i3 FAQ - Individual question feed

Manipulating windows with the mouse

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 19:38:38 +0000

Hi, I'm using i3 for several months and I still feel some things are missing : mainly the possibility to manipulate windows with the mouse. I mean :

closing windows (e.g. with a little cross-button on the title bar like many other wm, or by clicking with some button on the titlebar)

switching to full screen (e.g. with double-click on the titlebar) So I would like to know whether options to handle this will be implemented in the future, or if there's some way to configure this by hand. Thanks, and thanks for developing such a great wm.

Answer by Michael for
Hi, I'm using i3 for several months and I still feel some things are missing : mainly the possibility to manipulate windows with the mouse. I mean :

closing windows (e.g. with a little cross-button on the title bar like many other wm, or by clicking with some button on the titlebar)

switching to full screen (e.g. with double-click on the titlebar)

So I would like to know whether options to handle this will be implemented in the future, or if there's some way to configure this by hand.

Thanks, and thanks for developing such a great wm.

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 19:46:55 +0000

No, features like little close buttons will not be implemented. i3 does not have full mouse support (or traditional mouse support) as one of its goals. What still has a chance of getting introduced is bindsym-like support for mouse-buttons, e.g. that you can bind what a click on a window title with each mouse button should do. But nothing apart from that is planned (or desirable IMO) with regards to mouse support.

Answer by hos for
Hi, I'm using i3 for several months and I still feel some things are missing : mainly the possibility to manipulate windows with the mouse. I mean :

closing windows (e.g. with a little cross-button on the title bar like many other wm, or by clicking with some button on the titlebar)

switching to full screen (e.g. with double-click on the titlebar)

So I would like to know whether options to handle this will be implemented in the future, or if there's some way to configure this by hand.

Thanks, and thanks for developing such a great wm.

Thu, 05 Mar 2015 18:06:54 +0000

Apparently bindsym features for mouse buttons have been added in the 4.9 release. # The middle button over a titlebar kills the window bindsym --release button2 kill # The middle button and a modifer over any part of the window kills the window bindsym --whole-window $mod+button2 kill # The right button toggles floating bindsym button3 floating toggle bindsym $mod+button3 floating toggle # The side buttons move the window around bindsym button9 move left bindsym button8 move right Visit [mousebindings section in the User's Guide](http://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#mousebindings) for the necessary configuration.

Answer by Timbus for
Hi, I'm using i3 for several months and I still feel some things are missing : mainly the possibility to manipulate windows with the mouse. I mean :

closing windows (e.g. with a little cross-button on the title bar like many other wm, or by clicking with some button on the titlebar)

switching to full screen (e.g. with double-click on the titlebar)

So I would like to know whether options to handle this will be implemented in the future, or if there's some way to configure this by hand.

Thanks, and thanks for developing such a great wm.

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 01:41:02 +0000

Hi there. I added this to i3 quite some time ago and could not live without it: diff --git a/src/click.c b/src/click.c index 3022c24..e76a57c 100644 --- a/src/click.c +++ b/src/click.c @@ -229,6 +229,12 @@ static int route_click(Con *con, xcb_button_press_event_t *event, const bool mod goto done; } + if (dest == CLICK_DECORATION && event->detail == 2) { + DLOG("Closing window using middle click\n"); + tree_close(con, KILL_WINDOW, false, false); + goto done; + } + /* 2: focus this con. */ con_focus(con); It allows windows to be closed with middle-click. If you have the latest git pull of the 'next' branch you should be able to apply it. If anyone finds it useful, I might work on adding more mouse support such as moving and swapping window positions..

Comment by dev-zero for

Hi there. I added this to i3 quite some time ago and could not live without it:

diff --git a/src/click.c b/src/click.c
index 3022c24..e76a57c 100644
--- a/src/click.c
+++ b/src/click.c
@@ -229,6 +229,12 @@ static int route_click(Con *con, xcb_button_press_event_t *event, const bool mod
         goto done;
     }

+    if (dest == CLICK_DECORATION && event->detail == 2) {
+        DLOG("Closing window using middle click\n");
+        tree_close(con, KILL_WINDOW, false, false);
+        goto done;
+    }
+
     /* 2: focus this con. */
     con_focus(con);

It allows windows to be closed with middle-click. If you have the latest git pull of the 'next' branch you should be able to apply it.

If anyone finds it useful, I might work on adding more mouse support such as moving and swapping window positions..

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 08:57:43 +0000

It is definitely useful, although it should terminate the processing of the event: currently the middle-click is passed through to the window behind it (which is the case when closing a floating window).