to be used to paint the background of the client
windows. This color will be used to paint the window on top of which the client
will be rendered.

*Syntax*:
-----------------------
client.background color
-----------------------

Only clients that do not cover the whole area of this window expose the color
used to paint it.

Colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb), see the following example:

*Examples (default colors)*:
---------------------------------------------------------
# class                 border  backgr. text    indicator
client.focused          #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff #2e9ef4
client.focused_inactive #333333 #5f676a #ffffff #484e50
client.unfocused        #333333 #222222 #888888 #292d2e
client.urgent           #2f343a #900000 #ffffff #900000
client.placeholder      #000000 #0c0c0c #ffffff #000000
---------------------------------------------------------

Note that for the window decorations, the color around the child window is the
background color, and the border color is only the two thin lines at the top of
the window.

The indicator color is used for indicating where a new window will be opened.
For horizontal split containers, the right border will be painted in indicator
color, for vertical split containers, the bottom border. This only applies to
single windows within a split container, which are otherwise indistinguishable
from single windows outside of a split container.

=== Interprocess communication

i3 uses Unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. This allows third-party
programs to get information from i3, such as the current workspaces
(to display a workspace bar), and to control i3.

The IPC socket is enabled by default and will be created in
+/tmp/i3-%u.XXXXXX/ipc-socket.%p+ where +%u+ is your UNIX username, +%p+ is
the PID of i3 and XXXXXX is a string of random characters from the portable
filename character set (see mkdtemp(3)).

You can override the default path through the environment-variable +I3SOCK+ or
by specifying the +ipc-socket+ directive. This is discouraged, though, since i3
does the right thing by default. If you decide to change it, it is strongly
recommended to set this to a location in your home directory so that no other
user can create that directory.

*Examples*:
----------------------------
ipc-socket ~/.i3/i3-ipc.sock
----------------------------

You can then use the +i3-msg+ application to perform any command listed in
the next section.

=== Focus follows mouse

By default, window focus follows your mouse movements. However, if you have a
setup where your mouse usually is in your way (like a touchpad on your laptop
which you do not want to disable completely), you might want to disable 'focus
follows mouse' and control focus only by using your keyboard.  The mouse will
still be useful inside the currently active window (for example to click on
links in your browser window).

*Syntax*:
----------------------------
focus_follows_mouse <yes|no>
----------------------------

*Example*:
----------------------
focus_follows_mouse no
----------------------

=== Mouse warping

By default, when switching focus to a window on a different output (e.g.
focusing a window on workspace 3 on output VGA-1, coming from workspace 2 on
LVDS-1), the mouse cursor is warped to the center of that window.

With the +mouse_warping+ option, you can control when the mouse cursor should
be warped. +none+ disables warping entirely, whereas +output+ is the default
behavior described above.

*Syntax*:
---------------------------
mouse_warping <output|none>
---------------------------

*Example*:
------------------
mouse_warping none
------------------

=== Popups during fullscreen mode

When you are in fullscreen mode, some applications still open popup windows
(take Xpdf for example). This is because these applications may not be aware
that they are in fullscreen mode (they do not check the corresponding hint).
There are three things which are possible to do in this situation:

1. Display the popup if it belongs to the fullscreen application only. This is
   the default and should be reasonable behavior for most users.
2. Just ignore the popup (don’t map it). This won’t interrupt you while you are
   in fullscreen. However, some apps might react badly to this (deadlock until
   you go out of fullscreen).
3. Leave fullscreen mode.

*Syntax*:
-------------------------------------------------
popup_during_fullscreen <smart|ignore|leave_fullscreen>
-------------------------------------------------

*Example*:
------------------------------
popup_during_fullscreen smart
------------------------------

=== Focus wrapping

When being in a tabbed or stacked container, the first container will be
focused when you use +focus down+ on the last container -- the focus wraps. If
however there is another stacked/tabbed container in that direction, focus will
be set on that container. This is the default behavior so you can navigate to
all your windows without having to use +focus parent+.

If you want the focus to *always* wrap and you are aware of using +focus
parent+ to switch to different containers, you can use the
+force_focus_wrapping+ configuration directive. After enabling it, the focus
will always wrap.

*Syntax*:
-----------------------------
force_focus_wrapping <yes|no>
-----------------------------

*Example*:
------------------------
force_focus_wrapping yes
------------------------

=== Forcing Xinerama

As explained in-depth in <http://i3wm.org/docs/multi-monitor.html>, some X11
video drivers (especially the nVidia binary driver) only provide support for
Xinerama instead of RandR. In such a situation, i3 must be told to use the
inferior Xinerama API explicitly and therefore don’t provide support for
reconfiguring your screens on the fly (they are read only once on startup and
that’s it).

