i3 FAQ - Individual question feed

i3 FAQ - Individual question feedhttps://faq.i3wm.org/questions/Frequently asked questions and answers about the i3 window managerenCopyright i3, 2012Tue, 21 Oct 2014 13:14:00 +0000Dzen2 instead of i3barhttps://faq.i3wm.org/question/4774/dzen2-instead-of-i3bar/I'd like to use Dzen2 instead of i3bar. I'm comfortable with using i3-msg to display workspace information on a Dzen2 instance, but I'd also like to display the title of the active window. I understand that the window title information is contained in the JSON dump returned by running "i3-msg -t get_tree", but I'm not sure of a reliable way to retrieve the title of the active window from this dump. I'm thinking I'll use a python script to do it, but I don't understand the structure of the i3 tree well enough. Any guidance on how to retrieve this information is much appreciated.Thu, 16 Oct 2014 14:44:06 +0000https://faq.i3wm.org/question/4774/dzen2-instead-of-i3bar/Answer by ANOKNUSA for I'd like to use Dzen2 instead of i3bar. I'm comfortable with using i3-msg to display workspace information on a Dzen2 instance, but I'd also like to display the title of the active window. I understand that the window title information is contained in the JSON dump returned by running "i3-msg -t get_tree", but I'm not sure of a reliable way to retrieve the title of the active window from this dump. I'm thinking I'll use a python script to do it, but I don't understand the structure of the i3 tree well enough. Any guidance on how to retrieve this information is much appreciated. https://faq.i3wm.org/question/4774/dzen2-instead-of-i3bar/?answer=4777#post-id-4777You could use `xdotool`, which can be found in many distribution repositories. The NETWM_NAME property of the currently focused window can be grabbed with xdotool getwindowname $(xdotool getwindowfocus) Otherwise you'd need to write a script to parse the JSON tree output.Thu, 16 Oct 2014 16:46:25 +0000https://faq.i3wm.org/question/4774/dzen2-instead-of-i3bar/?answer=4777#post-id-4777Comment by AlexJ136 for You could use <code>xdotool</code>, which can be found in many distribution repositories. The NETWM_NAME property of the currently focused window can be grabbed with <pre><code>xdotool getwindowname $(xdotool getwindowfocus) </code></pre> Otherwise you'd need to write a script to parse the JSON tree output. https://faq.i3wm.org/question/4774/dzen2-instead-of-i3bar/?comment=4782#comment-4782I had to run `xdotool getwindowfocus | xargs xdotool getwindowname`, which works great. Thanks for pointing me at xdotool.Thu, 16 Oct 2014 21:28:27 +0000https://faq.i3wm.org/question/4774/dzen2-instead-of-i3bar/?comment=4782#comment-4782Comment by Adaephon for You could use <code>xdotool</code>, which can be found in many distribution repositories. The NETWM_NAME property of the currently focused window can be grabbed with <pre><code>xdotool getwindowname $(xdotool getwindowfocus) </code></pre> Otherwise you'd need to write a script to parse the JSON tree output. https://faq.i3wm.org/question/4774/dzen2-instead-of-i3bar/?comment=4814#comment-4814You also can use `xdotool getwindowfocus getwindowname`. This utilizes the command chaining feature of `xdotool`. You could also use `getactivewindow` instead of `getwindowfocus` as the man page states that it may be more reliable.Tue, 21 Oct 2014 13:14:00 +0000https://faq.i3wm.org/question/4774/dzen2-instead-of-i3bar/?comment=4814#comment-4814Comment by ANOKNUSA for You could use <code>xdotool</code>, which can be found in many distribution repositories. The NETWM_NAME property of the currently focused window can be grabbed with <pre><code>xdotool getwindowname $(xdotool getwindowfocus) </code></pre> Otherwise you'd need to write a script to parse the JSON tree output. https://faq.i3wm.org/question/4774/dzen2-instead-of-i3bar/?comment=4785#comment-4785I didn't consider that my line works in Bash/Zsh, and not necessarily any other shells. :P Good to see you got it working.Fri, 17 Oct 2014 04:04:50 +0000https://faq.i3wm.org/question/4774/dzen2-instead-of-i3bar/?comment=4785#comment-4785