i3-input (1)

i3-input [-s <socket>] [-F <format>] [-l <limit>] [-P <prompt>] [-f <font>] [-v]

i3-input is a tool to take commands (or parts of a command) composed by the user, and send it/them to i3. This is useful, for example, for the mark/goto command.

You can press Escape to close i3-input without sending any commands.

-s <socket>

Specify the path to the i3 IPC socket (it should not be necessary to use this option, i3-input will figure out the path on its own).

-F <format>

Every occurence of "%s" in the <format> string is replaced by the user input, and the result is sent to i3 as a command. Default value is "%s".

-l <limit>

Set the maximum allowed length of the user input to <limit> characters. i3-input will automatically issue the command when the user input reaches that length.

-P <prompt>

Display the <prompt> string in front of user input text field. The prompt string is not included in the user input/command.

-f <font>

Use the specified X11 core font (use xfontsel to chose a font).

-v

Show version and exit.

Mark a container with a single character:

i3-input -F 'mark %s' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '

Go to the container marked with above example:

i3-input -F '[con_mark="%s"] focus' -l 1 -P 'Go to: '

I3SOCK

i3-input handles the different sources of socket paths in the following order:

I3SOCK environment variable

I3SOCK gets overwritten by the -s parameter, if specified

if neither are available, i3-input reads the socket path from the X11 property, which is the recommended way

if everything fails, i3-input tries /tmp/i3-ipc.sock

The socket path is necessary to connect to i3 and actually issue the command.

i3(1)

Michael Stapelberg and contributors