This document provides an introduction to tiling window managers like i3 and explains their advantages over traditional window managers. It outlines the basic controls and configuration of i3, describing how to navigate windows, workspaces, and customize the environment using keyboard shortcuts. The document encourages readers to install i3 and modify the configuration file to set up their ideal tiling window manager experience.

1. i3
Tiling Window Manager
2015/04/13
Ying Reui Liang( KK )

2. What is a window manager?

3. Without window manager
- No borders
- No decorations
- No lovely X button

4. "Normal" window manager

5. Tiling window manager

7. Why tiling window manager?
- All windows are in their own tile
- Always uses entire screen
- Waste none of piece of space
- Control everything with keyboard
- Fun to configure your own environment
- Feel like you're a hacker in the movie
- Beautiful!
- Prevent people who tring to use your PC

8. Why not tiling window manager?
- You'll lose the magic to using other's
computer, or feel pain to do that

9. Time for i3

10. i3

12. Use i3 like a pro

16. Learn i3 from scratch

17. Install & try i3
- pacman, apt, yum, etc
- if you're using display manager, then choose
session as “i3” and done!
- if you prefer startx like me, modify ~/.xinitrc
to use i3

18. Caution!
Make sure you have the ability to edit
~/.i3/config, otherwise you gonna be stucked
cause the default i3 setting might not always
work for you

19. Controlling with mod key

20. Controlling with mod and shift key

21. Open & close applications
- mod + return: open terminal
- mod + d: open dmenu
- dmenu is an application launcher
- mod + shift + q: close a tile
- same as the X button
- that's all, simple right?

22. Focus to other tile
- mod + j: focus left
- mod + k: focus down
- mod + l: focus up
- mod + ;: focus right
- mod + space: toggle focus on floating tiles
- anyway, you can change it as you like

23. Tile structure

24. Tile management
- mod + shift + j: move focus tile left
- mod + shift + k: move focus tile down
- mod + shift + l: move focus tile up
- mod + shift + ;: move focus tile right
- mod + f: toggle fullscreen
- mod + shift + space: toggle floating
- mod + r: toggle reisze mode

25. Change workspace
- mod + 1: to workspace 1
- so on
- mod + n: to next workspace
- mod + p: to previous workspace

26. Useful operations
- mod + shift + r: restart i3 in place
- mod + shift + c: reload i3 config file
- mod + shift + e: exit i3 session

27. It's dangerous to go alone! Take these
- dmenu: open other applications
- i3lock: simple screen locker
- LXAppearance: set gtk theme
- LXInput: set input properties
- Unclutter: hide cursor if you stop moving
- feh: tool to set wallpaper and view images

28. Customization
- config file is located at ~/.i3/config
- change it as you like
- visit i3 site for more information
- become a pro

29. Questions?

30. References
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windowmanager_ohne.png
- https://www.gnome.org/
- http://openbox.org/wiki/File:Openbox_screenshot.jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager#/media/File:Dwm-screenshot.png
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Schema_of_the_layers_of_the_graphical_user_interface.svg
- http://i3wm.org/screenshots/i3-5.png
- http://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html