i3-cycle

i3 WM focus-like tool with cycling in mind

Presentation

i3-cycle is a small python tool written for the i3 Window Manager that allows to cycle the focus across windows and monitors.

Given the following example:

        a                   b
+---------------+   +---------------+
|       |       |   |       |       |
|       |       |   |       |       |
|       |       |   |       |       |
|   1   |   2   |   |   3   |   4   |
|       |       |   |       |       |
|       |       |   |       |       |
|       |       |   |       |       |
+---------------+   +---------------+

Where a and b are different screens/monitors/outputs and 1, 2, 3 and 4 four different windows spread amongst the two screens.

If the focus if set on 2 and we want to set the focus to the right, with traditional i3 focus, the target will be 3. With i3-cycle, the new focus recipient will be 1.

i3-cycle also works vertically, and allows to cycle directely through the different screens without requiring to move the focus through multiple windows before reaching it.

Installation

i3-cycle is developed in Python and requires i3-py

Source Setup

$ git clone https://github.com/mota/i3-cycle.git
$ cd i3-cycle
$ python setup.py install

Pypi Setup

$ pip install i3-cycle

or

$ easy_install i3-cycle

Usage

As is

$ i3-cycle -h
usage: i3-cycle [-h] {up,down,left,right,next,prev}

positional arguments:
  {up,down,left,right,next,prev}
                        Direction to put the focus on

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit

up, down, left and right allow to move through windows of the current workspace in a cycling fashion. next and prev cycle through the screens.

With i3

Example i3 configuration

$ cat ~/.i3/config
...
bindsym $mod+} exec i3-cycle right
bindsym $mod+{ exec i3-cycle left
bindsym $mod+Shift+{ exec i3-cycle up
bindsym $mod+Shift+} exec i3-cycle down
bind $mod+49 exec i3-cycle next
bind $mod+Shift+49 exec i3-cycle prev
...