i3-resurrect 1.1.0

A simple but flexible solution to saving and restoring i3 workspace layouts

i3-resurrect

A simple but flexible solution to saving and restoring i3 workspaces

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Getting Started
  • Requirements
  • Installation
  • Usage
  • Configuration
• Contributing
• Contributors
• License

Introduction

i3-resurrect originated as a mixture of hacked together Python and bash scripts that I wrote in order to be able to quickly save and load workspaces on the fly.

I hate having to reboot my computer because it disrupts everything I have open (which tends to be a lot).

To cope with this problem, I try to make it as easy as possible for myself to get everything back to its pre-reboot state.

I quickly found out about the i3-save-tree utility and i3's append-layout command, but these weren't much use to me on their own, as you are expected to customise a layout manually after saving it and relaunch all your programs manually when you restore the layout.

My solution was to create a script that would extract just the bits from i3-save-tree that are needed, and use the i3ipc, wmctrl, and psutil Python libraries to obtain the commands necessary to launch the programs in a saved workspace.

Since I decided to release this publicly, I have improved the standard of the code a great deal and gotten rid of the hacky bash parts.

Getting Started

Requirements

• Python 3
• i3
• Working i3-save-tree command
  • This requires the package perl-anyevent-i3

Installation

From the AUR using yay (recommended for Arch Linux users)

yay -S i3-resurrect-git

From PyPI (recommended for everyone else)

pip3 install --user --upgrade i3-resurrect

Make sure ~/.local/bin is in your PATH environment variable.

Manual

Obtain source code

git clone [e-mail]:JonnyHaystack/i3-resurrect.git

Install dependencies then run script directly

# Install dependencies
cd i3-resurrect
pip3 install --user -r requirements.txt

# Run script directly
python3 i3-resurrect.py

Or just install locally using pip

pip3 install --user .

Usage

Command line

# Save workspace '1'
i3-resurrect save -w 1

# Restore workspace '1'
i3-resurrect restore -w 1

Example configuration in i3

# Save workspace mode.
mode "save" {
  bindsym 1 exec i3-resurrect save -w 1
  bindsym 2 exec i3-resurrect save -w 2
  bindsym 3 exec i3-resurrect save -w 3
  bindsym 4 exec i3-resurrect save -w 4
  bindsym 5 exec i3-resurrect save -w 5
  bindsym 6 exec i3-resurrect save -w 6
  bindsym 7 exec i3-resurrect save -w 7
  bindsym 8 exec i3-resurrect save -w 8
  bindsym 9 exec i3-resurrect save -w 9
  bindsym 0 exec i3-resurrect save -w 0

  # Back to normal: Enter, Escape, or s
  bindsym Return mode "default"
  bindsym Escape mode "default"
  bindsym s mode "default"
  bindsym $mod+s mode "default"
}

bindsym $mod+s mode "save"

# Restore workspace mode.
mode "restore" {
  bindsym 1 exec i3-resurrect restore -w 1
  bindsym 2 exec i3-resurrect restore -w 2
  bindsym 3 exec i3-resurrect restore -w 3
  bindsym 4 exec i3-resurrect restore -w 4
  bindsym 5 exec i3-resurrect restore -w 5
  bindsym 6 exec i3-resurrect restore -w 6
  bindsym 7 exec i3-resurrect restore -w 7
  bindsym 8 exec i3-resurrect restore -w 8
  bindsym 9 exec i3-resurrect restore -w 9
  bindsym 0 exec i3-resurrect restore -w 0

  # Back to normal: Enter, Escape, or n
  bindsym Return mode "default"
  bindsym Escape mode "default"
  bindsym n mode "default"
  bindsym $mod+n mode "default"
}

bindsym $mod+n mode "restore"

Configuration

The config file should be located at ~/.config/i3-resurrect/config.json. You will have to create it yourself if you want to use it.

In the case of a window where the process cmdline is not the same as the command you must run to launch that program, you can add an explicit window class to command mapping in the config file.

For example, gnome-terminal's process is gnome-terminal-server, but we need to launch it with the command gnome-terminal. To get this working, you would put the following in your config file:

{
  "window_command_mappings": {
    "Gnome-terminal": "gnome-terminal"
  }
}

If you need to find out a window's class, type xprop | grep WM_CLASS in a terminal and then click on the desired window.

Contributing

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests to us.

Versioning

We use SemVer for versioning. For the versions available, see the tags on this repository.

Built With

• i3ipc - Used to get the list of windows in a specified workspace
• wmctrl - Used to get the PIDs of the windows that are retrieved using i3ipc
• psutil - Used to get the cmdline and cwd of each process

Contributors

• Jonathan Haylett - Creator - @JonnyHaystack

See also the list of contributors who participated in this project.

Acknowledgments

• @acrisci - for the i3ipc Python library
• @antocuni - for the wmctrl Python library
• @giampaolo - for the psutil Python library
• Everyone who has worked on i3

Related projects

For those interested, other excellent software I use to get things up and running quickly includes:

• tmux-resurrect - which obviously also inspired the name of this project
• tmux-continuum - an excellent companion to tmux-resurrect
• qutebrowser - which has excellent session management, especially if you create bindings for saving and loading individual windows

License

This project is licensed under the GNU GPL Version 3 - see the LICENSE file for details