For people who cannot modify their +~/.xsession+ to add the
+--force-xinerama+ commandline parameter, a configuration option is provided:

*Syntax*:
-----------------------
force_xinerama <yes|no>
-----------------------

*Example*:
------------------
force_xinerama yes
------------------

Also note that your output names are not descriptive (like +HDMI1+) when using
Xinerama, instead they are counted up, starting at 0: +xinerama-0+, +xinerama-1+, …

=== Automatic back-and-forth when switching to the current workspace

This configuration directive enables automatic +workspace back_and_forth+ (see
<<back_and_forth>>) when switching to the workspace that is currently focused.

For instance: Assume you are on workspace "1: www" and switch to "2: IM" using
mod+2 because somebody sent you a message. You don’t need to remember where you
came from now, you can just press $mod+2 again to switch back to "1: www".

*Syntax*:
--------------------------------------
workspace_auto_back_and_forth <yes|no>
--------------------------------------

*Example*:
---------------------------------
workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes
---------------------------------

=== Delaying urgency hint reset on workspace change

If an application on another workspace sets an urgency hint, switching to this
workspace may lead to immediate focus of the application, which also means the
window decoration color would be immediately reset to +client.focused+. This
may make it unnecessarily hard to tell which window originally raised the
event.

In order to prevent this, you can tell i3 to delay resetting the urgency state
by a certain time using the +force_display_urgency_hint+ directive. Setting the
value to 0 disables this feature.

The default is 500ms.

*Syntax*:
---------------------------------------
force_display_urgency_hint <timeout> ms
---------------------------------------

*Example*:
---------------------------------
force_display_urgency_hint 500 ms
---------------------------------

== Configuring i3bar

The bar at the bottom of your monitor is drawn by a separate process called
i3bar. Having this part of "the i3 user interface" in a separate process has
several advantages:

1. It is a modular approach. If you don’t need a workspace bar at all, or if
   you prefer a different one (dzen2, xmobar, maybe even gnome-panel?), you can
   just remove the i3bar configuration and start your favorite bar instead.
2. It follows the UNIX philosophy of "Make each program do one thing well".
   While i3 manages your windows well, i3bar is good at displaying a bar on
   each monitor (unless you configure it otherwise).
3. It leads to two separate, clean codebases. If you want to understand i3, you
   don’t need to bother with the details of i3bar and vice versa.

That said, i3bar is configured in the same configuration file as i3. This is
because it is tightly coupled with i3 (in contrary to i3lock or i3status which
are useful for people using other window managers). Therefore, it makes no
sense to use a different configuration place when we already have a good
configuration infrastructure in place.

Configuring your workspace bar starts with opening a +bar+ block. You can have
multiple bar blocks to use different settings for different outputs (monitors):

*Example*:
---------------------------
bar {
    status_command i3status
}
---------------------------

=== i3bar command

By default i3 will just pass +i3bar+ and let your shell handle the execution,
searching your +$PATH+ for a correct version.
If you have a different +i3bar+ somewhere or the binary is not in your +$PATH+ you can
tell i3 what to execute.

The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
have to have correct quoting etc.

*Syntax*:
----------------------
i3bar_command command
----------------------

*Example*:
-------------------------------------------------
bar {
    i3bar_command /home/user/bin/i3bar
}
-------------------------------------------------

[[status_command]]
=== Statusline command

i3bar can run a program and display every line of its +stdout+ output on the
right hand side of the bar. This is useful to display system information like
your current IP address, battery status or date/time.

The specified command will be passed to +sh -c+, so you can use globbing and
have to have correct quoting etc.

*Syntax*:
----------------------
status_command command
----------------------

*Example*:
-------------------------------------------------
bar {
    status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status.conf
}
-------------------------------------------------

=== Display mode

You can either have i3bar be visible permanently at one edge of the screen
(+dock+ mode) or make it show up when you press your modifier key (+hide+ mode).
It is also possible to force i3bar to always stay hidden (+invisible+
mode). The modifier key can be configured using the +modifier+ option.

The mode option can be changed during runtime through the +bar mode+ command.
On reload the mode will be reverted to its configured value.

The hide mode maximizes screen space that can be used for actual windows. Also,
i3bar sends the +SIGSTOP+ and +SIGCONT+ signals to the statusline process to
save battery power.

Invisible mode allows to permanently maximize screen space, as the bar is never
shown. Thus, you can configure i3bar to not disturb you by popping up because
of an urgency hint or because the modifier key is pressed.

In order to control whether i3bar is hidden or shown in hide mode, there exists
the hidden_state option, which has no effect in dock mode or invisible mode. It
indicates the current hidden_state of the bar: (1) The bar acts like in normal
hide mode, it is hidden and is only unhidden in case of urgency hints or by
pressing the modifier key (+hide+ state), or (2) it is drawn on top of the
currently visible workspace (+show+ state).

Like the mode, the hidden_state can also be controlled through i3, this can be
done by using the +bar hidden_state+ command.

The default mode is dock mode; in hide mode, the default modifier is Mod4 (usually
the windows key). The default value for the hidden_state is hide.

