i3-vim-nav

README

i3-vim-nav

Seamlessly change focus between i3 windows and Vim splits using the same hotkey.

Important

Vim and i3 cannot share same key-bind. If that is the case i3 will always take the precendence and won't get vim to sent key command. In order to make i3-vim-nav work you need to have used in vim.

The way i3-vim-nav works

• based on window name it sends command either to i3 or xdotool
• if window name starts with vim xdotool will be used
• xdotool command assumes that vim is mapped on key
• xdotool translates your i3 keybind to vim keybing
• that way even when you have separate keybinds on vim and i3, you can use i3 keybind within vim context

Installation

Dependencies

This depends on you having a couple packages installed. Most notably, xdotool/libxdo, the second of which should be installed as a dependency of the first. If you want to build the binary from source and you're on Fedora, you'll also need the libxdo-devel package. We also currently require you to be using a version of vim with either python or python3 support.

If Installing xdotool doesnt fix the xdo.h problem - sudo apt-get install libxdo-dev

Vim plugin

First, install the Vim plugin.

Using vim-plug

In your .vimrc (vim) or .config/nvim/init.vim (neovim):

Plug 'termhn/i3-vim-nav'
	
" i3 integration
nnoremap <silent> <c-l> :call Focus('right', 'l')<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <c-h> :call Focus('left', 'h')<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <c-k> :call Focus('up', 'k')<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <c-j> :call Focus('down', 'j')<CR>

Using Pathogen

1. cd ~/.vim/bundle
2. git clone https://github.com/termhn/i3-vim-nav
3. add the following to your .vimrc

" i3 integration
nnoremap <silent> <c-l> :call Focus('right', 'l')<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <c-h> :call Focus('left', 'h')<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <c-k> :call Focus('up', 'k')<CR>
nnoremap <silent> <c-j> :call Focus('down', 'j')<CR>

Binary

Next, install the binary on your PATH. If you have go installed, this can be done simply by

go get -u github.com/termhn/i3-vim-nav

If not, you can symlink the binary from its downloaded directory (this changes based on which plugin manager you used and if you're using vim or neovim) into /usr/local/bin. For example, if you used Pathogen on default Vim, this would be:

ln -s ~/.vim/bundle/i3-vim-nav/i3-vim-nav /usr/local/bin

Then, in your i3 config (adjust the path to the executable as necessary if you installed it differently). Feel free to change the key bind as you please.

bindsym --release $mod+h exec --no-startup-id "i3-vim-nav h"
bindsym --release $mod+j exec --no-startup-id "i3-vim-nav j"
bindsym --release $mod+k exec --no-startup-id "i3-vim-nav k"
bindsym --release $mod+l exec --no-startup-id "i3-vim-nav l"

Note: I've gotten a bug where in some installations of i3, it seems to not respect user $PATH additions, even though it seems to recognize them in the variable. If it doesn't work when placed in a user $PATH directory, try hard-coding the path to the binary in the exec commands.