i3 - Unofficial Fork

This is a fork of i3wm, a tiling window manager for Linux. It includes a few additional features which you can read up on below.

If you want to check out how you could use them, you could check out my dotfiles repository.

This fork, much like i3 itself, maintains two branches: The gaps branch is the equivalent of i3's stable master branch while gaps-next contains gaps and i3's next.

Installation

Please refer to the wiki to see how i3-gaps can be installed and for which distributions there are packages available.

Screenshot

New Features

i3

gaps

Note: Gaps will only work correctly if you disable window titlebars entirely. Unfortunately this is necessary due to the way i3 creates such bars on windows. You can disable them via for_window [class="^.*"] border pixel 0 in your config. You can also use any non-zero value as long as you only use pixel-style borders.

Based on the patches provided by o4dev and jeanbroid, i3 supports gaps between containers. I extended those patches further to make changing the gaps size easier during runtime and also to expose more functionality for binding it to keys. Additionally, the gaps patch was fixed such that inner gaps (the gaps between adjacent containers) and outer gaps (gaps between the edge of the screen and a container) are the same. But I didn't stop there: these gaps are called "inner" gaps. This fork also allows setting "outer," "horizontal," "vertical," "top," "right," "bottom," and "left" gaps which inset all containers independently. Note that outer gaps are stored per-side and "outer," "horizontal," and "vertical" are shortcuts for setting multiple sides at once.

In your i3 config, you can set a global gap size as shown below. This is the default value that will be used for all workspaces. When setting side-specific values (e.g. horizontal or bottom), be sure to place them in the following order, otherwise your outer gaps will override any previously set values for single sides:

gaps inner <px>
gaps outer <px>
gaps horizontal <px>
gaps vertical <px>
gaps top <px>
gaps right <px>
gaps bottom <px>
gaps left <px>

Additionally, you can issue commands with the following syntax. This is useful, for example, to bind keys to changing the gap size:

gaps inner|outer|horizontal|vertical|top|right|bottom|left current|all set|plus|minus|toggle <px>

# Examples
gaps inner all set 20
gaps outer current plus 5
gaps horizontal current plus 40
gaps outer current toggle 60

Here are the individual parts explained:

inner|outer|horizontal|vertical|top|right|bottom|left specifies whether you want to modify inner gaps (gaps between adjacent containers) or outer gaps (gaps between the edge of a screen and a container). Remember that outer gaps are per-side and outer, horizontal, and vertical are shortcuts for specifying multiple sides at once.
current|all determines whether you want to modify the setting for the current workspace only or for all workspaces.
set|plus|minus allows you to either set a new, fixed value or make a relative change (in-/decrement). Since 'outer,' 'horizontal,' and 'vertical' assignments are short-hand for all or some sides, specifying one of them and the 'set' command will override any side-specific values.

Note that outer gaps are an addition to inner gaps, so gaps outer all set 0 will eliminate outer gaps, but if inner gaps are set, there will still be gaps on the edge of the screen.

Additionally, gaps can be specified on a per-workspace level by using the syntax known from assigning a workspace to a certain output:

workspace <ws> gaps inner <px>
workspace <ws> gaps outer <px>
workspace <ws> gaps horizontal <px>
workspace <ws> gaps vertical <px>
workspace <ws> gaps top <px>
workspace <ws> gaps right <px>
workspace <ws> gaps bottom <px>
workspace <ws> gaps left <px>

It is important that these commands are specified after the global default since they are meant to override it. Note that multiple such assignments are allowed (and perhaps necessary). The ws variable can either be a number or a name, so both of these are valid:

workspace 1 gaps inner 0
workspace "www" gaps inner 0

Here is one possible idea on how you can use this feature within your i3 config. Simply press $mod+Shift+g to enter the gaps mode. Then choose between o, i, h, v, t, b, l, or r for modifying outer / inner / horizontal / vertical / top / right / bottom / left gaps. In this mode, you can press one of + / - (in-/decrement for current workspace) or 0 (remove gaps for current workspace). If you also press Shift with these keys, the change will be global for all workspaces.