*Syntax*:
----------------
mode <dock|hide|invisible>
hidden_state <hide|show>
modifier <Modifier>
----------------

*Example*:
----------------
bar {
    mode hide
    hidden_state hide
    modifier Mod1
}
----------------

Available modifiers are Mod1-Mod5, Shift, Control (see +xmodmap(1)+).

=== Mouse button commands

Specifies a command to run when a button was pressed on i3bar to override the
default behavior. Currently only the mouse wheel buttons are supported. This is
useful for disabling the scroll wheel action or running scripts that implement
custom behavior for these buttons.

*Syntax*:
---------------------
wheel_up_cmd <command>
wheel_down_cmd <command>
---------------------

*Example*:
---------------------
bar {
    wheel_up_cmd nop
    wheel_down_cmd exec ~/.i3/scripts/custom_wheel_down
}
---------------------

=== Bar ID

Specifies the bar ID for the configured bar instance. If this option is missing,
the ID is set to 'bar-x', where x corresponds to the position of the embedding
bar block in the config file ('bar-0', 'bar-1', ...).

*Syntax*:
---------------------
id <bar_id>
---------------------

*Example*:
---------------------
bar {
    id bar-1
}
---------------------

[[i3bar_position]]
=== Position

This option determines in which edge of the screen i3bar should show up.

The default is bottom.

*Syntax*:
---------------------
position <top|bottom>
---------------------

*Example*:
---------------------
bar {
    position top
}
---------------------

=== Output(s)

You can restrict i3bar to one or more outputs (monitors). The default is to
handle all outputs. Restricting the outputs is useful for using different
options for different outputs by using multiple 'bar' blocks.

To make a particular i3bar instance handle multiple outputs, specify the output
directive multiple times.

*Syntax*:
---------------
output <output>
---------------

*Example*:
-------------------------------
# big monitor: everything
bar {
    # The display is connected either via HDMI or via DisplayPort
    output HDMI2
    output DP2
    status_command i3status
}

# laptop monitor: bright colors and i3status with less modules.
bar {
    output LVDS1
    status_command i3status --config ~/.i3status-small.conf
    colors {
        background #000000
        statusline #ffffff
    }
}
-------------------------------

=== Tray output

i3bar by default provides a system tray area where programs such as
NetworkManager, VLC, Pidgin, etc. can place little icons.

You can configure on which output (monitor) the icons should be displayed or
you can turn off the functionality entirely.

*Syntax*:
-------------------------
tray_output <none|primary|output>
-------------------------

*Example*:
-------------------------
# disable system tray
bar {
    tray_output none
}

# show tray icons on the primary monitor
tray_output primary

# show tray icons on the big monitor
bar {
    tray_output HDMI2
}
-------------------------

Note that you might not have a primary output configured yet. To do so, run:
-------------------------
xrandr --output <output> --primary
-------------------------

=== Font

Specifies the font to be used in the bar. See <<fonts>>.

*Syntax*:
---------------------
font <font>
---------------------

*Example*:
--------------------------------------------------------------
bar {
    font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1
    font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
}
--------------------------------------------------------------

=== Custom separator symbol

Specifies a custom symbol to be used for the separator as opposed to the vertical,
one pixel thick separator.

*Syntax*:
-------------------------
separator_symbol <symbol>
-------------------------

*Example*:
------------------------
bar {
    separator_symbol ":|:"
}
------------------------

=== Workspace buttons

Specifies whether workspace buttons should be shown or not. This is useful if
you want to display a statusline-only bar containing additional information.

The default is to show workspace buttons.

*Syntax*:
--------------------------
workspace_buttons <yes|no>
--------------------------

*Example*:
------------------------
bar {
    workspace_buttons no
}
------------------------

=== Strip workspace numbers

Specifies whether workspace numbers should be displayed within the workspace
buttons. This is useful if you want to have a named workspace that stays in
order on the bar according to its number without displaying the number prefix.

When +strip_workspace_numbers+ is set to +yes+, any workspace that has a name of
the form "[n]:[NAME]" will display only the name. You could use this, for
instance, to display Roman numerals rather than digits by naming your
workspaces to "1:I", "2:II", "3:III", "4:IV", ...

The default is to display the full name within the workspace button.

*Syntax*:
----------------------------------
strip_workspace_numbers <yes|no>
----------------------------------

*Example*:
----------------------------
bar {
    strip_workspace_numbers yes
}
----------------------------

=== Binding Mode indicator

Specifies whether the current binding mode indicator should be shown or not.
This is useful if you want to hide the workspace buttons but still be able
to see the current binding mode indicator.
For an example of a +mode+ definition, see <<resizingconfig>>.

The default is to show the mode indicator.

