Today I was looking for a solution how to disable the urgency hint for programs which I automatically launch in my i3 config file on startup.

I have saved the layout of my workspace number 2 (see https://i3wm.org/docs/layout-saving.html for the docs) and in my i3 config I attach that layout to workspace number 2 and I also launch some programs (applications) there. Then I let i3-msg switch to workspace 1 so I see the wallpaper. But the launched programs on workspace 2 launch just after that (I guess a few milliseconds later) so they are not focused and i3 changes the workspace color to red, which is annoying because I have to switch to workspace 2 and back to workspace 1 to get rid of the red color.

Solution: put this Bash script to your i3 config folder, in my case the full path is ~/.config/i3/urgency_off.sh and make the file executable.

#!/bin/sh
# Disable urgency hint of all opened windows on i3wm startup.
# Add it to i3 config as exec.

sleep 2

for i in $(xdotool search --class .\*)
do
	xdotool set_window --urgency 0 $i
done

Then put this line at the end of your ~/.config/i3/config file:

exec --no-startup-id ~/.config/i3/urgency_off.sh

Make sure you have xdotool installed. On Debian-based systems you can install it simply with apt install xdotool. If you use Wayland instead of X you may need to use another tool.

This is a HOW TO, not a question :-)

Binding numeric keys (for example KP_1 or KP_0) is not as easy as it might seem. A simple bindsym $mod+KP_1 does NOT work in X11 (but maybe it works in Wayland?).

Solution

for example to define a key binding to switch to workspace 1 we can use: bindsym $mod+Mod2+KP_1 workspace number $ws1

Background info: Mod2 specifies the numlock key (although xev reports it's called Num_Lock with code 77). Mod2 is not a key to be pressed, it seems to be the numlock state, so +Mod2 means the keybinding is active with num_lock enabled.

I noticed a strange silent error: when having a typo in keymap.json file, for example "ctlr-space" instead of "ctrl-space", the whole keymap is ignored and default key bindings are active instead. Why isn't there any error message? So pay attention to your keymap.json modifications!

Hi, could someone please help me with this: what is the keybinding to open those pop-up windows which show the function description? See my screenshot. In other editors it's sometimes called "code lense".

I've looked everywhere and I simply cannot find it (if I only knew how the action is called in the settings file...). I'm using a tiling window manager, so I don't want to use the mouse every time. Thanks.