i3 FAQ - Individual question feed

Changing window title

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 00:47:49 +0000

Is it possible to change what i3 shows as the window title? For example, when several windows are tabbed, it would be nice if I could chose how they are referred to. Ideally, this could be done dynamically, but if not possible, I would also be interested in workarounds for specific applications. For example, some way to make all Firefox windows show up as "Firefox" (instead of the selected tab's title). If this is not possible from i3 and it always shows some title property of the x window, anyone knows how one could change that property, or if it makes sense/is safe to do so? Thanks

Comment by Rojo for
Is it possible to change what i3 shows as the window title? For example, when several windows are tabbed, it would be nice if I could chose how they are referred to. Ideally, this could be done dynamically, but if not possible, I would also be interested in workarounds for specific applications. For example, some way to make all Firefox windows show up as "Firefox" (instead of the selected tab's title). If this is not possible from i3 and it always shows some title property of the x window, anyone knows how one could change that property, or if it makes sense/is safe to do so?

Thanks

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 14:01:57 +0000

@ANOKNUSA I am not trying to rename the tabs, but the whole window, so that if the Firefox Window and some other windows are in a tabbed or stacked layout, they are named in some way that's more meaningful

Comment by Rojo for
Is it possible to change what i3 shows as the window title? For example, when several windows are tabbed, it would be nice if I could chose how they are referred to. Ideally, this could be done dynamically, but if not possible, I would also be interested in workarounds for specific applications. For example, some way to make all Firefox windows show up as "Firefox" (instead of the selected tab's title). If this is not possible from i3 and it always shows some title property of the x window, anyone knows how one could change that property, or if it makes sense/is safe to do so?

Thanks

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 14:04:01 +0000

Firefox was just an example. Ideally I would find useful to be able to change the title of any window

Comment by Rojo for
Is it possible to change what i3 shows as the window title? For example, when several windows are tabbed, it would be nice if I could chose how they are referred to. Ideally, this could be done dynamically, but if not possible, I would also be interested in workarounds for specific applications. For example, some way to make all Firefox windows show up as "Firefox" (instead of the selected tab's title). If this is not possible from i3 and it always shows some title property of the x window, anyone knows how one could change that property, or if it makes sense/is safe to do so?

Thanks

Wed, 02 Jul 2014 01:48:49 +0000

@ANOKNUSA It wasn't a realistic example of what I would do with the funcionality. I agree that more often than not, naming a Firefox window "Firefox" isn't the most meaningful

Comment by ANOKNUSA for
Is it possible to change what i3 shows as the window title? For example, when several windows are tabbed, it would be nice if I could chose how they are referred to. Ideally, this could be done dynamically, but if not possible, I would also be interested in workarounds for specific applications. For example, some way to make all Firefox windows show up as "Firefox" (instead of the selected tab's title). If this is not possible from i3 and it always shows some title property of the x window, anyone knows how one could change that property, or if it makes sense/is safe to do so?

Thanks

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 13:58:35 +0000

Why would you do this with Firefox? Imagine if Firefox labeled every tab in its window "Website." How would that be helpful?

Comment by Rojo for
Is it possible to change what i3 shows as the window title? For example, when several windows are tabbed, it would be nice if I could chose how they are referred to. Ideally, this could be done dynamically, but if not possible, I would also be interested in workarounds for specific applications. For example, some way to make all Firefox windows show up as "Firefox" (instead of the selected tab's title). If this is not possible from i3 and it always shows some title property of the x window, anyone knows how one could change that property, or if it makes sense/is safe to do so?

Thanks

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 14:02:58 +0000

@ANOKUSA Ideally, it could be changed dynamically. But if I had to choose some static name for firefox windows, perhaps I'd chose the profile name and create different profiles (or the session of the Session Manager addon I use, which already allows to append the anme to the window title)

Comment by ANOKNUSA for
Is it possible to change what i3 shows as the window title? For example, when several windows are tabbed, it would be nice if I could chose how they are referred to. Ideally, this could be done dynamically, but if not possible, I would also be interested in workarounds for specific applications. For example, some way to make all Firefox windows show up as "Firefox" (instead of the selected tab's title). If this is not possible from i3 and it always shows some title property of the x window, anyone knows how one could change that property, or if it makes sense/is safe to do so?

Thanks

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 21:14:56 +0000

I understood what you were asking, but naming every Firefox window "Firefox" would make it *less* meaningful.

Comment by ANOKNUSA for
Is it possible to change what i3 shows as the window title? For example, when several windows are tabbed, it would be nice if I could chose how they are referred to. Ideally, this could be done dynamically, but if not possible, I would also be interested in workarounds for specific applications. For example, some way to make all Firefox windows show up as "Firefox" (instead of the selected tab's title). If this is not possible from i3 and it always shows some title property of the x window, anyone knows how one could change that property, or if it makes sense/is safe to do so?