*Syntax*:
-------------------------------
binding_mode_indicator <yes|no>
-------------------------------

*Example*:
-----------------------------
bar {
    binding_mode_indicator no
}
-----------------------------

=== Colors

As with i3, colors are in HTML hex format (#rrggbb). The following colors can
be configured at the moment:

background::
        Background color of the bar.
statusline::
        Text color to be used for the statusline.
separator::
        Text color to be used for the separator.
focused_workspace::
        Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
        has focus.
active_workspace::
        Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
        is active (visible) on some output, but the focus is on another one.
        You can only tell this apart from the focused workspace when you are
        using multiple monitors.
inactive_workspace::
        Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
        does not have focus and is not active (visible) on any output. This
        will be the case for most workspaces.
urgent_workspace::
        Border, background and text color for a workspace button when the workspace
        contains a window with the urgency hint set. Also applies to +mode+ indicators.

*Syntax*:
----------------------------------------
colors {
    background <color>
    statusline <color>
    separator <color>

    colorclass <border> <background> <text>
}
----------------------------------------

*Example (default colors)*:
--------------------------------------
bar {
    colors {
        background #000000
        statusline #ffffff
        separator #666666

        focused_workspace  #4c7899 #285577 #ffffff
        active_workspace   #333333 #5f676a #ffffff
        inactive_workspace #333333 #222222 #888888
        urgent_workspace   #2f343a #900000 #ffffff
    }
}
--------------------------------------

== List of commands

Commands are what you bind to specific keypresses. You can also issue commands
at runtime without pressing a key by using the IPC interface. An easy way to
do this is to use the +i3-msg+ utility:

*Example*:
--------------------------
# execute this on your shell to make the current container borderless
i3-msg border none
--------------------------

Commands can be chained by using +;+ (a semicolon). So, to move a window to a
specific workspace and immediately switch to that workspace, you can configure
the following keybinding:

*Example*:
--------------------------------------------------------
bindsym $mod+x move container to workspace 3; workspace 3
--------------------------------------------------------

[[command_criteria]]

Furthermore, you can change the scope of a command - that is, which containers
should be affected by that command, by using various criteria. The criteria
are specified before any command in a pair of square brackets and are separated
by space.

When using multiple commands, separate them by using a +,+ (a comma) instead of
a semicolon. Criteria apply only until the next semicolon, so if you use a
semicolon to separate commands, only the first one will be executed for the
matched window(s).

*Example*:
------------------------------------
# if you want to kill all windows which have the class Firefox, use:
bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox"] kill

# same thing, but case-insensitive
bindsym $mod+x [class="(?i)firefox"] kill

# kill only the About dialog from Firefox
bindsym $mod+x [class="Firefox" window_role="About"] kill

# enable floating mode and move container to workspace 4
for_window [class="^evil-app$"] floating enable, move container to workspace 4
------------------------------------

The criteria which are currently implemented are:

class::
        Compares the window class (the second part of WM_CLASS)
instance::
        Compares the window instance (the first part of WM_CLASS)
window_role::
        Compares the window role (WM_WINDOW_ROLE).
id::
        Compares the X11 window ID, which you can get via +xwininfo+ for example.
title::
        Compares the X11 window title (_NET_WM_NAME or WM_NAME as fallback).
urgent::
        Compares the urgent state of the window. Can be "latest" or "oldest".
        Matches the latest or oldest urgent window, respectively.
        (The following aliases are also available: newest, last, recent, first)
con_mark::
        Compares the mark set for this container, see <<vim_like_marks>>.
con_id::
        Compares the i3-internal container ID, which you can get via the IPC
        interface. Handy for scripting.

The criteria +class+, +instance+, +role+, +title+ and +mark+ are actually
regular expressions (PCRE). See +pcresyntax(3)+ or +perldoc perlre+ for
information on how to use them.

[[exec]]

=== Executing applications (exec)

What good is a window manager if you can’t actually start any applications?
The exec command starts an application by passing the command you specify to a
shell. This implies that you can use globbing (wildcards) and programs will be
searched in your +$PATH+.

See <<command_chaining>> for details on the special meaning of +;+ (semicolon)
and +,+ (comma): they chain commands together in i3, so you need to use quoted
strings if they appear in your command.

*Syntax*:
------------------------------
exec [--no-startup-id] command
------------------------------

*Example*:
------------------------------
# Start the GIMP
bindsym $mod+g exec gimp

# Start the terminal emulator urxvt which is not yet startup-notification-aware
bindsym $mod+Return exec --no-startup-id urxvt
------------------------------

The +--no-startup-id+ parameter disables startup-notification support for this
particular exec command. With startup-notification, i3 can make sure that a
window appears on the workspace on which you used the exec command. Also, it
will change the X11 cursor to +watch+ (a clock) while the application is
launching. So, if an application is not startup-notification aware (most GTK
and Qt using applications seem to be, though), you will end up with a watch
cursor for 60 seconds.

=== Splitting containers

The split command makes the current window a split container. Split containers
can contain multiple windows. Depending on the layout of the split container,
new windows get placed to the right of the current one (splith) or new windows
get placed below the current one (splitv).

