i3/docs/userguide

i3 User’s Guide
===============
Michael Stapelberg <michael+i3@stapelberg.de>
August 2009

This document contains all information you need to configuring and using the i3
window manager. If it does not, please contact me on IRC, Jabber or E-Mail and
I’ll help you out.

For a complete listing of the default keybindings, please see the manpage.

== Using i3

=== Creating terminals and moving around

A very basic operation is to create a new terminal. By default, the keybinding
for that is Mod1+Enter, that is Alt+Enter in the default configuration. By
pressing Mod1+Enter, a new terminal will be created and it will fill the whole
space which is available on your screen.

image:single_terminal.png[Single terminal]

It is important to keep in mind that i3 uses a table to manage your windows. At
the moment, you have exactly one column and one row which leaves you with one
cell. In this cell, there is a container in which your newly opened terminal is.

If you now open another terminal, you still have only one cell. However, the
container has both of your terminals. So, a container is just a group of clients
with a specific layout. You can resize containers as they directly resemble
columns/rows of the layout table.

image:two_terminals.png[Two terminals]

To move the focus between the two terminals, you 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, +Mod1+J+ is left, +Mod1+K+ is down, +Mod1+L+
is up and `Mod1+;` is right. So, to switch between the terminals, use +Mod1+K+ or
+Mod1+L+.

To create a new row/column, you can simply move a terminal (or any other window)
to the direction you want to expand your table. So, let’s expand the table to
the right by pressing `Mod1+Shift+;`.

image:two_columns.png[Two columns]

=== Changing mode of containers

A container can be in different modes:

default::
Windows are sized so that every window gets an equal amount of space of the
container.
stacking::
Only the focused client of the container is displayed and 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 will be vertically split.

To switch the mode, press +Mod1+e+ for default, +Mod1+h+ for stacking and
+Mod1+w+ for tabbed.

image:modes.png[Container modes]

=== Toggling fullscreen mode for a window

To display a window fullscreen or to go out of fullscreen mode again, press
+Mod1+f+.

=== Opening other applications

Aside from opening applicatios from a terminal, you can also use the handy
+dmenu+ which is opened by pressing +Mod1+v+ by default. Just type the name
(or a part of it) of the application which you want to open. It has to be in
your +$PATH+ for that to work.

Furthermore, if you have applications you open very frequently, you can also
create a keybinding for it. See the section "Configuring i3" for details.

=== Closing windows

If an application does not provide a mechanism to close (most applications
provide a menu, the escape key or a shortcut like +Control+W+ to close), you
can press +Mod1+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
it, 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 +Mod1+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. 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 this
screen.

=== Moving windows to workspaces

To move a window to another workspace, simply press +Mod1+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 columns/rows

To resize columns or rows just grab the border between the two columns/rows
and move it to the wanted size. Please keep in mind that each cell of the table
holds a +container+ and thus you cannot horizontally resize single windows.

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

=== Restarting i3 inplace

To restart i3 inplace (and thus get it into a clean state if it has a bug, to
reload your configuration or even to upgrade to a newer version of i3) you
can use +Mod1+Shift+r+. Be aware, though, that this kills your current layout
and all the windows you have opened will be put in a default container in only
one cell. Saving the layout will be implemented in a later version.

=== Exiting i3

To cleanly exit i3 without killing your X server, you can use +Mod1+Shift+e+.

=== Snapping

Snapping is a mechanism to increase/decrease the colspan/rowspan of a container.
Colspan/rowspan is the amount of columns/rows a specific cell of the table
consumes. This is easier explained by giving an example, so take the following
layout:

image:snapping.png[Snapping example]

To use the full size of your screen, you can now snap container 3 downwards
by pressing +Mod1+Control+k+ (or snap container 2 rightwards).

=== Floating

Floating is the opposite of tiling mode. The position and size of a window
are then not managed by i3, but 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).

You can enable floating for a window by pressing +Mod1+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.

Bindings for doing this with your keyboard will follow.

Floating clients are always on top of tiling clients.

== Configuring i3

This is where the real fun begins ;-). Most things are very dependant 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 regarding 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 a specific workspace, you can
automatically start applications, you can change the colors of i3 or bind
your keys to do useful stuff.

To change the configuration of i3, copy +/etc/i3/config+ to +~/.i3/config+
and edit it with a text editor.

=== General configuration

terminal::
	Specifies the terminal emulator program you prefer. It will be started
	by default when you press Mod1+Enter, but you can overwrite this. Refer
	to it as +$terminal+ to keep things modular.
font::
	Specifies the default font you want i3 to use. Use an X core font
	descriptor here, like
	+-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso10646-1+. You can
	use +xfontsel(1)+ to pick one.

=== 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 also use in Xmodmap to remap your keys. To get the current mapping of your
  keys, use +xmodmap -pke+.

