Focus sibling of focused container by index in parent

[alex-huff]

I'm submitting a…

[ ] Bug
[x] Feature Request
[ ] Documentation Request
[ ] Other (Please describe in detail)

Current Behavior

There is no way to focus a sibling of the currently focused container by its index in parent. (that I know of)

Desired Behavior

Something like:

# focus the container at index 3 in the currently focused container's parent
i3msg focus sibling 3

This would allow you to:

• switch to the n^th tab in a tab/stack layout
• switch to the n^th container in a horizonal/vertical layout

My current workaround is hacky, depends on jq, and has perceivable latency:

bindsym Mod4+Shift+1 exec i3-msg [con_id = $(i3-msg -t get_tree | jq '.nodes | recurse(.[].nodes) | select(any(.focused? == true)) | .[0].id // "__focused__"')] focus
bindsym Mod4+Shift+2 exec i3-msg [con_id = $(i3-msg -t get_tree | jq '.nodes | recurse(.[].nodes) | select(any(.focused? == true)) | .[1].id // "__focused__"')] focus
bindsym Mod4+Shift+3 exec i3-msg [con_id = $(i3-msg -t get_tree | jq '.nodes | recurse(.[].nodes) | select(any(.focused? == true)) | .[2].id // "__focused__"')] focus
bindsym Mod4+Shift+4 exec i3-msg [con_id = $(i3-msg -t get_tree | jq '.nodes | recurse(.[].nodes) | select(any(.focused? == true)) | .[3].id // "__focused__"')] focus
bindsym Mod4+Shift+5 exec i3-msg [con_id = $(i3-msg -t get_tree | jq '.nodes | recurse(.[].nodes) | select(any(.focused? == true)) | .[4].id // "__focused__"')] focus
bindsym Mod4+Shift+6 exec i3-msg [con_id = $(i3-msg -t get_tree | jq '.nodes | recurse(.[].nodes) | select(any(.focused? == true)) | .[5].id // "__focused__"')] focus
bindsym Mod4+Shift+7 exec i3-msg [con_id = $(i3-msg -t get_tree | jq '.nodes | recurse(.[].nodes) | select(any(.focused? == true)) | .[6].id // "__focused__"')] focus
bindsym Mod4+Shift+8 exec i3-msg [con_id = $(i3-msg -t get_tree | jq '.nodes | recurse(.[].nodes) | select(any(.focused? == true)) | .[7].id // "__focused__"')] focus
bindsym Mod4+Shift+9 exec i3-msg [con_id = $(i3-msg -t get_tree | jq '.nodes | recurse(.[].nodes) | select(any(.focused? == true)) | .[8].id // "__focused__"')] focus
bindsym Mod4+Shift+0 exec i3-msg [con_id = $(i3-msg -t get_tree | jq '.nodes | recurse(.[].nodes) | select(any(.focused? == true)) | .[9].id // "__focused__"')] focus

Impact

[x] This feature requires new configuration and/or commands

[i3bot]

Please note that new features which require additional configuration will usually not be considered. We are happy with the feature set of i3 and want to focus in fixing bugs instead. We do accept feature requests, however, and will evaluate whether the added benefit (clearly) outweighs the complexity it adds to i3.

Keep in mind that i3 provides a powerful way to interact with it through its IPC interface: https://i3wm.org/docs/ipc.html.

[orestisfl]

Your workaround works without any delay in my system and I wouldn't really call it hacky, the point of the IPC system is to dynamically query and execute command on the i3 tree based on your custom needs.