i3-focus-group

Create a group for i3/sway containers to easily switch focus between.

Installation

Using pip:

pip install i3-focus-group

If you are using Nix, you can install it from NUR.

Usage

i3-focus-group will listen at a Unix domain socket for incoming requests. Each request includes a single line of string as the name of command.

The following commands are supported:

Command	Description
add	Add the current container to the group
remove	Remove the current container from the group
toggle	Toggle the current container (add or remove)
clear	Clear the group (remove all containers)
switch	Focus next container in group and promote this container if in group
peekNext	Focus next container in group but without changing order
peekPrev	Focus previous container in group but without changing order

You can use any program that supports Unix domain socket to send the request. For example:

echo "add" | socat - $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/i3-focus-group.sock
echo "switch" | socat - $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/i3-focus-group.sock

To use it with i3/sway, simply add keybindings to run the above commands:

bindsym Mod4+Tab exec echo "switch" | socat - $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/i3-focus-group.sock
bindsym Mod4+grave exec echo "toggle" | socat - $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/i3-focus-group.sock
bindsym Mod4+Shift+grave exec echo "clear" | socat - $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/i3-focus-group.sock
bindsym Mod4+comma exec echo "peekPrev" | socat - $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/i3-focus-group.sock
bindsym Mod4+period exec echo "peekNext" | socat - $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/i3-focus-group.sock

For more command-line options, run i3-focus-group -h.

Example

1. To start with, the group with be empty.
2. Then suppose two containers A, B, and C are added to the group and now C is focused. The group becomes [C] B A. (bracket means current focus)
3. Suppose switch command is issued, it will focus on the next container B and promote it to the head. The group becomes [B] C A.
4. Suppose switch command is issued again, the group will become [C] B A.
5. Suppose peekNext is issued. The focus will change to B but without promoting the container. The group becomes C [B] A.
6. Suppose peekNext is issued again. The focus will change to A. The group becomes C B [A].
7. Suppose switch is issued next. A will be promoted first and focus will switch to the next container C. The group becomes [C] A B.

If the current focus not in the group, the next switch or peek command will focus on the first container in the group.

License

i3-focus-group
Copyright (C) 2024  DCsusnet

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published
by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU Affero General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.