Add new chapters to userguide: multi-monitor and software environment
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Michael Stapelberg
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docs/userguide
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docs/userguide
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@ -310,6 +310,8 @@ wmii.
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=== Automatically putting clients on specific workspaces
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[[assign_workspace]]
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It is recommended that you match on window classes whereever possible because
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some applications first create their window and then care about setting the
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correct title. Firefox with Vimperator comes to mind, as the window starts up
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@ -355,6 +357,8 @@ exec sudo i3status | dzen2 -dock
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=== Automatically putting workspaces on specific screens
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[[workspace_screen]]
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If you use the assigning of clients to workspaces and start some clients
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automatically, it might be handy to put the workspaces on specific screens.
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Also, the assignment of workspaces to screens will determine the workspace
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@ -591,6 +595,8 @@ bindsym Mod1+a jump "urxvt/VIM"
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=== VIM-like marks (mark/goto)
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[[vim_like_marks]]
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This feature is like the jump feature: It allows you to directly jump to a
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specific window (this means switching to the appropriate workspace and setting
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focus to the windows). However, you can directly mark a specific window with
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@ -702,3 +708,175 @@ bindsym Mod1+Shift+r restart
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bindsym Mod1+Shift+w reload
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bindsym Mod1+Shift+e exit
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----------------------------
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== Multiple monitors
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[[multi_monitor]]
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As you can read in the goal list on its website, i3 was specifically developed
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with Xinerama (support for multiple monitors) in mind. This section will
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explain how to handle multiple monitors.
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When you have only one monitor, things are simple. You usually start with
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workspace 1 on your monitor and open new ones as you need them.
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When you have more than one monitor, each monitor will get an initial
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workspace, say the first gets 1, the second gets 2 and a possible third would
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get 3. When you switch to a workspace on a different screen, i3 will switch
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to that screen and then switch to the workspace. This way, you don’t need
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shortcuts to switch to a specific screen and remember where you put which
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workspace. New workspaces will be opened on the screen you currently are on.
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There is no possiblity to have a screen without workspaces.
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The idea to make workspaces global is due to the observation that most users
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have a very limited set of workspaces on their additional monitors, often
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using them for a specific task (browser, shell) or for monitoring several
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things (mail, IRC, syslog, …). Thus, using one workspace on one monitor and
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"the rest" on the other monitors often makes sense. However, as you can
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create unlimited workspaces in i3 and tie them to specific screens, you can
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have the "traditional" approach of having X workspaces per screen by
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changing your configuration (using modes, for example).
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=== Configuring your monitors
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To help you get going if you never did multiple monitors before, here comes a
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short overview of the xrandr options which are probably of interest for you.
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It is always useful to get an overview of the current screen configuration, so
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just run "xrandr" and you will get an output like the following:
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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$ xrandr
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Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 8192 x 8192
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VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
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LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
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1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
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1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
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832x624 74.6
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800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
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640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
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720x400 85.0
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640x400 85.1
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640x350 85.1
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Several things are important here: You can see that +LVDS1+ is connected (of
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course, it is the internal flat panel) but +VGA1+ is not. If you have connected
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a monitor to one of the ports but xrandr still says "disconnected", you should
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check your cable, monitor or graphics driver.
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Furthermore, the maximum resolution you can see at the end of the first line
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is the maximum combined resolution of your monitors. By default, it is usually
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too low and has to be increased by editing +/etc/X11/xorg.conf+.
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So, say you connected VGA1 and want to use it as an additional screen:
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-------------------------------------------
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xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1
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-------------------------------------------
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This command lets xrandr try to find out the native resolution of the device
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connected to +VGA1+ and configures it to the left of your internal flat panel.
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When running "xrandr" again, the output looks like this:
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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$ xrandr
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Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 8192 x 8192
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VGA1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
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1280x1024 60.0*+ 75.0
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1280x960 60.0
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1152x864 75.0
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1024x768 75.1 70.1 60.0
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832x624 74.6
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800x600 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
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640x480 72.8 75.0 66.7 60.0
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720x400 70.1
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LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 261mm x 163mm
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1280x800 60.0*+ 50.0
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1024x768 85.0 75.0 70.1 60.0
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832x624 74.6
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800x600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
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640x480 85.0 72.8 75.0 59.9
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720x400 85.0
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640x400 85.1
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640x350 85.1
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Please note that i3 uses exactly the same API as xrandr does, so it will see
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only what you can see in xrandr.
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See also <<presentations>> for more examples of multi-monitor setups.
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=== Interesting configuration for multi-monitor environments
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There are several things to configure in i3 which may be interesting if you
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have more than one monitor:
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1. You can specify which workspace should be put on which screen. This will
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allow you to have a different set of workspaces when starting than just
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1 for the first monitor, 2 for the second and so on. See
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<<workspace_screen>>.
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2. If you want some applications to generally open on the bigger screen
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(MPlayer, Firefox, …), you can assign them to a specific workspace, see
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<<assign_workspace>>.
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3. If you have many workspaces on many monitors, it might get hard to keep
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track of which window you put where. Thus, you can use vim-like marks to
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quickly switch between windows. See <<vim_like_marks>>.
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== i3 and the rest of your software world
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=== Displaying a status line
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A very common thing amongst users of exotic window managers is a status line at
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some corner of the screen. It is an often superior replacement of the widget
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approach you have in the task bar of a traditional desktop environment.
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If you don’t already have your favorite way of generating such a status line
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(self-written scripts, conky, …), then i3status is the recommended tool for
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this task. It was written in C with the goal to have as little syscalls as
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possible to reduce the time your CPU is waken up from sleep states.
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Regardless of which application you use to generate the status line, you
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want to make sure that the application does one of the following things:
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1. Register as a dock window using EWMH hints. This will make i3 position the
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window above the workspace bar but below every other client. This is the
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recommended way, but for example in case of dzen2 you need to check out
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the source of dzen2 from subversion, because the -dock option is not present
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in the released versions.
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2. Overlay the internal workspace bar. This method will not waste any space
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in the workspace bar. However, it is a rather hackish way. Just configure
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the output window to be over your workspace bar (say -x 200 and -y 780 if
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your screen is 800 px height).
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The planned solution for this problem is to make the workspace bar optional
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and switch to dzen2 (for example) completely (it will contain the workspaces
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then).
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=== Giving presentations (multi-monitor)
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When giving a presentation, you typically want the audience to see what you see
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on your screen and then go through a series of slides (if the presentation is
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simple). For more complex presentations, you might want to have some notes
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which only you can see on your screen, while the audience can only see the
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slides.
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[[presentations]]
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==== Case 1: everybody gets the same output
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This is the rather easy case. You connect your computer to the video projector,
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turn on both (computer and video projector) and configure your X server to
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clone the internal flat panel of your computer to the video output:
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-----------------------------------------------------
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xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --same-as LVDS1
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-----------------------------------------------------
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i3 will then use the lowest common subset of screen resolutions, the rest of
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your screen will be left untouched (so it will show the X background). So, in
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our example, this would be 1024x768 (my notebook has 1280x800).
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==== Case 2: you can see more than your audience
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This case is a bit harder. First of all, you should configure the VGA output
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somewhere near your internal flat panel, say right of it:
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-----------------------------------------------------
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xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1
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-----------------------------------------------------
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Now, i3 will put a new workspace (depending on your settings) on the new screen
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and you are in multi-monitor mode (see <<multi_monitor>>).
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Because i3 is not a compositing window manager, there is no possibility to
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display a window on two screens at the same time. Instead, you presentation
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software needs to do this job (that is, open a window on each screen with the
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same contents).
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