Thanks

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 21:18:49 +0000

The majority of text-based programs I've used will dynamically change the terminal emulator title, terminal titles can usually be set on launch (e.g. urxvt -title [yourtitle]) and Firefox (and every other web browser) does it dynamically by using the HTML tag from a web page. </article> <article> <h1>Answer by Nishant for <p>Is it possible to change what i3 shows as the window title? For example, when several windows are tabbed, it would be nice if I could chose how they are referred to. Ideally, this could be done dynamically, but if not possible, I would also be interested in workarounds for specific applications. For example, some way to make all Firefox windows show up as "Firefox" (instead of the selected tab's title). If this is not possible from i3 and it always shows some title property of the x window, anyone knows how one could change that property, or if it makes sense/is safe to do so?</p> <p>Thanks</p></h1> <p>Sun, 21 Jun 2015 12:03:26 +0000</p> You could checkout some tab-less browsers like surf and use i3-wm's windowing to tab. </article> <article> <h1>Answer by Adaephon for <p>Is it possible to change what i3 shows as the window title? For example, when several windows are tabbed, it would be nice if I could chose how they are referred to. Ideally, this could be done dynamically, but if not possible, I would also be interested in workarounds for specific applications. For example, some way to make all Firefox windows show up as "Firefox" (instead of the selected tab's title). If this is not possible from i3 and it always shows some title property of the x window, anyone knows how one could change that property, or if it makes sense/is safe to do so?</p> <p>Thanks</p></h1> <p>Tue, 01 Jul 2014 06:31:21 +0000</p> Window titles are set by the applications not by *i3*. *i3* simply relays what is set in the `WM_NAME` or `_NET_WM_NAME` attributes. While it would be possible to patch *i3* to display something else (in fact *i3* uses part of `WM_CLASS` of windows for the titles of surrounding containers), I don't think it will be a configurable feature anytime soon. That leaves modifying the title from inside the application. Most applications have no easy way to change their window titles. Fortunatelly, for Firefox there seem to be a few add-ons that may be useful. For example [customize_titlebar_v2](https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/customize_titlebar_v2/?src=search), which seems to be able to do what you want (but I did not test it). Terminal windows are also quite easy to do. Unless your shell already sets the title somewhere a simple `echo -e "\e]0;Your title here\a"` should do. </article> <article> <h1>Answer by majkinetor for <p>Is it possible to change what i3 shows as the window title? For example, when several windows are tabbed, it would be nice if I could chose how they are referred to. Ideally, this could be done dynamically, but if not possible, I would also be interested in workarounds for specific applications. For example, some way to make all Firefox windows show up as "Firefox" (instead of the selected tab's title). If this is not possible from i3 and it always shows some title property of the x window, anyone knows how one could change that property, or if it makes sense/is safe to do so?</p> <p>Thanks</p></h1> <p>Wed, 02 Jul 2014 00:26:24 +0000</p> Do it with the shell script: #!/usr/bin/env bash # Depends on: xdotool, wmctrl FOCUSED=$(wmctrl -lp | grep $(xprop -root | grep _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW | head -1 | awk '{print $5}' | sed 's/,//' | sed 's/^0x/0x0/')) FPID=$(echo $FOCUSED | awk '{print $3}') FNME=$(echo $FOCUSED | cut -f -4 -d ' ' --complement) xdotool search -all --pid $FPID --name "$FNME" set_window -name "$*" You can even execute it via dmenu. Test in terminal to change its name set_title my new name </article> <article> <h1>Comment by majkinetor for <p>Do it with the shell script:</p> <pre><code>#!/usr/bin/env bash # Depends on: xdotool, wmctrl FOCUSED=$(wmctrl -lp | grep $(xprop -root | grep _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW | head -1 | awk '{print $5}' | sed 's/,//' | sed 's/^0x/0x0/')) FPID=$(echo $FOCUSED | awk '{print $3}') FNME=$(echo $FOCUSED | cut -f -4 -d ' ' --complement) xdotool search -all --pid $FPID --name "$FNME" set_window -name "$*" </code></pre> <p>You can even execute it via dmenu. Test in terminal to change its name</p> <pre><code>set_title my new name </code></pre></h1> <p>Wed, 02 Jul 2014 13:35:24 +0000</p> Your version looks even better! Just check what happens with multiple windows with the same name, above mumbo jumbo is mostly because of it. You could make it work by checking output of all variables, maybe `cut` command messed up. I noticed I have different wmctrl output depending on how I start it </article> <article> <h1>Comment by Rojo for <p>Do it with the shell script:</p> <pre><code>#!/usr/bin/env bash # Depends on: xdotool, wmctrl FOCUSED=$(wmctrl -lp | grep $(xprop -root | grep _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW | head -1 | awk '{print $5}' | sed 's/,//' | sed 's/^0x/0x0/')) FPID=$(echo $FOCUSED | awk '{print $3}') FNME=$(echo $FOCUSED | cut -f -4 -d ' ' --complement) xdotool search -all --pid $FPID --name "$FNME" set_window -name "$*" </code></pre> <p>You can even execute it via dmenu. Test in terminal to change its name</p> <pre><code>set_title my new name </code></pre></h1> <p>Wed, 02 Jul 2014 02:08:55 +0000</p> Wonderful! Thanks! This didn't work for me, but changing the script to ``xdotool set_window --name "$*" `xdotool getactivewindow` `` seems to do the trick (have barely tested). Do you see anything missing or wrong with this? </article> </main></body></html>