set $mode_gaps Gaps: (o)uter, (i)nner, (h)orizontal, (v)ertical, (t)op, (r)ight, (b)ottom, (l)eft
set $mode_gaps_outer Outer Gaps: +|-|0 (local), Shift + +|-|0 (global)
set $mode_gaps_inner Inner Gaps: +|-|0 (local), Shift + +|-|0 (global)
set $mode_gaps_horiz Horizontal Gaps: +|-|0 (local), Shift + +|-|0 (global)
set $mode_gaps_verti Vertical Gaps: +|-|0 (local), Shift + +|-|0 (global)
set $mode_gaps_top Top Gaps: +|-|0 (local), Shift + +|-|0 (global)
set $mode_gaps_right Right Gaps: +|-|0 (local), Shift + +|-|0 (global)
set $mode_gaps_bottom Bottom Gaps: +|-|0 (local), Shift + +|-|0 (global)
set $mode_gaps_left Left Gaps: +|-|0 (local), Shift + +|-|0 (global)
bindsym $mod+Shift+g mode "$mode_gaps"

mode "$mode_gaps" {
        bindsym o      mode "$mode_gaps_outer"
        bindsym i      mode "$mode_gaps_inner"
        bindsym h      mode "$mode_gaps_horiz"
        bindsym v      mode "$mode_gaps_verti"
        bindsym t      mode "$mode_gaps_top"
        bindsym r      mode "$mode_gaps_right"
        bindsym b      mode "$mode_gaps_bottom"
        bindsym l      mode "$mode_gaps_left"
        bindsym Return mode "$mode_gaps"
        bindsym Escape mode "default"
}

mode "$mode_gaps_outer" {
        bindsym plus  gaps outer current plus 5
        bindsym minus gaps outer current minus 5
        bindsym 0     gaps outer current set 0

        bindsym Shift+plus  gaps outer all plus 5
        bindsym Shift+minus gaps outer all minus 5
        bindsym Shift+0     gaps outer all set 0

        bindsym Return mode "$mode_gaps"
        bindsym Escape mode "default"
}
mode "$mode_gaps_inner" {
        bindsym plus  gaps inner current plus 5
        bindsym minus gaps inner current minus 5
        bindsym 0     gaps inner current set 0

        bindsym Shift+plus  gaps inner all plus 5
        bindsym Shift+minus gaps inner all minus 5
        bindsym Shift+0     gaps inner all set 0

        bindsym Return mode "$mode_gaps"
        bindsym Escape mode "default"
}
mode "$mode_gaps_horiz" {
        bindsym plus  gaps horizontal current plus 5
        bindsym minus gaps horizontal current minus 5
        bindsym 0     gaps horizontal current set 0

        bindsym Shift+plus  gaps horizontal all plus 5
        bindsym Shift+minus gaps horizontal all minus 5
        bindsym Shift+0     gaps horizontal all set 0

        bindsym Return mode "$mode_gaps"
        bindsym Escape mode "default"
}
mode "$mode_gaps_verti" {
        bindsym plus  gaps vertical current plus 5
        bindsym minus gaps vertical current minus 5
        bindsym 0     gaps vertical current set 0

        bindsym Shift+plus  gaps vertical all plus 5
        bindsym Shift+minus gaps vertical all minus 5
        bindsym Shift+0     gaps vertical all set 0

        bindsym Return mode "$mode_gaps"
        bindsym Escape mode "default"
}
mode "$mode_gaps_top" {
        bindsym plus  gaps top current plus 5
        bindsym minus gaps top current minus 5
        bindsym 0     gaps top current set 0

        bindsym Shift+plus  gaps top all plus 5
        bindsym Shift+minus gaps top all minus 5
        bindsym Shift+0     gaps top all set 0

