I3 configuration

Now for something completely different, let’s do some work environment configuration. Here we will adapt the default I3 configuration to set it up not to interfere with tmux and Neovim shortcuts (more on configuring those two in later posts).

First a sidenote on starting I3: as with many minimalistic WMs, to get it to start you simply have to execute it from your .xinitrc. While I am at it I set it up to also launch my browser at the same time, since this is the very first thing I generally do anyway:

firefox &
exec /usr/bin/i3
exit 0

With the startup out of the way, we can focus on the actual configuration. The default location for the configuration file is ~/.config/i3/config at the time of this writing.

I personally use the Alt prefix for a lot of tmux commands: as a long time vim user the Alt + ijkl to swap between panes appeals to me for instance. I then decided to change I3’s default modifier to the Win (or Super, as you prefer) key. Note that Alt is referred to as Mod1 and Win as Mod4: this is because of how keypresses are handled by the OS.

set $mod Mod4 # from Mod1

As a former dwm user I still want to preserve some WM shortcuts on the Alt key however, which leads me to alter them manually at other points in the file:

bindsym Mod1+1 workspace 1
bindsym Mod1+2 workspace 2
bindsym Mod1+3 workspace 3
bindsym Mod1+4 workspace 4
bindsym Mod1+5 workspace 5
bindsym Mod1+6 workspace 6
bindsym Mod1+7 workspace 7
bindsym Mod1+8 workspace 8
bindsym Mod1+9 workspace 9
bindsym Mod1+0 workspace 10

bindsym Mod1+Return exec "st -f \\"Droid Sans Mono:size=14\\""
bindsym Mod1+Shift+q kill
bindsym Mod1+p exec "dmenu_run -fn \\"Droid Sans Mono:size=10\\""

Which brings us to another point: this is the place you should specify your terminal as well as various font parameters if you are so inclined. By default I3 uses a special i3-sensible-terminal command to determine which terminal to use, but as its name implies all it guarantees is a sensible terminal, not a practical or beautiful one.

One last quirk to sort out for my personal configuration was getting the Alt+Tab combination working for virtual desktop switching. The I3 developers are opposed to including it in the default configuration, and you even have to script the WM if you want window switching instead of desktop switching (you can find the developer-recommended script here). Anyway for our purpose what seems to be a legacy binding suffices:

bindsym Mod1+Tab workspace back_and_forth

Let us hope it does not end up removed in future versions.

Adjusting your personal environment should be done seldom and decisively: XKCD has a nice graphic representing the cut-off point for time spent optimizing effectively given a task’s length. Not that you should always strive for efficiency, aesthetic concerns are valid too when it comes to desktop configuration for instance, but then it is important to be honest with yourself and recognize you are not actually trying improve your productivity.

On that note, you can find my full configuration file in my GitHub config repository. Have fun customizing your tools!