dotfiles/org/config/i3.org

i3 config (Deprecated)

• Presentation
• Variables declaration
  • Global
  • Floating windows
• i3 global settings
  • Mouse settings
  • Popup handling
  • Behavior of workspace changes
  • Gaps and window appearance
• Assigning windows to workspaces
• Shortcuts
  • Terminal shortcuts
  • i3 shortcuts
  • Window and workspace management
    • Managing how windows will split
    • Focus windows
    • Focus workspaces
    • Moving windows
    • Moving containers
    • Moving workspaces
    • Close windows
    • Manage the size of the current window
    • Manage floating windows
    • Scratchpad and window display
    • Gaps management
  • Launching software
    • Software and command launcher
    • Internet software
    • Screenshots
    • Screen brightness
    • Media control
    • Rofi utilities
    • Miscellaneous
    • Screen management
• Software autolaunch

Presentation

*Before proceeding, be aware that I deprecated this i3 config on August 22nd, 2020, meaning I won’t update it anymore unless I use it again some day in the future. I will keep it on my website though.*

i3 is a window manager for GNU/Linux which automatically tiles windows in workspaces. This configuration was ade to automatically handle some tasks such as which software allowed where, autostart, and launching software with shortcuts.

It is to be noted I am using Airblader’s fork of i3, i3-gaps. Some configuration will not work with i3.

Variables declaration

Global

The first I do is declaring the modifier key and the alt key —I don’t find the names Mod1 and Mod4 to be explicit enough. This will map $mod to the Super key (or as some people unfortunately call it, the Windows key) and $alt to the Alt key.

Let’s also bind the $up, $down, $left and $right variables to respectively the up, down, left, and right arrows on the keyboard. Why bind them to variables? If I ever want to modify the arrow keys to some other keys, like é, a, u, and i (the equivalent of wqsd on the bépo layout) or c, t, s, and r (the equivalent of hjkl on the bépo layout), I will just have to modify these four lines.

I’ll also set the $term variable. A lot of shortcuts in my i3 config rely on the terminal emulator itself to launch commands in the terminal, and thus call the terminal itself. If I ever need to move from my current terminal, I will just have to change the name of the executable here.

variable	value
$mod	Mod4
$alt	Mod1
$up	Up
$down	Down
$left	Left
$right	Right
$term	st

variable	value
$exiti3	i3-nagbar -t warning -m 'Leave i3?' -b 'Yes' 'i3-msg exit'
$lockscreen	Lucien Cartier-Tilet\n(Phuntsok Drak-pa)\n+33 (0)6 83 90 56 89
$rofiexec	rofi -combi-modi 'window,drun' -show combi -mohh combi -m -1 -show-icons
$mail	emacsclient -c -e '(mu4e)' -n
$ec	emacsclient -c -n
$walset	wal -i ~/Pictures/Wallpapers -o wal-set

Variables will be set like so.

set $term st

  (mapconcat (lambda (x) (format "set %s %s" (car x) (cadr x)))
             variables
             "\n")

set $mod Mod4
set $alt Mod1
set $up Up
set $down Down
set $left Left
set $right Right
set $term st

Finally, some variables hold some long strings for commands I don’t want to have to type multiple times.

  (mapconcat (lambda (x) (format "set %s \"%s\"" (car x) (cadr x)))
             variables
             "\n")

set $exiti3 "i3-nagbar -t warning -m 'Leave i3?' -b 'Yes' 'i3-msg exit'"
set $lockscreen "Lucien Cartier-Tilet\n(Phuntsok Drak-pa)\n+33 (0)6 83 90 56 89"
set $rofiexec "rofi -combi-modi 'window,drun' -show combi -mohh combi -m -1 -show-icons"
set $mail "emacsclient -c -e '(mu4e)' -n"
set $ec "emacsclient -c -n"
set $walset "wal -i ~/Pictures/Wallpapers -o wal-set"

Here is the configuration:

  <<generate-variables()>>
  <<generate-variables2()>>

Now comes the font for the window tiles. Honestly, this setting is useless since we do not see it, but let’s set it anyway.

  font Fira Sans Book:style=Book:pixelsize=10

Floating windows

Floating windows are windows that are not tiled with other windows, but rather are free to go anywhere on your screen, with any size. A bit like what you would get with any other non-tiling window manager or desktop environment (though most of them support minimal tiling features).