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

My recommendation is: If you often switch keyboard layouts because you try to
learn a different one, but you want to keep your bindings at the same place,
use keycodes. If you don’t switch layouts and like a clean and simple config
file, use keysyms.

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

*Examples*:
--------------------------------
# Fullscreen
bind Mod1+f f

# Restart
bind Mod1+Shift+r restart

# Notebook-specific hotkeys
bind 214 exec /home/michael/toggle_beamer.sh
--------------------------------

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 :-).

=== 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. The most common setup is to configure
it as the same one you use for managing windows (Mod1 for example). Afterwards,
you can press Mod1, click into a window using your left mouse button and drag
it to the position you want it at.

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

*Examples*:
--------------------------------
floating_modifier Mod1
--------------------------------

=== Layout mode for new containers

This option is only available when using the new lexer/parser (pass +-l+ to i3
when starting). It determines in which mode new containers will start. See also
<<stack-limit>>.

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

*Examples*:
---------------------
new_container tabbed
---------------------

=== Variables

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

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

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

Variables are directly replaced in the file when parsing, 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, like when configuring
wmii.

=== Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces

It is recommended that you match on window classes whereever possible because
some applications first create their window and then care about setting the
correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind, as the window starts up
being named Firefox and only when Vimperator is loaded, the title changes. 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.

You can prefix or suffix workspaces with a `~` to specify that matching clients
should be put into floating mode. If you specify only a `~`, the client will
not be put onto any workspace, but will be set floating on the current one.

*Syntax*:
------------------------------------------------------------
assign ["]window class[/window title]["] [→] [~ | workspace]
------------------------------------------------------------

*Examples*:
----------------------
assign urxvt 2
assign urxvt → 2
assign "urxvt" → 2
assign "urxvt/VIM" → 3
assign "gecko" → ~4
assign "xv/MPlayer" → ~
----------------------

=== Automatically starting applications on startup

By using the +exec+ keyword outside a keybinding, you can configure which
commands will be performed by i3 on the first start (not when reloading inplace
however). The commands will be run in order.

*Syntax*:
------------
exec command
------------

*Examples*:
--------------------------------
exec sudo i3status | dzen2 -dock
--------------------------------

=== Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens

If you use the assigning of clients to workspaces and start some clients
automatically, it might be handy to put the workspaces on specific screens.
Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens will determine the workspace
which 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 <number> screen <screen>
----------------------------------

Screen can be either a number (starting at 0 for the first screen) or a
position. When using numbers, it is not guaranteed that your screens always
get the same number. Though, unless you upgrade your X server or drivers, the
order usually stays the same. When using positions, you have to specify the
exact pixel where the screen *starts*, not a pixel which is contained by the
screen. Thus, if your first screen has the dimensions 1280x800, you can match
the second screen right of it by specifying 1280. You cannot use 1281.

*Examples*:
---------------------------
workspace 1 screen 0
workspace 5 screen 1

workspace 1 screen 1280
workspace 2 screen x800
workspace 3 screen 1280x800
---------------------------

=== Named workspaces

If you always have a certain arrangement of workspaces, you might want to give
them names (of course UTF-8 is supported):

*Syntax*:
---------------------------------------
workspace <number> <name>
workspace <number> screen <screen> name
---------------------------------------

For more details about the screen-part of this command, see above.

*Examples*:
--------------------------
workspace 1 www
workspace 2 work
workspace 3 i ♥ workspaces
--------------------------

=== Changing colors

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

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

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.
bar.focused::
	The current workspace in the bottom bar.
bar.unfocused::
	All other workspaces in the bottom bar.
bar.urgent::
	A workspace which has at least one client with an activated urgency hint.

Colors are in HTML hex format, see below.

*Examples*:
--------------------------------------
# class        border  backgr. text
client.focused #2F343A #900000 #FFFFFF
--------------------------------------

=== Interprocess communication

i3 uses unix sockets to provide an IPC interface. At the moment, this interface
is only useful for sending commands. To enable it, you have to configure a path
where the unix socket will be stored. The default path is +/tmp/i3-ipc.sock+.

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

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

== List of commands

=== Manipulating layout

To change the layout of the current container to stacking, use +s+, for default
use +d+ and for tabbed, use +T+. To make the current client (!) fullscreen,
use +f+, to make it floating (or tiling again) use +t+:

*Examples*:
--------------
bindsym Mod1+s s
bindsym Mod1+l d
bindsym Mod1+w T

# Toggle fullscreen
bindsym Mod1+f f

# Toggle floating/tiling
bindsym Mod1+t t
--------------

=== Focussing/Moving/Snapping clients/containers/screens

To change the focus, use one of the +h+, +j+, +k+ and +l+ commands, meaning
respectively left, down, up, right. To focus a container, prefix it with +wc+,
to focus a screen, prefix it with +ws+.

