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Add first version of a website

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Michael Stapelberg 2009-02-19 18:04:16 +01:00
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<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf8">
<style type="text/css">
body {
text-align: justify;
max-width: 800px;
}
li {
margin-bottom: 10px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>i3 - an improved dynamic tiling window manager</h1>
<p>
i3 was created because wmii, our favorite window manager at the time, didn’t
provide some features we wanted (Xinerama done right), had some bugs, didn’t
progress since quite some time and wasn’t easy to hack at all (source code
comments/documentation completely lacking).
</p>
<p>
Please be aware that i3 is primarily targeted at computer geeks.
</p>
<h2>Goals</h2>
<p>
Based upon the experiences we made when wanting to hack/fix wmii, we agreed
upon the following goals for i3:
</p>
<ol>
<li>
Write well readable, well <strong>documented</strong> code. Create additional
documentation on how to extend i3 by explaining its internal workings.
<br>
This includes being modifyable by people who do know how to program but who are
not necessarily familiar with all of X11’s internals. That is, document why
things happen and when they happen so that the user gets a picture of the whole
process a Window Manager is responsible of by just reading the source code.
</li>
<li>
Use xcb as far as possible (it does not provide functions for some features
yet, like XKB) instead of Xlib. xcb has a much cleaner API and should be faster
in quite a lot of situations.
</li>
<li>
Implement Xinerama correctly, that is by assigning each workspace to a
virtual screen. Especially make sure that attaching and detaching new monitors
like beamers works during operation and does the right thing.
</li>
<li>
Use the metaphor of a table for abstraction. You can create horizontal and
vertical columns (in wmii, you can only create vertical columns). See the documentation
for more information on how this works, it really is an important principle in i3.
(TODO: documentation :-))
</li>
<li>
Implement a command mode, like in vim. You can easily combine multiple
actions (like focusing, moving, snapping) by using the command mode.
</li>
<li>
Implement XRandR support for flipping monitors.
</li>
<li>
Do <strong>not</strong> use programs such as autoconf/automake for configuration and
creating unreadable/broken makefiles. Instead, use a clean makefile which automatically
enables/disables features for specific platforms. Also, document the dependencies
properly, so that package maintainers have an easy job packaging i3.
</li>
<li>
Provide hooks/callbacks for other programs to integrate. Using this mechanism, one
can easily extend i3 in whatever language, without ever touching the C code. Also,
to communicate with a running i3 instance, messages can be sent.
<br>
This approach should be more lightweight than wmii’s usage of the 9P filesystem.
Furthermore, core functionality does not depend on a separate program, so that i3
runs faster, especially when your system is under load.
</li>
<li>
Be UTF-8 clean.
</li>
<li>
The usual elitism amongst minimal window managers: Don’t be bloated, don’t be fancy
(simple borders are the most decoration we want to have), don’t add support for Xft
and blurred fonts.
<br>
However, we do not enforce unnecessary limits such as a maximum amount of source lines
of code. If it needs to be a bit bigger, it will be.
</li>
</ol>
<h3>Special Features</h3>
<ul>
<li>
We can bind on Mode_switch (Alt Gr). Other window managers fail to do that because
of an X11-bug, which causes the modifier state to not be correctly set in KeyPress-
events. We use XKB for making sure to get the correct state.
</li>
</ul>
<h2>Development</h2>
<p>
i3 is currently developed at http://code.stapelberg.de/git. Checkouts of the master
branch are intended to be stable and working all the time. Integration of new features
happens in a separate branch.
</p>
<h2>License</h2>
<p>
i3 is BSD-licensed (TODO: exact license text)
</p>
<h2>Contact</h2>
<p>
Contact us at irc://irc.twice-irc.de/i3 (or, #i3 on irc.twice-irc.de, for those without
proper URL handling setup). Feel free to ask questions, please don’t ask to ask and please
think before you ask :-).
</p>
</body>
</html>