Let’s declare our floading modyfier. With floating windows, you can move them around by clicking on the window’s borders; but since we don’t have any with this config, we will have instead to press the floating modifier while clicking on the window (anywhere on the window is fine) to move them around.

Here is the configuration:

floating_modifier $mod

i3 global settings

Some settings affect i3 globally, such as its aspect or how it handles the mouse. Hence, here are some settings I set in my configuration.

Mouse settings

First of all, I do not want i3 to warp my mouse each time I change windows; my mouse stays where it is.

mouse_warping none

I also to not want the window focus to follow my mouse, because sometimes I will just knock my physical mouse out of the way of my hand, and when I do that the software mouse will most likely end up in another window I do not want to focus.

  focus_follows_mouse no

Popup handling

While in fullscreen, some software might generate a popup. In that case, I want to be aware of that, and any popup will make me leave fullscreen in order to be presented with said popup.

popup_during_fullscreen leave_fullscreen

Behavior of workspace changes

When changing workspace as described below, we often want to go back to the previous workspace we were working on, but we might not remember immediately which one it was, or we might still have our fingers ready to fire the shortcut which made us make the first workspace change. Hence, if we type the same workspace change shortcut, instead of doing nothing it will bring us back to the previous workspace we were on.

workspace_auto_back_and_forth yes

Gaps and window appearance

As mentioned in at the beginning of this document, I am using i3-gaps, which brings spacing (gaps) between windows to i3.

First, I want space around my windows only when there are several containers on the same screen, otherwise they will be maximized.

  smart_gaps on

I also do not want to see any window border, so I will be turning this setting off.

  smart_borders on

By the way, the default border is invisible, since it is zero pixels wide.

default_border pixel 0

Then comes the size of these gaps. I made the outer gap negative so the space between my windows and the border of my screens is smaller than the gap between my containers.

  gaps inner 20
  gaps outer -10

Some parameters are also available when it comes to the colors i3 uses. Honestly, we won’t see these colors much, so let’s simply keep the default values.

  set_from_resource $fg i3wm.color7 #f0f0f0
  set_from_resource $bg i3wm.color2 #f0f0f0

  # class                 border  backgr. text indicator child_border
  client.focused          $bg     $bg     $fg  $bg       $bg
  client.focused_inactive $bg     $bg     $fg  $bg       $bg
  client.unfocused        $bg     $bg     $fg  $bg       $bg
  client.urgent           $bg     $bg     $fg  $bg       $bg
  client.placeholder      $bg     $bg     $fg  $bg       $bg

Assigning windows to workspaces

I decided to bind some windows to some workspaces in order to have a better organization of my desktop.

Application	Class	Workspace
Emacs	Emacs	2
Chromium	Chromium	3
Firefox	firefox	3
Nemo	Nemo	4
Wonderdraft	Godot	5
Gimp	Gimp*	6
Gnome Boxes	gnome-boxes	8
Steam	Steam	9
Discord	discord	10

The class table is used in the assignment in the i3 config file. For instance, Gimp’s assignment will look like this:

  assign [class="Gimp*"] 6

  (mapconcat (lambda (x) (format "assign [class=\"%s\"] %s" (cadr x) (caddr x)))
             workspaces
             "\n")

assign [class="Emacs"] 2
assign [class="Chromium"] 3
assign [class="firefox"] 3
assign [class="Nemo"] 4
assign [class="Godot"] 5
assign [class="Gimp*"] 6
assign [class="gnome-boxes"] 8
assign [class="Steam"] 9
assign [class="discord"] 10

Here is the configuration:

<<generate-workspaces()>>

And although this is not specifically assigning a window to a workspace, I also want to have the tenth workspace assigned to a specific output in case I have two screens — and since this is the case when I am using only one computer, Marpa, I will be using some EmacsLisp in order to generate a different configuration file from this org file depending on the name of the machine.

  (if (string= system-name "Marpa")
      "workspace 10 output eDP-1"
    "")

Now I’ll call the above code as a noweb reference that should be executed.

  <<ws10-output-edp1()>>

Shortcuts

I use A LOT of shortcuts when it comes to my workflow. Like, all the time. So, expect this chapter to be a bit long, and I’ll try to make it readable still.