The same principle applies for moving and snapping, just prefix the command
with +m+ when moving and with +s+ when snapping:

*Examples*:
----------------------
# Focus clients on the left, bottom, top, right:
bindsym Mod1+j h
bindsym Mod1+k j
bindsym Mod1+j k
bindsym Mod1+semicolon l

# Move client to the left, bottom, top, right:
bindsym Mod1+j mh
bindsym Mod1+k mj
bindsym Mod1+j mk
bindsym Mod1+semicolon ml

# Snap client to the left, bottom, top, right:
bindsym Mod1+j sh
bindsym Mod1+k sj
bindsym Mod1+j sk
bindsym Mod1+semicolon sl

# Focus container on the left, bottom, top, right:
bindsym Mod3+j wch
…
----------------------

=== Changing workspaces/moving clients to workspaces

To change to a specific workspace, the command is just the number of the
workspace, e.g. +1+ or +3+. To move the current client to a specific workspace,
prefix the number with an +m+.

Furthermore, you can switch to the next and previous workspace with the
commands +nw+ and +pw+, 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.

*Examples*:
-------------------------
bindsym Mod1+1 1
bindsym Mod1+2 2
...

bindsym Mod1+Shift+1 m1
bindsym Mod1+Shift+2 m2
...

bindsym Mod1+o nw
bindsym Mod1+p pw
-------------------------

[[resizingconfig]]

=== Resizing columns/rows

If you want to resize columns/rows using your keyboard, you can use the
+resize+ command, I recommend using it a +mode+ (you need to use the new
lexer/parser for that, so pass +-l+ to i3 when starting):

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

        # They resize the border in the direction you pressed, e.g.
        # when pressing left, the window is resized so that it has
        # more space on its left

        bindsym n resize left -10
        bindsym Shift+n resize left +10

        bindsym r resize bottom +10
        bindsym Shift+r resize bottom -10

        bindsym t resize top -10
        bindsym Shift+t resize top +10

        bindsym d resize right +10
        bindsym Shift+d resize right -10

        bind 36 mode default
}
----------------------------------------------------------------------

=== Jumping to specific windows

Especially when in a multi-monitor environment, you want to quickly jump to a specific
window, for example while currently working on workspace 3 you may want to jump to
your mailclient to mail your boss that you’ve achieved some important goal. Instead
of figuring out how to navigate to your mailclient, it would be more convenient to
have a shortcut.

*Syntax*:
----------------------------------------------------
jump ["]window class[/window title]["]
jump workspace [ column row ]
----------------------------------------------------

You can either use the same matching algorithm as in the +assign+ command (see above)
or you can specify the position of the client if you always use the same layout.

*Examples*:
--------------------------------------
# Get me to the next open VIM instance
bindsym Mod1+a jump "urxvt/VIM"
--------------------------------------

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

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, that is, 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 (or, you could bind it to a key and
only use the set of labels for which you created bindings). +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>
goto <identifier>
-----------------

*Examples*:
---------------------------------------
# Read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
bindsym Mod1+m exec i3-input -p 'mark ' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '

# Read 1 character and go to the window with the character
bindsym Mod1+g exec i3-input -p 'goto ' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
---------------------------------------

=== Traveling the focus stack

This mechanism can be thought of as the opposite of the +jump+ command. It travels
the focus stack and jumps to the window you focused before.

*Syntax*:
--------------
focus [number] | floating | tilling | ft
--------------

Where +number+ by default is 1 meaning that the next client in the focus stack will
be selected.

The special values have the following meaning:

floating::
	The next floating window is selected.
tiling::
	The next tiling window is selected.
ft::
	If the current window is floating, the next tiling window will be selected
	and vice-versa.

=== Changing border style

To change the border of the current client, you can use +bn+ to use the normal
border (including window title), +bp+ to use a 1-pixel border (no window title)
and +bb+ to make the client borderless. There also is +bt+ which will toggle
the different border styles.

*Examples*:
------------------
bindsym Mod1+t bn
bindsym Mod1+y bp
bindsym Mod1+u bb
------------------

[[stack-limit]]

=== Changing the stack-limit of a container

If you have a single container with a lot of windows inside (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 only using half of the
titlebars of each window in the container.

Using the +stack-limit+ command, you can limit the amount 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]

=== 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. However, your layout is not preserved at the moment, meaning
that all open windows will be in a single container in default layout. To exit
i3 properly, you can use the +exit+ command, however you don’t need to (e.g.,
simply killing your X session is fine aswell).

*Examples*:
----------------------------
bindsym Mod1+Shift+r restart
bindsym Mod1+Shift+w reload
bindsym Mod1+Shift+e exit
----------------------------