Reverse perl matches in 'criteria' in i3 config

asked 2015-12-13 22:24:09 +0000

basletic
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Hello,

I switched to i3 recently (from pekwm), to see if I could persuade myself to start to use tiling WM. So far, so good, I find i3 very configurable and maleable. If not directly, then by simple scripting and a bit of hacking.

However, one thing is bothering me ... let me explain: I regularly use VirtualBox; very often I want to close certain window inside particular virtual machine, and instinctively press the i3 'kill' keyboard shortcut $mod+Shift+q. Of course, it closes entire virtual machine ... which makes me cry and mad :)

What I need is to disable 'kill' action on windows with [instance="VirtualBox"]. I tried:

bindsym $mod+Shift+q [instance="(?!VirtualBox)"] kill

However, it doesn't do what I need ... instead, to my horror, it closes all other windows!

Is there a simple solution to this, or I must resort to the IPC (this would be overkill for such a simple operation, wouldn't it)?

Unfortunately, programming in C/C++ is over my head, but if there is a chance, I would vouch for adding such config option: 'do something to focused widow, unless window satisfies such-and-such criteria".

(Note: my question is connected to this one [How do I use an exclude regex in i3 config] here in this FAQ, so I'm not the only one in a need for such thing.)

Thanks a lot for all your answers.

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answered 2015-12-14 01:06:03 +0000

Airblader
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updated 2015-12-15 23:43:34 +0000

What you need to do is extend the match to match on the focused window AND on the negation.

i3 4.11 and older

bindsym $mod+Shift+q exec --no-startup-id i3-msg [id="$(xdotool getactivewindow)" instance="^(?!VirtualBox).*$"] kill

This requires xdotool to be installed, of course.

i3 4.12 and newer

Starting with i3 4.12 and newer, you can ditch this little workaround and instead do this:

bindsym $mod+Shift+q [con_id="__focused__" instance="^(?!VirtualBox).*$"] kill

At the time of writing this answer, 4.12 is not yet released, so building the development branch from source is required for the time being.

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Thanks to your work on issue #2014 (https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/2014) the workaround with `i3msg` and `xdotool` should not be needed any longer starting with the next release (current release is 4.11). Then `bindsym _ [con_id=__focused__ instance='(?!VirtualBox)'] kill` should be sufficient.

Adaephon ( 2015-12-14 22:03:01 +0000 )edit

@Adaephon Dangit, I did consider that but we seem to have forgotten to document that con_id allows this special value. The other (documented) ones were simply insufficient. I'll fix this in the documentation and update my answer.

Airblader ( 2015-12-14 23:02:28 +0000 )edit

We did actually document it correctly, my mistake was using the currently released userguide for reference. My vacation is getting to me. Thanks for the hint!

Airblader ( 2015-12-14 23:07:40 +0000 )edit

Thanks Airblader and Adaephon a lot for information and possible solutions. So far I'm novice in i3, but probably I should have looked at dev branch. I'm on debian unstable, but I will not wait for offical package; instead I will try to compile 4.12 by myself. I will report here if it doesn't work.

basletic ( 2015-12-14 23:18:09 +0000 )edit

@basletic Instead of compiling yourself, you may want to have a look at http://i3wm.org/docs/repositories.html for instructions on how to get the latest developer version of i3 as ready-made package.

Adaephon ( 2015-12-15 08:19:34 +0000 )edit

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answered 2015-12-15 09:34:06 +0000

basletic
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updated 2015-12-15 19:09:33 +0000

OK, it doesn't work as expected. Or I'm doing something wrong.

Let me describe what I have found out in more details (I will play with 'galculator' instead of 'VirtualBox', and simplify regex to 'match' the string instaed of 'reverse match').

1) with the config

bindsym $mod+Shift+q [instance="galculator"] kill

I get expected behaviour. I can kill only the galculator app. I cannot kill other clients (for example: terminal). And galculator is killed irrespective of currently focused window.

2) with the config

bindsym $mod+Shift+q [instance="galculator" con_id="__focused__"] kill

I can kill any currently focused client. This is not really expected. It looks like, contrary to what I expect, the 'instance' and 'con_id' are logically OR-ed, instead of AND-ed.

And I know that the 'instance' and 'class' are logically AND-ed: bindsym $mod+Shift+q [instance="galculator" class="randomstringfgfgfg"] kill wouldn't kill galculator nor anything other.

I hope what I write above makes sense ... Is it intended behaviour? Do I have to do something more? Like mark window or something?

EDIT: I forgot to specify that I now use i3 repository, with i3 version:

$ i3 -v

EDIT1: I'm a bit confused with the fact that I cannot add yet another answer (about xdotool way), so here it is, below:

As for the 'xdotool' way ... it also doesn't work. Either I'm doing something wrong, or certain features of i3 don't work as expected. (Admittedly, what I need might be a corner case ...)

To simplify things, let's go back to simple 'galculator', and let's try to do it without 'xdotool'.

1) this

bindsym $mod+Shift+q [id="31457283"] kill

where '31457283' is 'galculator' window id (as obtained by 'xwininfo -int') works as expected: it kills (only) 'galculator', no matter what window has focus.

2) however, this

bindsym $mod+Shift+q [id="31457283" instance="(?!galculator)"] kill

doesn't work as expected - it, again, kills (only) 'galculator' window, no matter what window has focus. As if the 'id' criteria cause any other criteria to be ignored, similar to 'con_id' case. Is it possible?

Therefore, the solution for original problem using 'xdotool' doesn't seem to work, either.

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That does sound odd. I'm going to check it out later.

Airblader ( 2015-12-15 11:21:18 +0000 )edit

Yeah, you're right. con_id and mark are criteria that cause any other criteria to be ignored. I think you need to use the xdotool solution I mentioned. Let us know whether that works. Meanwhile I'll open a bug.

Airblader ( 2015-12-15 11:37:12 +0000 )edit

https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/2111

Airblader ( 2015-12-15 12:16:35 +0000 )edit

@basletic Sorry for the confusion. Using id+instance does work, but the negative lookahead must look slightly different. I've updated my answer accordingly. Please try it the way it's described there, i.e., bindsym $mod+Shift+q [id=31457283 instance="^(?!galculator).*$"] kill

Airblader ( 2015-12-15 19:47:36 +0000 )edit

@Airblader Thanks a lot. This now works as required: bindsym $mod+Shift+q exec --no-startup-id i3-msg [id="$(xdotool getactivewindow)" instance="^(?!galculator).*$"] kill (but only with this particular quoting; your inital quoting doesn't work!). I apologize for my nonfamiliarity with PCRE.

basletic ( 2015-12-15 20:03:11 +0000 )edit

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Reverse perl matches in 'criteria' in i3 config

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i3 4.11 and older

i3 4.12 and newer

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