3 Michael Stapelberg <michael+i3@stapelberg.de>
4 v3.alpha, February 2009
8 i3 - an improved dynamic, tiling window manager
18 i3 was created because wmii, our favorite window manager at the time, didn’t
19 provide some features we wanted (Xinerama done right, for example), had some
20 bugs, didn’t progress since quite some time and wasn’t easy to hack at all
21 (source code comments/documentation completely lacking). Still, we think the
22 wmii developers and contributors did a great job. Thank you for inspiring us to
25 Please be aware that i3 is primarily targeted at advanced users and developers.
27 === ABOUT THIS RELEASE
29 What you are using is i3.alpha. That means, it is a preview release, not yet fully
30 stable, may still contain bugs and the implementation of several behaviour is
31 subject to change. However, it should provide you with a pretty good picture of
32 how i3 will look in subsequent releases.
34 Please, use i3 and report all the bugs/problems you encounter by sending an
35 email to <michael+i3 at stapelberg.de>
40 A client is X11-speak for a window.
43 Your workspace is managed using a table. You can move windows around and create new columns
44 (move a client to the right) or rows (move it to the bottom) implicitly.
46 By "snapping" a client in a specific direction, you increase its colspan/rowspan.
49 A container contains a variable number of clients. Each cell of the table is a container.
51 Containers can be used in various modes. The default mode is called "default" and just
52 resizes each client equally so that it fits. The stacking mode is currently not implemented.
55 A workspace is a set of clients (technically speaking, it’s just a table). Other window
56 managers call this "Virtual Desktops".
58 In i3, each workspace is assigned to a specific virtual screen. By default, screen 1
59 has workspace 1, screen 2 has workspace 2 and so on… However, when you create a new
60 workspace (by simply switching to it), it’ll be assigned the screen you are currently
64 Using Xinerama, you can have an X11 screen spanning multiple real monitors. Furthermore,
65 you can set them up in cloning mode or with positions (monitor 1 is left of monitor 2).
67 A virtual screen is the result of your Xinerama setup. For example, if you have attached
68 two real monitors (let’s say your laptop screen and a beamer) and enabled cloning, i3
69 will use one virtual screen with the size of the smallest screen you have attached (so
70 that you can see all your windows on each screen all the time).
71 If you have two monitors attached, one configured to be left of the other, i3 will use
76 Here is a short overview of the default keybindings:
79 Direction keys (left, down, up, right)
82 Focus window in <direction>.
84 Mod1+Shift+<direction>::
85 Move window to <direction>.
87 Mod1+Control+<direction>::
88 Snap window to <direction>.
91 Switch to workspace <number>.
94 Toggle fullscreen mode.
97 Enable stacking layout for the current container.
100 Enable default layout for the current container.
106 When starting, i3 looks for i3.config in the current working directory and loads the
107 configuration. At the moment, you can specify only the path to your favorite terminal
108 emulator, the font and keybindings.
110 At the moment, you have to bind to keycodes (find them out via xev(1)).
112 .Sample configuration
113 -------------------------------------------------------------
114 terminal /usr/pkg/bin/urxvt
115 font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso8859-1
118 bind Mod1+73 exec /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
121 bind Mod1+68 exec /usr/bin/slock
124 bind Mod1+97 exec sudo sh -c "echo up > /proc/acpi/ibm/brightness"
125 bind Mod1+103 exec sudo sh -c "echo down > /proc/acpi/ibm/brightness"
139 bind Mod1+Control+44 sh
140 bind Mod1+Control+45 sj
141 bind Mod1+Control+46 sk
142 bind Mod1+Control+47 sl
144 bind Mod1+Shift+44 mh
145 bind Mod1+Shift+45 mj
146 bind Mod1+Shift+46 mk
147 bind Mod1+Shift+47 ml
156 -------------------------------------------------------------
160 This file is where you should configure your locales and start i3. It is run by
161 your login manager (xdm, slim, gdm, …) as soon as you login.
164 -------------------------------------------------------------
165 # Disable DPMS turning off the screen
171 # Enforce correct locales from the beginning
173 export LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8
174 export LC_TIME=de_DE.ISO8859-15
175 export LC_NUMERIC=de_DE.ISO8859-15
176 export LC_MONETARY=de_DE.ISO8859-15
178 export LC_PAPER=de_DE.ISO8859-15
179 export LC_NAME=de_DE.ISO8859-15
180 export LC_ADDRESS=de_DE.ISO8859-15
181 export LC_TELEPHONE=de_DE.ISO8859-15
182 export LC_MEASUREMENT=de_DE.ISO8859-15
183 export LC_IDENTIFICATION=de_DE.ISO8859-15
186 -------------------------------------------------------------
190 There is lots of stuff left to do. This release is to be considered as a technology preview.
191 Here is an overwiew of the most important points:
194 * a command for toggling layouts/workspaces
196 * do something about applications which don’t use _NET_WM_STATE_FULLSCREEN (like xpdf)
200 Michael Stapelberg and contributors