i3-winmotion

i3-winmotion is a tool that allows you to move between visible i3 windows using specified hint keys (see the demo below).

The credits for the idea go to pcharest2000/winswitch and svenstaro/wmfocus. i3-winmotion is a complete rewrite using the i3-ipc bindings provided by i3-ipcpp, which allows i3-winmotion to only highlight visible windows, avoiding overlapping or (in my opinion) confusing hints. This is done by traversing the i3 JSON workspace layout and enabling hints only for the visible windows in a tab or stack.

How it works

i3-winmotion uses the hint keys (default: 'asdfjkl') to create 'hints' consisting of the minimum number of characters to create unique hints. Each visible window is assigned a hint. Entering the displayed hint causes the corresponding window to become focused. Pressing escape exits the application and keeps the focus unchanged.

For example, if there are 2 hint keys and 2 visible windows, each window will have one unique hint key assigned. However, if there are 2 hint keys and 3 visible windows i3-winmotion will assign hints consisting of 2 keys to each window as each hint has to be a unique combination of the hint keys.

Note that the hints are displayed as uppercase, but the expected key presses are lowercase.

Requirements

• i3
• RapidJSON
• A compositor that supports drawing overlays (e.g., picom).

Building

Simply run make in the root of the project.

It will automatically initialize the i3-ipcpp submodule and compile i3-ipcpp (if it's not already compiled). Then it will compile i3-winmotion and place the resulting binary in ./bin.

Usage

OVERVIEW: i3-winmotion window visible window switcher

USAGE: i3-winmotion [options]

 -k, --hint-keys <keys>       Hint key string used to generate hints (default: 'jklfdsa')
 -o, --fullscreen-overlay     Add a slightly black transparent background
 -f, --font <name>            Hint font (default: monospace)
 -s, --font-size <size>       Hint font size (default: 100)
 -w, --hint-floating          Draw hints on floating windows
 -h, --help                   Display this help and exit

Differences With Other Window Switchers

I'm not saying anything negative about the other window switchers. They are great, just not ideal for my workflow.

• pcharest2000/winswitch does not use any i3 information resulting in overlapping hints for tabbed and stacked windows.

• svenstaro/wmfocus does use i3 information but also draws hints for all the hidden windows in a tab or stack. For my workflow, with a lot of tabs with splits in it, this quickly becomes confusing.

Demo