i3(1) ===== Michael Stapelberg v3.alpha, February 2009 == NAME i3 - an improved dynamic, tiling window manager == SYNOPSIS i3 == DESCRIPTION === INTRODUCTION i3 was created because wmii, our favorite window manager at the time, didn’t provide some features we wanted (Xinerama done right, for example), had some bugs, didn’t progress since quite some time and wasn’t easy to hack at all (source code comments/documentation completely lacking). Still, we think the wmii developers and contributors did a great job. Thank you for inspiring us to create i3. Please be aware that i3 is primarily targeted at advanced users and developers. === ABOUT THIS RELEASE What you are using is i3.alpha. That means, it is a preview release, not yet fully stable, may still contain bugs and the implementation of several behaviour is subject to change. However, it should provide you with a pretty good picture of how i3 will look in subsequent releases. Please, use i3 and report all the bugs/problems you encounter by sending an email to === TERMINOLOGY Client:: A client is X11-speak for a window. Table:: Your workspace is managed using a table. You can move windows around and create new columns (move a client to the right) or rows (move it to the bottom) implicitly. + By "snapping" a client in a specific direction, you increase its colspan/rowspan. Container:: A container contains a variable number of clients. Each cell of the table is a container. + Containers can be used in various modes. The default mode is called "default" and just resizes each client equally so that it fits. The stacking mode is currently not implemented. Workspace:: A workspace is a set of clients (technically speaking, it’s just a table). Other window managers call this "Virtual Desktops". + In i3, each workspace is assigned to a specific virtual screen. By default, screen 1 has workspace 1, screen 2 has workspace 2 and so on… However, when you create a new workspace (by simply switching to it), it’ll be assigned the screen you are currently on. Virtual Screen:: Using Xinerama, you can have an X11 screen spanning multiple real monitors. Furthermore, you can set them up in cloning mode or with positions (monitor 1 is left of monitor 2). + A virtual screen is the result of your Xinerama setup. For example, if you have attached two real monitors (let’s say your laptop screen and a beamer) and enabled cloning, i3 will use one virtual screen with the size of the smallest screen you have attached (so that you can see all your windows on each screen all the time). If you have two monitors attached, one configured to be left of the other, i3 will use two virtual screens. == KEYBINDINGS Here is a short overview of the default keybindings: h/j/k/l:: Direction keys (left, down, up, right) Mod1+:: Focus window in . Mod1+Shift+:: Move window to . Mod1+Control+:: Snap window to . Mod1+:: Switch to workspace . Mod1+f:: Toggle fullscreen mode. Mod1+s:: Enable stacking layout for the current container. Mod1+d:: Enable default layout for the current container. == FILES === i3.config When starting, i3 looks for i3.config in the current working directory and loads the configuration. At the moment, you can specify only the path to your favorite terminal emulator, the font and keybindings. At the moment, you have to bind to keycodes (find them out via xev(1)). .Sample configuration ------------------------------------------------------------- terminal /usr/pkg/bin/urxvt font -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-iso8859-1 # Fullscreen bind Mod1+41 f # Stacking bind Mod1+43 s # Default bind Mod1+26 d # Focus bind Mod1+44 h bind Mod1+45 j bind Mod1+46 k bind Mod1+47 l # Snap bind Mod1+Control+44 sh bind Mod1+Control+45 sj bind Mod1+Control+46 sk bind Mod1+Control+47 sl # Move bind Mod1+Shift+44 mh bind Mod1+Shift+45 mj bind Mod1+Shift+46 mk bind Mod1+Shift+47 ml # Workspaces bind Mod1+10 1 ... ------------------------------------------------------------- === ~/.xsession This file is where you should configure your locales and start i3. It is run by your login manager (xdm, slim, gdm, …) as soon as you login. .Sample xsession ------------------------------------------------------------- # Disable DPMS turning off the screen xset dpms force on xset s off # Disable bell xset -b # Enforce correct locales from the beginning unset LC_COLLATE export LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 export LC_TIME=de_DE.ISO8859-15 export LC_NUMERIC=de_DE.ISO8859-15 export LC_MONETARY=de_DE.ISO8859-15 export LC_MESSAGES=C export LC_PAPER=de_DE.ISO8859-15 export LC_NAME=de_DE.ISO8859-15 export LC_ADDRESS=de_DE.ISO8859-15 export LC_TELEPHONE=de_DE.ISO8859-15 export LC_MEASUREMENT=de_DE.ISO8859-15 export LC_IDENTIFICATION=de_DE.ISO8859-15 exec /usr/bin/i3 ------------------------------------------------------------- == TODO There is lots of stuff left to do. This release is to be considered as a technology preview. Here is an overwiew of the most important points: * IPC * a command for toggling layouts/workspaces * floating * do something about applications which don’t use _NET_WM_STATE_FULLSCREEN (like xpdf) == AUTHOR Michael Stapelberg and contributors