        bindsym Return mode "$mode_gaps"
        bindsym Escape mode "default"
}
mode "$mode_gaps_right" {
        bindsym plus  gaps right current plus 5
        bindsym minus gaps right current minus 5
        bindsym 0     gaps right current set 0

        bindsym Shift+plus  gaps right all plus 5
        bindsym Shift+minus gaps right all minus 5
        bindsym Shift+0     gaps right all set 0

        bindsym Return mode "$mode_gaps"
        bindsym Escape mode "default"
}
mode "$mode_gaps_bottom" {
        bindsym plus  gaps bottom current plus 5
        bindsym minus gaps bottom current minus 5
        bindsym 0     gaps bottom current set 0

        bindsym Shift+plus  gaps bottom all plus 5
        bindsym Shift+minus gaps bottom all minus 5
        bindsym Shift+0     gaps bottom all set 0

        bindsym Return mode "$mode_gaps"
        bindsym Escape mode "default"
}
mode "$mode_gaps_left" {
        bindsym plus  gaps left current plus 5
        bindsym minus gaps left current minus 5
        bindsym 0     gaps left current set 0

        bindsym Shift+plus  gaps left all plus 5
        bindsym Shift+minus gaps left all minus 5
        bindsym Shift+0     gaps left all set 0

        bindsym Return mode "$mode_gaps"
        bindsym Escape mode "default"
}

Smart Gaps

If you want gaps to only be used if there is more than one container on the workspace, you can use

smart_gaps on

This will disable all gaps (outer, inner, horizontal, vertical, top, right, bottom, left) on the workspace whenever only one container is on the current workspace.

There is another mode which does the opposite:

smart_gaps inverse_outer

This one will only show outer gaps if there is only one visible container.
This is useful if you have a large monitor and want to keep single windows centered on screen.
Inner gaps are always shown. You can compensate for that by picking sensible values for your outer gaps, negative sizes are accepted.

Smart Borders

Based on the patch from i3-extras, smart borders have been added in a configurable way. If activated, this patch will draw borders around a container only if it is not the only container in this workspace. It is disabled by default and can be activated with the command below. on will always activate it, while no_gaps will only activate it if the gap size to the edge of the screen is 0.

smart_borders on|no_gaps

Hide Edge Borders

An additional option smart_no_gaps is available for hide_edge_borders. This will hide all borders on a container if it is the only container in the worskpace and the gap size to the edge is 0. Otherwise all borders will be drawn normally.

i3bar

Background & Color

i3bar now supports setting a background and border color for the individual blocks. Additionally, the border width for each of the four sides can be specified (where a width of 0 hides that border). Simply pass the following values via JSON to i3bar:

background [color] sets the background color
border [color] sets the border color
border_top, border_bottom, border_left, border_right [int] width of the corresponding border (defaults to 1)

Example:

{ \
  "full_text": "example", \
  "color": "\#FFFFFF", \
  "background": "\#222222", \
  "border": "\#9FBC00", \
  "border_bottom": 0 \
}

Bar Height

The height of any bar can be configured to have an arbitrary value. This is especially useful if you plan on using top/bottom borders on status blocks to make the bar taller. If the height is not set, it will be calculated as normal. To set it, use the height directive in the bar configuration block:

bar {
        # height of the bar in pixels
        height 25
}

Transparency / RGBA Colors

As an experimental feature, i3-gaps allows you to use RGBA colors for i3bar which allows for transparency. Please note that this has two implications:

Due to technical constraints which can only be solved by a lot of effort, the background of tray icons will always be fully transparent, no matter what the background color of your i3bar is.
This is experimental and bugs will only be fixed if doing so doesn't involve a lot of effort / big changes. The ability to easily stay up to date with upstream has priority.

In order to use this feature, run i3bar with the additional argument -t. This can be done in your i3 config as follows:

bar {
        i3bar_command i3bar -t
}

regolith-linux / regolith-i3

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