If you apply this command to a split container with the same orientation,
nothing will happen. If you use a different orientation, the split container’s
orientation will be changed (if it does not have more than one window). Use
+layout toggle split+ to change the layout of any split container from splitv
to splith or vice-versa.

*Syntax*:
---------------------------
split <vertical|horizontal>
---------------------------

*Example*:
------------------------------
bindsym $mod+v split vertical
bindsym $mod+h split horizontal
------------------------------

=== Manipulating layout

Use +layout toggle split+, +layout stacking+, +layout tabbed+, +layout splitv+
or +layout splith+ to change the current container layout to splith/splitv,
stacking, tabbed layout, splitv or splith, respectively.

To make the current window (!) fullscreen, use +fullscreen enable+ (or
+fullscreen enable global+ for the global mode), to leave either fullscreen
mode use +fullscreen disable+, and to toggle between these two states use
+fullscreen toggle+ (or +fullscreen toggle global+).

Likewise, to make the current window floating (or tiling again) use +floating
enable+ respectively +floating disable+ (or +floating toggle+):

*Syntax*:
--------------
layout <default|tabbed|stacking|splitv|splith>
layout toggle [split|all]
--------------

*Examples*:
--------------
bindsym $mod+s layout stacking
bindsym $mod+l layout toggle split
bindsym $mod+w layout tabbed

# Toggle between stacking/tabbed/split:
bindsym $mod+x layout toggle

# Toggle between stacking/tabbed/splith/splitv:
bindsym $mod+x layout toggle all

# Toggle fullscreen
bindsym $mod+f fullscreen toggle

# Toggle floating/tiling
bindsym $mod+t floating toggle
--------------

=== Focusing/Moving containers

To change the focus, use the focus command: +focus left+, +focus right+, +focus
down+ and +focus up+.

There are a few special parameters you can use for the focus command:

parent::
        Sets focus to the +Parent Container+ of the current +Container+.
child::
        The opposite of +focus parent+, sets the focus to the last focused
        child container.
floating::
        Sets focus to the last focused floating container.
tiling::
        Sets focus to the last focused tiling container.
mode_toggle::
        Toggles between floating/tiling containers.
output::
        Followed by a direction or an output name, this will focus the
        corresponding output.

For moving, use +move left+, +move right+, +move down+ and +move up+.

*Syntax*:
-----------------------------------
focus <left|right|down|up>
focus <parent|child|floating|tiling|mode_toggle>
focus output <<left|right|down|up>|output>
move <left|right|down|up> [<px> px]
move [absolute] position [[<px> px] [<px> px]|center]
-----------------------------------

Note that the amount of pixels you can specify for the +move+ command is only
relevant for floating containers. The default amount is 10 pixels.

*Examples*:
----------------------
# Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right:
bindsym $mod+j focus left
bindsym $mod+k focus down
bindsym $mod+l focus up
bindsym $mod+semicolon focus right

# Focus parent container
bindsym $mod+u focus parent

# Focus last floating/tiling container
bindsym $mod+g focus mode_toggle

# Focus the output right to the current one
bindsym $mod+x focus output right

# Focus the big output
bindsym $mod+x focus output HDMI-2

# Move container to the left, bottom, top, right:
bindsym $mod+j move left
bindsym $mod+k move down
bindsym $mod+l move up
bindsym $mod+semicolon move right

# Move container, but make floating containers
# move more than the default
bindsym $mod+j move left 20 px

# Move floating container to the center
# of all outputs
bindsym $mod+c move absolute position center
----------------------

=== Changing (named) workspaces/moving to workspaces

To change to a specific workspace, use the +workspace+ command, followed by the
number or name of the workspace. To move containers to specific workspaces, use
+move container to workspace+.

You can also switch to the next and previous workspace with the commands
+workspace next+ and +workspace prev+, which is handy, for example, if you have
workspace 1, 3, 4 and 9 and you want to cycle through them with a single key
combination. To restrict those to the current output, use +workspace
next_on_output+ and +workspace prev_on_output+. Similarly, you can use +move
container to workspace next+, +move container to workspace prev+ to move a
container to the next/previous workspace and +move container to workspace current+
(the last one makes sense only when used with criteria).

See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
RandR output.

Workspace names are parsed as
https://developer.gnome.org/pango/stable/PangoMarkupFormat.html[Pango markup]
by i3bar.

[[back_and_forth]]
To switch back to the previously focused workspace, use +workspace
back_and_forth+; likewise, you can move containers to the previously focused
workspace using +move container to workspace back_and_forth+.

*Syntax*:
-----------------------------------
workspace <next|prev|next_on_output|prev_on_output>
workspace back_and_forth
workspace <name>
workspace number <name>

move [window|container] [to] workspace <name>
move [window|container] [to] workspace number <name>
move [window|container] [to] workspace <prev|next|current>
-----------------------------------

*Examples*:
-------------------------
bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1
bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2
bindsym $mod+3 workspace 3:<span foreground="red">vim</span>
...

bindsym $mod+Shift+1 move container to workspace 1
bindsym $mod+Shift+2 move container to workspace 2
...

