i3 Migration Guide
Simon Ser edited this page Jan 5, 2021
·
84 revisions
Sway is almost a drop-in replacement for i3, but you may have to make a few changes to get everything working correctly. Here are a few common ones:
- Use the
output
command to configure outputs instead of xrandr - Use the
output
command to configure your wallpaper instead of feh - Use the
input
command to configure input devices - Replace usage of
i3-msg
,i3lock
, and so on, with the equivalent sway tools. - Sway handles quotes slightly differently - commands are handled more like shell commands
- To emulate
xset dpms force off
, useswayidle timeout 1 'swaymsg "output * dpms off"' resume 'swaymsg "output * dpms on"; pkill -n swayidle'
Sway does not support X logical font description (XLFD) configuration strings. Instead it uses Pango, and one can use pango-list | grep [fontname]
to confirm the correct font name. Pango, as of version 1.44, does not support older bitmap fonts (BFD), although it does support bitmap-only OTF fonts.
- xbacklight (backlight management) → light / brightnessctl
- dunst (notification daemon) → mako
- feh (wallpaper setting) → sway output configuration, see
man 5 sway-output
- scrot (screenshot) → grim + slurp (or grimshot, which wraps around both).
- picom / compton / xcompmgr (compositor) → built in
- unclutter (hiding cursor after some time) →
seat <name> hide_cursor <timeout>
- xbanish (hiding cursor on keypress) →
seat <name> hide_cursor when-typing enable
- xclip / xsel (clipboard copy/paste) → wl-clipboard, wl-clipboard-rs
- clipster / etc. (clipboard manager) → clipman, wl-clipboard-history
- xdotool → wtype,
swaymsg seat <seat> cursor …
, ydotool - xrandr →
swaymsg output …
, wlr-randr - arandr (GUI to configure outputs) → wdisplays
- autorandr → kanshi
- screenkey (screencast tool to display your keys) → wshowkeys
- X11 forwarding → waypipe
- xev → wev
- xmodmap → custom keymap file
- xob → wob
- dmenu → bemenu, wldash
- rofi → wofi, rofi patch
- ffmpeg x11grab (screen recorder) → wf-recorder, txproto
- VNC → wayvnc
- Redshift → gammastep, wlsunset
- kbdd (per-window keyboard layout) → swaykbdd
- FAQ
- Differences from i3
- The man pages (start with
man sway
)