Diving into i3

orschiro · 2010-04-18 07:25:53

Hello guys,

at the moment I'm experimenting with i3. I already looked into the user documentation and manual but still have some questions.

1) New windows are splitted horizontally. How can I change that behaviour to split them vertically?

2) In some cases I get a crux instead of a mouse courser. This happens when no window is opened in a workspace or when I click on a menu entry in firefox.

3) Is it possible to put the displayed workspaces at the top left corner?

4) How would I achieve a simple statusbar displaying me the time/date and the bat. status in the top right corner?

5) I tried to assign alsamixer and mocp to a specific workspace. I start them via

xterm -class mocp -e mocp &
xterm -class alsamixer  -e alsamixer &

and tried to assign them with the following in my config.

assign "xterm/mocp" 4
assign "xterm/alsamixer" 4

But this isn't working.

6) Is there any chance to use xft with i3? I'd like to use the great inconsolata font.

7) How can I switch between the current and the last window I used?

8) Similiar to 7) but between current and last workspace?

That's all for the first time. Nevertheless my first impression of i3 is very good and I'm thinking of it when all my questions can be solved.

Best regards

orschiro

Runiq · 2010-04-18 08:56:47

1. You can't (as of now and AFAIK).
2. That's because you have to set your Xorg pointer manually, the X is just the default. I have this in my ~/.xinitrc:

xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr

3. You can't change the place of the *internal* workspace bar, but you can disable it and roll your own. (I really thought there was a bugreport on the i3 tracker for that, but I can't find it for the life of me.) The i3 user's guide mentions i3-wsbar as a sample implementation, but I haven't looked into it. (Look what I found… Should be nice if you really want to roll your own.)
4. Use dzen with the -dock option.
5. There might be a problem with this if xterm changes the class after it is started: xterm starts, i3 puts it on the xterm workspace, xterm changes its class, i3 doesn't notice. Also, have you tried 'assign "mocp" 4' instead of 'xterm/mocp'?
6. That's the SINGLE ONE feature I'm missing from i3 (apart from a few bugs).

It seems like everyone and his sister is switching to i3 these days…

rent0n · 2010-04-18 09:15:45

4. I use conky piped into dzen. Add this line at the end of your ~/.i3/config

exec conky | dzen2 -p -ta r -x 350 -y 784 -fn -xos4-terminus-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-iso10646-1 -fg "#999999" -bg "#000000"

I would suggest to display the line at the bottom as in the top right corner it will cover part of the windows.
Be sure to have something like this in your .conkyrc before TEXT:

out_to_x no
background no
out_to_console yes
update_interval 1.0
total_run_times 0
use_spacer none
if_up_strictness address

5. I use this approach:

# mutt: Control+Mod1+m
bind Control+Mod1+58 exec urxvtc -e mutt

assign "urxvt/mutt" 3

This way, when I use keybindings to call mutt, it goes to 3. However, if I type mutt into a terminal it starts in the current workspace.

@Runiq: thanks for the tip on 2, I will try it.
dzen works fine without -dock option here (see above).

Last edited by rent0n (2010-04-18 09:16:53)

orschiro · 2010-04-19 07:44:01

Hello you two,

thank you for your tipps. Whenever I change my wm to i3 I'll follow them. But at the moment I found out that I'm a man of dynamic tiling and therefore I'll continue to stay with dwm.

Regards

orschiro

Arch Linux

#1 2010-04-18 07:25:53

Diving into i3

#2 2010-04-18 08:56:47

Re: Diving into i3

#3 2010-04-18 09:15:45

Re: Diving into i3

#4 2010-04-19 07:44:01

Re: Diving into i3

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