# switch between the current and the previously focused one
bindsym $mod+b workspace back_and_forth
bindsym $mod+Shift+b move container to workspace back_and_forth

# move the whole workspace to the next output
bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right

# move firefox to current workspace
bindsym $mod+F1 [class="Firefox"] move workspace current
-------------------------

==== Named workspaces

Workspaces are identified by their name. So, instead of using numbers in the
workspace command, you can use an arbitrary name:

*Example*:
-------------------------
bindsym $mod+1 workspace mail
...
-------------------------

If you want the workspace to have a number *and* a name, just prefix the
number, like this:

*Example*:
-------------------------
bindsym $mod+1 workspace 1: mail
bindsym $mod+2 workspace 2: www
...
-------------------------

Note that the workspace will really be named "1: mail". i3 treats workspace
names beginning with a number in a slightly special way. Normally, named
workspaces are ordered the way they appeared. When they start with a number, i3
will order them numerically. Also, you will be able to use +workspace number 1+
to switch to the workspace which begins with number 1, regardless of which name
it has. This is useful in case you are changing the workspace’s name
dynamically. To combine both commands you can use +workspace number 1: mail+ to
specify a default name if there's currently no workspace starting with a "1".

==== Renaming workspaces

You can rename workspaces. This might be useful to start with the default
numbered workspaces, do your work, and rename the workspaces afterwards to
reflect what’s actually on them. You can also omit the old name to rename
the currently focused workspace. This is handy if you want to use the
rename command with +i3-input+.

*Syntax*:
----------------------------------------------------
rename workspace <old_name> to <new_name>
rename workspace to <new_name>
----------------------------------------------------

*Examples*:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
i3-msg 'rename workspace 5 to 6'
i3-msg 'rename workspace 1 to "1: www"'
i3-msg 'rename workspace "1: www" to "10: www"'
i3-msg 'rename workspace to "2: mail"
bindsym $mod+r exec i3-input -F 'rename workspace to "%s"' -P 'New name: '
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

=== Moving workspaces to a different screen

See <<move_to_outputs>> for how to move a container/workspace to a different
RandR output.

=== Moving containers/workspaces to RandR outputs

[[move_to_outputs]]

To move a container to another RandR output (addressed by names like +LVDS1+ or
+VGA1+) or to a RandR output identified by a specific direction (like +left+,
+right+, +up+ or +down+), there are two commands:

*Syntax*:
--------------------------------------------------------
move container to output <<left|right|down|up>|<output>>
move workspace to output <<left|right|down|up>|<output>>
--------------------------------------------------------

*Examples*:
--------------------------------------------------------
# Move the current workspace to the next output
# (effectively toggles when you only have two outputs)
bindsym $mod+x move workspace to output right

# Put this window on the presentation output.
bindsym $mod+x move container to output VGA1
--------------------------------------------------------

[[resizingconfig]]

=== Resizing containers/windows

If you want to resize containers/windows using your keyboard, you can use the
+resize+ command:

*Syntax*:
---------------------------------------------------------
resize <grow|shrink> <direction> [<px> px [or <ppt> ppt]]
---------------------------------------------------------

Direction can either be one of +up+, +down+, +left+ or +right+. Or you can be
less specific and use +width+ or +height+, in which case i3 will take/give
space from all the other containers. The optional pixel argument specifies by
how many pixels a *floating container* should be grown or shrunk (the default
is 10 pixels). The ppt argument means percentage points and specifies by how
many percentage points a *tiling container* should be grown or shrunk (the
default is 10 percentage points).

I recommend using the resize command inside a so called +mode+:

.Example: Configuration file, defining a mode for resizing
----------------------------------------------------------------------
mode "resize" {
        # These bindings trigger as soon as you enter the resize mode

        # Pressing left will shrink the window’s width.
        # Pressing right will grow the window’s width.
        # Pressing up will shrink the window’s height.
        # Pressing down will grow the window’s height.
        bindsym j           resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
        bindsym k           resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
        bindsym l           resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
        bindsym semicolon   resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt

        # same bindings, but for the arrow keys
        bindsym Left        resize shrink width 10 px or 10 ppt
        bindsym Down        resize grow height 10 px or 10 ppt
        bindsym Up          resize shrink height 10 px or 10 ppt
        bindsym Right       resize grow width 10 px or 10 ppt

        # back to normal: Enter or Escape
        bindsym Return mode "default"
        bindsym Escape mode "default"
}

# Enter resize mode
bindsym $mod+r mode "resize"
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=== Jumping to specific windows

Often when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a
specific window. For example, while working on workspace 3 you may want to
jump to your mail client to email your boss that you’ve achieved some
important goal. Instead of figuring out how to navigate to your mail client,
it would be more convenient to have a shortcut. You can use the +focus+ command
with criteria for that.