Shortcuts are set like so:

bindsym shortcut command

Terminal shortcuts

I have a couple of shortcuts which are related to my terminal. For instance, $mod+Return opens a regular terminal instance while $mod+$alt+M opens an SSH instance on my Mila host.

shortcut	command	What it does
$mod+Return	exec $term	Opens a regular terminal console
$mod+$alt+Return	split h;; exec $term	Opens a terminal console below the current one
$mod+Shift+Return	split v;; exec $term	Opens a terminal on the right of the current one
$mod+$alt+m	exec $term ssh Mila	Opens an SSH instance in my Mila host
$mod+$alt+n	exec $term ssh Naro	Opens an SSH instance in my Naro host
$mod+Shift+h	exec $term htop	Opens a terminal with htop

Here is the configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=terminal-shortcuts)>>

i3 shortcuts

A couple of shortcuts are dedicated to i3 itself.

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+Shift+c	exec yadm alt && i3-msg reload	Reload the i3 configuration file
$mod+Shift+r	exec yadm alt && i3-msg restart	Restart i3 inplace
$mod+Shift+e	exec $exiti3	Quit i3

And although this is not really an i3 shortcut per se, I add here the shortcut for launching pywal, which will set one of my wallpapers as the wallpaper and will generate my system’s color configuration from it.

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+w	exec $walset	Set a random wallpaper and generates a color profile from it

We also have some shortcuts to lock our screen, sleep, hibernate and shut down our computer.

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+l	exec i3lock -fol	Lock the screen
$mod+$alt+h	exec "systemctl suspend"	Suspend the computer
$mod+Ctrl+h	exec "systemctl hibernate"	Hibernate the computer
$mod+Shift+F4	exec poweroff	Power off the computer

Here is the configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=i3-sh)>>
<<generate-shortcuts(table=wal-sh)>>
<<generate-shortcuts(table=computer-sh)>>

Window and workspace management

Managing how windows will split

It is possible to indicate to i3 how windows interact with one another, and especially how they are organized by spawning new windows either to the right or below the current window.

shortcuts	command	what it does
$mod+h	split h	Next window to spawn will spawn below the current one
$mod+v	split v	Next window to spawn will spawn beside the current one

Here is the configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=split-win-sh)>>

Focus windows

To change window focus, you can use one of the following shortcuts:

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+$left	focus left	Focus the window left of the current one
$mod+$down	focus down	Focus the window down of the current one
$mod+$up	focus up	Focus the window up of the current one
$mod+$right	focus right	Focus the windof right of the current one

Here is the configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=window-focus-sh)>>

Focus workspaces

Just like windows, it is also possible to change focus between workspaces, because let’s be honest, most people won’t have ten screens to display all ten workspaces at the same time, and frankly that would be impractical.

shortcut	window	what it does
$mod+1	workspace 1	Focus first workspace
$mod+2	workspace 2	Focus second workspace
$mod+3	workspace 3	Focus third workspace
$mod+4	workspace 4	Focus fourth workspace
$mod+5	workspace 5	Focus fifth workspace
$mod+6	workspace 6	Focus sixth workspace
$mod+7	workspace 7	Focus seventh workspace
$mod+8	workspace 8	Focus eighth workspace
$mod+9	workspace 9	Focus ninth workspace
$mod+0	workspace 10	Focus tenth workspace

Here is the configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=ws-focus-sh)>>

Moving windows

To move windows, a couple of shortcuts are available:

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+Shift+$left	move left	Move the focused window left
$mod+Shift+$down	move down	Move the focused window down
$mod+Shift+$up	move up	Move the focused window up
$mod+Shift+$right	move right	Move the focused window right

Here is the configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=window-move-sh)>>

Moving containers

To move containers between the available screens, you have the following shortcuts:

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+Ctrl+$left	move container to output left	Moves the container to the screen left of the current one
$mod+Ctrl+$down	move container to output down	Moves the container to the screen down of the current one
$mod+Ctrl+$up	move container to output up	Moves the container to the screen above the current one
$mod+Ctrl+$right	move container to output right	Moves the container to the screen right of the current one

You can also send containers to other workspaces by their number.

