Forcing windows as always floating

Is there a way to force specific windows to be always floating? I reckon some already do that by default (some configuration windows) and others don't.

One classic example here is maybe nautilus "File Operations" window, which shows up when you are copying or moving files in your file system.

The xprop command returns:

WM_CLASS(STRING) = "file_progress", "Nautilus"

To make it be floating by default, I append to the .i3/config file:

for_window [class="Nautilus" instance="file_progress"] floating enable

But, is there any other way? I was wondering what would be the criteria to decide whether to display it floating or not. Meaning, I would not want to keep doing this to every window that wrongfully (well, maybe this is just my perspective) goes tiled instead of floated.

Any ideas?

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answered Jun 6 '12

Michael
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Your way is the correct and only way.

In case you feel that this window should not ever be tiling (in your case it seems to be a popup window indicating some progress), you could file a bugreport for the program you are using and tell them to set the correct window type on that window.

i3 sets dialog, utility, toolbar and splash windows to floating.

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Yeah, I had the feeling the trouble would be in the application's side. It makes total sense to base the floating under these types of windows. Nice! I will try to push this to applications and see what happens! :-) Cheers,

bruno.braga (Jun 6 '12)edit

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answered Mar 12 '13

visit
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If you want to float everything by default, you can set it like this:

# force floating for all new windows
for_window [class="[.]*"] floating enable

I know, this is against the principles of a tiling WM. But some guys may like to manually add their windows to the tree.

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answered Nov 29 '12

Dave Cohen
1

I'm not sure about the specific Nautilus window you're talking about, (I usually use Chromium) but I find this rule helpful:

# browser pop-ups
for_window [window_role="pop-up"] floating enable

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Great tip!

bruno.braga (Dec 14 '12)edit

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Forcing windows as always floating

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