*Syntax*:
----------------------------------------------------
[class="class"] focus
[title="title"] focus
----------------------------------------------------

*Examples*:
------------------------------------------------
# Get me to the next open VIM instance
bindsym $mod+a [class="urxvt" title="VIM"] focus
------------------------------------------------

=== VIM-like marks (mark/goto)

[[vim_like_marks]]

This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
an arbitrary label and use it afterwards. You can unmark the label in the same
way, using the unmark command. If you don't specify a label, unmark removes all
marks. You do not need to ensure that your windows have unique classes or
titles, and you do not need to change your configuration file.

As the command needs to include the label with which you want to mark the
window, you cannot simply bind it to a key.  +i3-input+ is a tool created
for this purpose: It lets you input a command and sends the command to i3. It
can also prefix this command and display a custom prompt for the input dialog.

*Syntax*:
------------------------------
mark identifier
[con_mark="identifier"] focus
unmark identifier
------------------------------

*Example (in a terminal)*:
------------------------------
$ i3-msg mark irssi
$ i3-msg '[con_mark="irssi"] focus'
$ i3-msg unmark irssi
------------------------------

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
TODO: make i3-input replace %s
*Examples*:
---------------------------------------
# Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
bindsym $mod+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '

# Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
bindsym $mod+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
---------------------------------------

Alternatively, if you do not want to mess with +i3-input+, you could create
seperate bindings for a specific set of labels and then only use those labels.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

=== Changing border style

To change the border of the current client, you can use +border normal+ to use the normal
border (including window title), +border 1pixel+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
and +border none+ to make the client borderless.

There is also +border toggle+ which will toggle the different border styles.

*Examples*:
----------------------------
bindsym $mod+t border normal
bindsym $mod+y border 1pixel
bindsym $mod+u border none
----------------------------

[[stack-limit]]

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
TODO: not yet implemented
=== Changing the stack-limit of a container

If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside it (say, more than
10), the default layout of a stacking container can get a little unhandy.
Depending on your screen’s size, you might end up with only half of the title
lines being actually used, wasting a lot of screen space.

Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the number of rows or columns
in a stacking container. i3 will create columns or rows (depending on what
you limited) automatically as needed.

*Syntax*:
--------------------------------
stack-limit <cols|rows> <value>
--------------------------------

*Examples*:
-------------------
# I always want to have two window titles in one line
stack-limit cols 2

# Not more than 5 rows in this stacking container
stack-limit rows 5
-------------------

image:stacklimit.png[Container limited to two columns]
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[[shmlog]]

=== Enabling shared memory logging

As described in http://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html, i3 can log to a shared
memory buffer, which you can dump using +i3-dump-log+. The +shmlog+ command
allows you to enable or disable the shared memory logging at runtime.

Note that when using +shmlog <size_in_bytes>+, the current log will be
discarded and a new one will be started.

*Syntax*:
------------------------------
shmlog <size_in_bytes>
shmlog <on|off|toggle>
------------------------------

*Examples*:
---------------
# Enable/disable logging
bindsym $mod+x shmlog toggle

# or, from a terminal:
# increase the shared memory log buffer to 50 MiB
i3-msg shmlog $((50*1024*1024))
---------------

=== Enabling debug logging

The +debuglog+ command allows you to enable or disable debug logging at
runtime. Debug logging is much more verbose than non-debug logging. This
command does not activate shared memory logging (shmlog), and as such is most
likely useful in combination with the above-described <<shmlog>> command.

*Syntax*:
------------------------
debuglog <on|off|toggle>
------------------------

*Examples*:
------------------------
# Enable/disable logging
bindsym $mod+x debuglog toggle
------------------------

=== Reloading/Restarting/Exiting

You can make i3 reload its configuration file with +reload+. You can also
restart i3 inplace with the +restart+ command to get it out of some weird state
(if that should ever happen) or to perform an upgrade without having to restart
your X session. To exit i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command,
however you don’t need to (simply killing your X session is fine as well).

*Examples*:
----------------------------
bindsym $mod+Shift+r restart
bindsym $mod+Shift+w reload
bindsym $mod+Shift+e exit
----------------------------

=== Scratchpad

There are two commands to use any existing window as scratchpad window. +move
scratchpad+ will move a window to the scratchpad workspace. This will make it
invisible until you show it again. There is no way to open that workspace.
Instead, when using +scratchpad show+, the window will be shown again, as a
floating window, centered on your current workspace (using +scratchpad show+ on
a visible scratchpad window will make it hidden again, so you can have a
keybinding to toggle). Note that this is just a normal floating window, so if
you want to "remove it from scratchpad", you can simple make it tiling again
(+floating toggle+).

As the name indicates, this is useful for having a window with your favorite
editor always at hand. However, you can also use this for other permanently
running applications which you don’t want to see all the time: Your music
player, alsamixer, maybe even your mail client…?

