This application is still rough around the edges and interfaces may change without warning.
To programmatically control the window manager i3 or its younger sibling Sway, you might use a library like go-i3 or i3ipc. The library sends and receives some JSON on your behalf, translates it to a native structure, and allows you to do your thing.
But why not use a language that is already tailor-made for JSON transformations: jq? This allows you to closely follow i3's original commands and IPC spec. You get the convenience of a script while staying closer to the speed of a compiled program — and the result is often much terser than either!
This repository contains the i3jq application, which adds internal
functions corresponding to i3's IPC spec on top of
gojq, such as ipc::subscribe and ipc::run_command. It also
offers a tree module for navigating the layout tree. Finally, in the
contrib/ directory, you will find filters to achieve
some useful behaviour.
Much of this would also be achievable with a simple shell script that
ties together jq/gojq with i3msg/swaymsg. However, the i3jq
binary offers some advantages, like the ability communicate with i3 at
any point during processing, which makes for more efficient and readable
scripts. Moreover, you will presumably run these commands quite often,
so a low footprint is desirable.
Make sure you have at least Go 1.21 installed. Then run:
go install codeberg.org/nsbg/i3jq@latest
You can write a filter to execute a command:
i3jq 'ipc::get_tree | tree::find(.app_id == "X") | ipc::run_command("[con_id=\(.id)] mark X")'
... or to listen to events:
i3jq 'ipc::subscribe(["window"]) | .container.name // empty'
You can load a module with the -m flag. Modules are searched for in
the current working directory, ~/.config/i3jq, ~/.jq and
$ORIGIN/../lib/jq. To run an i3jq script within Sway or i3, add a
line like this to your configuration:
exec i3jq -m contrib/layout/master-stack
Please view the filters in builtin/ for detailed
information on the available modules and the functions defined within.