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+Shift+1	move container to workspace 1	Move current container to the workspace 1
$mod+Shift+2	move container to workspace 2	Move current container to the workspace 2
$mod+Shift+3	move container to workspace 3	Move current container to the workspace 3
$mod+Shift+4	move container to workspace 4	Move current container to the workspace 4
$mod+Shift+5	move container to workspace 5	Move current container to the workspace 5
$mod+Shift+6	move container to workspace 6	Move current container to the workspace 6
$mod+Shift+7	move container to workspace 7	Move current container to the workspace 7
$mod+Shift+8	move container to workspace 8	Move current container to the workspace 8
$mod+Shift+9	move container to workspace 9	Move current container to the workspace 9
$mod+Shift+0	move container to workspace 10	Move current container to the workspace 10

Here is the configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=containers-move-sh)>>
<<generate-shortcuts(table=containers-ws-sh)>>

Moving workspaces

It is also possible to move workspaces. The related shortcuts available are the following:

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+Ctrl+Shift+$left	move workspace to output left	Moves the workspace to the screen left of the current one
$mod+Ctrl+Shift+$down	move workspace to output down	Moves the workspace to the screen down of the current one
$mod+Ctrl+Shift+$up	move workspace to output up	Moves the workspace to the screen above the current one
$mod+Ctrl+Shift+$right	move workspace to output right	Moves the workspace to the screen right of the current one

Here is the configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=workspace-move-sh)>>

Close windows

To close windows, we have two main shortcuts: Alt+F4 and mod+q. The first one is here due to habits, but I don’t really use it anymore due to my main keyboard which doesn’t have any easy access to the functions keys, hence mod+q.

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+q	kill	kill the current window
$alt+F4	kill	kill the current window

Here is the configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=close-win-sh)>>

Manage the size of the current window

It is possible to change the size of the current window, even if it is a floating one. The first shortcut that might interest you is $mod+f which switches your current window to fullscreen. But to resize a window, you will need to enter the resize mode.

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+f	fullscreen toggle	Puts the current window in fullscreen or exits it
$mod+r	mode "resize"	Enter resize mode

When it comes to modes, they are defined as follows:

  mode "nameofyourmode" {
      here go your shortcuts
  }

So, all the following shortcuts will be inserted in a mode called resize. Note that not only are the resizing shortcuts bound to the arrow keys, they are also bound to ctsr, which is the bépo equivalent of hjkl.

shortcut	command	what it does
$right	resize grow width 20 px or 10 ppt	Increase the width of the current window
r	resize grow width 20 px or 10 ppt	Increase the width of the current window
$left	resize shrink width 10 px or 5 ppt	Decrease the width of the current window
c	resize shrink width 10 px or 5 ppt	Decrease the width of the current window
$down	resize grow height 10 px or 5 ppt	Increase the height of the current window
t	resize grow height 10 px or 5 ppt	Increase the height of the current window
$up	resize shrink height 10 px or 5 ppt	Decrease the height of the current window
s	resize shrink height 10 px or 5 ppt	Decrease the height of the current window
Return	mode "default"	Return to the default mode
Escape	mode "default"	Return to the default mode

If you prefer, you can think of these shortcuts not as increasing or decreasing the width or height of the current window, but rather as how the bottom or right limit of the windows will be moved relative to the top left corner.

Here is the configuration:

  <<generate-shortcuts(table=size-win-sh)>>
  mode "resize" {
      <<generate-shortcuts(table=resize-win-sh)>>
  }

Manage floating windows

As said above, your windows can be floating windows instead of being tiled like they are by default. For this too we have a couple of shortcuts:

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+Shift+space	floating toggle	Toggles the window between tiled and floating mode
$mod+space	focus mode_toggle	Toggles the focus between tiled and floating windows
$mod+Ctrl+c	move position center	Centers the focused floating window

If you want to move around your floating window, you can do it with your mouse while holding down the floating modifier declared here.

Here is the configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=float-win-sh)>>

Scratchpad and window display

You can think of i3’s scratchpad as some sort of extra workspace in which you can hide your windows you are not using, or as if you want to reduce a window to the taskbar of other window managers or desktop environments. You have basically two shortcuts for the scratchpad: one that sends the current window to the scratchpad, and one that cicles through the windows sent to the scratchpad and shows them to you sequencially. If you go through all of them, they will be hidden again. You can get a window out of the scratchpad by tiling it to the current workspace with the shortcut described above.

You also have the possibility of making a floating window a sticky window. This means not only will it show on all workspaces, it will also be on top of every other window. It can be useful if you have some notes you want to keep an eye on for instance.

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+Shift+s	move scratchpad	Sends the current window to the scratchpad
$mod+s	scratchpad show	Shows and cycles through windows from the scratchpad
$mod+Ctrl+s	sticky toggle	Toggles sticky mode on current window

Here is the configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=scratchpad-sh)>>

Gaps management

It is possible to dynamically change the gaps between containers if we want to change a bit the appearance of i3. For that, we obviously have some shortcuts.

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+g	gaps inner current plus 5	Increase the inner gap size
$mod+Shift+g	gaps inner current minus 5	Decrease the inner gap size
$mod+Ctrl+g	gaps outer current plus 5	Increase the outer gap size
$mod+Ctrl+Shift+g	gaps outer current minus 5	Decrease the outer gap size
$mod+$alt+g	gaps inner all set 20; gaps outer all set -10	Reset gaps

Here is the corresponding configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=gaps-resize-sh)>>

Launching software

A big part of my i3 shortcuts though are related to launching various software. I’ll try to sort them by category here, but do take a look even at categories which you might not be interested in, they might actually have something useful for you.

Software and command launcher

These commands will allow the user to launch applications which provide .desktop files or user-defined .desktop files, as well as commands with the help of rofi.

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+Shift+d	exec –no-startup-id j4-dmenu-desktop	Launch a registered application
$mod+d	exec –no-startup-id $rofiexec	Launch a terminal command or a registered application

Here is the configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=launcher-sh)>>

Internet software

I have a couple of Internet-related software I can launch easily.

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+b	exec firefox	Launch browser
$mod+m	exec $mail	Launch Gnus, my mail client
Ctrl+Shift+d	exec discord-canary	Launch Discord

Hence this configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=internet-sh)>>

Screenshots

A couple of shortcuts are available for taking screenshots.

shortcut	command	what it does
Print	exec –no-startup-id scrot	Takes a screenshot of the entire desktop
Ctrl+Print	exec –no-startup-id "scrot -s"	Takes a screenshot of a region or the selected window
Shift+Print	exec –no-startup-id "scrot -d 3"	takes a screenshot of the desktop three in three seconds

This gives us this configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=screenshot-sh)>>

Screen brightness

Here we have four commands for managing our screen’s brightness (this is useful for laptops, not so much with desktops), and two of them are actually duplicates of the other two in case a laptop doesn’t have dedicated keys or we are using a keyboard which doesn’t provide them.

shortcut	command	what it does
XF86MonBrightnessUp	exec xbacklight -inc 5	Increase the brightness of the screen
$mod+$alt+Next	exec xbacklight -inc 5	Increase the brightness of the screen
XF86MonBrightnessDown	exec xbacklight -dec 5	Decrease the brightness of the screen
$mod+$alt+Prev	exec xbacklight -dec 5	Decrease the brightness of the screen

This gives us this configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=brightness-sh)>>

Media control

Some shortcuts are dedicated to media control, especially when it comes to controlling music. All of these media control shortcuts will be calls to mpc which will in turn send commands to mpd, which is the music server I use on my computers.

shortcut	command	what it does
XF86AudioNext	exec mpc next	Forward to the next track
$alt+XF86AudioRaiseVolume	exec mpc next	Forward to the next track
$mod+Next	exec mpc next	Forward to the next track
XF86AudioPrev	exec mpc prev	Backward to the previous track
$alt+XF86AudioLowerVolume	exec mpc prev	Backward to the previous track
$mod+Prior	exec mpc prev	Backward to the previous track
XF86AudioPlay	exec mpc toggle	Play or pause the music
$mod+p	exec mpc toggle	Play or pause the music
$mod+$alt+p	exec mpc stop	Completely stop the music
XF86AudioStop	exec mpc stop	Completely stop the music
$alt+XF86AudioPlay	exec mpc stop	Completely stop the music
$mod+$alt+7	exec mpc volume +5	Increase the volume from mpd
$mod+$alt+8	exec mpc volume -5	Decrease the volume from mpd

We also have two shortcuts for launching ncmpcpp, my mpd frontend, either with the playlist open by default, or the visualizes open.

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+Shift+n	exec $term ncmpcpp -q	Launch ncmpcpp’s playlist editor
$mod+Shift+v	exec $term ncmpcpp -qs visualizer	Launch ncmpcpp’s visualizer

We also have more general shortcuts, like how to manipulate the general volume level.

shortcut	command	what it does
XF86AudioMute	exec "amixer set Master 1+ toggle"	Mute or unmute audio
Ctrl+$mod+Prior	exec "amixer -q set Master 2%+ unmute"	Raise volume
XF86AudioRaiseVolume	exec "amixer -q set Master 2%+ unmute"	Raise volume
Ctrl+$mod+Next	exec "amixer -q set Master 2%- unmute"	Reduce volume
XF86AudioLowerVolume	exec "amixer -q set Master 2%- unmute"	Reduce volume

This gives us this configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=media-sh)>>
<<generate-shortcuts(table=ncmpcpp-sh)>>
<<generate-shortcuts(table=volume-sh)>>

Rofi utilities

We also have some utilities I’ve written and which are interfaced with rofi. Here are said shortcuts.

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+Shift+p	exec rofi-pass –type	Types the selected password available from pass where the cursor is
$mod+Ctrl+Shift+p	exec rofi-pass	Copies in the clipboard the selected password from pass for 45 sec
$mod+Ctrl+m	exec rofi-mount	Volume mounting helper
$mod+Ctrl+u	exec rofi-umount	Volume unmounting helper
$mod+$alt+e	exec rofi-emoji	Emoji picker, copies it in the clipboard
$mod+Ctrl+w	exec wacom-setup	Sets my Wacom Bamboo tablet as being active on the selected screen
$mod+Shift+w	exec connect-wifi	Connect to an available WiFi network

This gives us the following configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=rofi-sh)>>

Miscellaneous

And last but not least, I have some other shortcuts for various software, some of them which I use quite a lot like the shortcut for launching Emacs.

shortcut	command	what it does
$mod+e	exec $ec	Launch Emacs client
$mod+n	exec nemo	Launch Nemo (file manager)
$mod+$alt+c	exec speedcrunch	Launch Speedcrunch (calculator)
$mod+F3	exec arandr	Launch arandr

This gives us the following configuration:

<<generate-shortcuts(table=misc-sh)>>

Screen management

Additionally, we have a shortcut for entering presentation mode on the additional screen of the computer; on my main computer, Mila, the additional screen is HDMI-1, while it is VGA1 on my travel laptop. We’ll use some Emacs Lisp to determine on the configuration file export which screens names to use.

  (cond ((string= system-name "Marpa") "bindsym $mod+Ctrl+p xrandr --output HDMI-1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of eDP-1")
        ((string= system-name "gampo") "bindsym $mod+Ctrl+p xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --right-of LVDS1"))

Now, we just have to call this Emacs Lisp code as a noweb reference and execute it.

  <<hostname-screen-management()>>

Software autolaunch

When i3 is launched, I want it to also launch some software automatically. Here is what we will launch:

always execute it?	command	what it is
no	/usr/lib/xfce-polkit/xfce-polkit	Launch the XFCE Polkit
no	picom –experimental-backends -e 1	Launch picom
no	xss-lock – lock	Launch power management
no	numlockx on	Activate NumLock
no	dunst -config ~/.config/dunst/dunstrc	Launch notification manager
no	nm-applet	NetworkManager system tray
yes	wal -i "$(< "${HOME}/.cache/wal/wal")"	Sets the wallpaper from last session
no	xrdb $HOME/.Xresources	Load Xresources files
yes	polybar-launch	Launch polybar
no	mpc stop	Stop music from mpd
no	mpd_discord_richpresence –no-idle –fork	Launch mpd status sharing with Discord

exec_always --no-startup-id wal -i "$(< "${HOME}/.cache/wal/wal")"
exec --no-startup-id xss-lock -- i3lock -fol
exec --no-startup-id dunst -config ~/.config/dunst/dunstrc
exec --no-startup-id xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
exec --no-startup-id compton -F --opengl --config ~/.config/compton.conf -e 1
exec_always --no-startup-id polybar-launch
exec_always --no-startup-id enable_touch
exec --no-startup-id syndaemon -i 1.0 -t -k
exec --no-startup-id mpc stop
exec --no-startup-id mpd_discord_richpresence --no-idle --fork
exec --no-startup-id nm-applet
exec --no-startup-id numlockx on

My travel laptop has a fingerprint reader which can be used as an authentification method when the root password is asked. Let’s launch our policy kit manager if that is the case:

  (if (string= system-name "gampo")
      "exec --no-startup-id /usr/lib/mate-polkit/polkit-mate-authentication-agent-1"
    "")

  <<fingerprint-thinkpad()>>
  <<generate-autolaunch()>>