*Syntax*:
---------------
move scratchpad

scratchpad show
---------------

*Examples*:
------------------------------------------------
# Make the currently focused window a scratchpad
bindsym $mod+Shift+minus move scratchpad

# Show the first scratchpad window
bindsym $mod+minus scratchpad show

# Show the sup-mail scratchpad window, if any.
bindsym mod4+s [title="^Sup ::"] scratchpad show
------------------------------------------------

=== Nop

There is a no operation command +nop+ which allows you to override default
behavior. This can be useful for, e.g., disabling a focus change on clicks with
the middle mouse button.

The optional +comment+ argument is ignored, but will be printed to the log file
for debugging purposes.

*Syntax*:
---------------
nop [<comment>]
---------------

*Example*:
----------------------------------------------
# Disable focus change for clicks on titlebars
# with the middle mouse button
bindsym button2 nop
----------------------------------------------

=== i3bar control

There are two options in the configuration of each i3bar instance that can be
changed during runtime by invoking a command through i3. The commands +bar
hidden_state+ and +bar mode+ allow setting the current hidden_state
respectively mode option of each bar. It is also possible to toggle between
hide state and show state as well as between dock mode and hide mode. Each
i3bar instance can be controlled individually by specifying a bar_id, if none
is given, the command is executed for all bar instances.

*Syntax*:
---------------
bar hidden_state hide|show|toggle [<bar_id>]

bar mode dock|hide|invisible|toggle [<bar_id>]
---------------

*Examples*:
------------------------------------------------
# Toggle between hide state and show state
bindsym $mod+m bar hidden_state toggle

# Toggle between dock mode and hide mode
bindsym $mod+n bar mode toggle

# Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to switch to hide mode
bindsym $mod+b bar mode hide bar-1

# Set the bar instance with id 'bar-1' to always stay hidden
bindsym $mod+Shift+b bar mode invisible bar-1
------------------------------------------------

[[multi_monitor]]

== Multiple monitors

As you can see in the goal list on the website, i3 was specifically developed
with support for multiple monitors in mind. This section will explain how to
handle multiple monitors.

When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.

When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
workspace.  The first monitor gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third
would get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different monitor, i3 will
switch to that monitor and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t
need shortcuts to switch to a specific monitor, and you don’t need to remember
where you put which workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the currently
active monitor.  It is not possible to have a monitor without a workspace.

The idea of making workspaces global is based on the observation that most
users have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors.
They are often used for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring
several things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor
and "the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
create an unlimited number of workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific
screens, you can have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per
screen by changing your configuration (using modes, for example).

=== Configuring your monitors

To help you get going if you have never used multiple monitors before, here is
a short overview of the xrandr options which will probably be of interest to
you. It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration.
Just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
   1280x800       60.0*+   50.0
   1024x768       85.0     75.0     70.1     60.0
   832x624        74.6
   800x600        85.1     72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2
   640x480        85.0     72.8     75.0     59.9
   720x400        85.0
   640x400        85.1
   640x350        85.1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have a monitor
connected to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.

The maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line is the maximum
combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually too low and has
to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.

So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
-------------------------------------------
xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
-------------------------------------------
This command makes xrandr try to find the native resolution of the device
connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
   1280x1024      60.0*+   75.0
   1280x960       60.0
   1152x864       75.0
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0
   832x624        74.6
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2
   640x480        72.8     75.0     66.7     60.0
   720x400        70.1
LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
   1280x800       60.0*+   50.0
   1024x768       85.0     75.0     70.1     60.0
   832x624        74.6
   800x600        85.1     72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2
   640x480        85.0     72.8     75.0     59.9
   720x400        85.0
   640x400        85.1
   640x350        85.1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
only what you can see in xrandr.

See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.

=== Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments

There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
have more than one monitor:

1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This
   allows you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
   1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
   <<workspace_screen>>.
2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
   (MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
   <<assign_workspace>>.
3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
   track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
   quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
4. For information on how to move existing workspaces between monitors,
   see <<_moving_containers_workspaces_to_randr_outputs>>.

== i3 and the rest of your software world

=== Displaying a status line

A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement to the widget
approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.

If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
(self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
this task. It was written in C with the goal of using as few syscalls as
possible to reduce the time your CPU is woken up from sleep states. Because
i3status only spits out text, you need to combine it with some other tool, like
i3bar. See <<status_command>> for how to display i3status in i3bar.

Regardless of which application you use to display the status line, you
want to make sure that it registers as a dock window using EWMH hints. i3 will
position the window either at the top or at the bottom of the screen, depending
on which hint the application sets. With i3bar, you can configure its position,
see <<i3bar_position>>.

=== Giving presentations (multi-monitor)

When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
slides.

[[presentations]]
==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
This is the simple case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
-----------------------------------------------------
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
-----------------------------------------------------
i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
your screen will be left untouched (it will show the X background). So, in
our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).

==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
-----------------------------------------------------
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
-----------------------------------------------------
Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).

Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no ability to
display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, your presentation
software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen).