easy-i3-neovim-nav

Quickly navigate and resize i3wm windows and Neovim splits with the same keybindings

This app is heavily inspired by

• i3-vim-nav
• i3-vim-focus
• i3-dispatch

Here are the major advantages to the solutions listed above:

• Also supports seemless resizing of i3 windows and vim splits
• Does not rely on xdotool, thus avoiding an annoying bug where your modifier key might get stuck after switching windows and providing better performance in general
• No need for an additional vim-plugin, only needs three additional lines in your init.vim

Installation

cargo install easy-i3-neovim-nav

Usage

Neovim configuration

Add this to your init.vim:

call serverstart(tempname())
let &titlestring="nvim %F -- [" . v:servername . "]"
set title

Note: easy-i3-neovim-nav uses the window's titlestring in order to extract the server name used for communicating with Neovim. The default regex assumes that the servername is contained in square brackets at the very end of your titlestring. To customize this, use the -e option

i3wm configuration

Here's an example configuration for your i3 config. Adapt this to your preferred current keybindings

# Move focus
bindsym $mod+h exec --no-startup-id easy-i3-neovim-nav focus left
bindsym $mod+j exec --no-startup-id easy-i3-neovim-nav focus down
bindsym $mod+k exec --no-startup-id easy-i3-neovim-nav focus up
bindsym $mod+l exec --no-startup-id easy-i3-neovim-nav focus right

# Resizing                                                               
bindsym $mod+Shift+Left  exec --no-startup-id easy-i3-neovim-nav resize shrink width  5 10 5
bindsym $mod+Shift+Down  exec --no-startup-id easy-i3-neovim-nav resize shrink height 5 10 5
bindsym $mod+Shift+Up    exec --no-startup-id easy-i3-neovim-nav resize grow   height 5 10 5
bindsym $mod+Shift+Right exec --no-startup-id easy-i3-neovim-nav resize grow   width  5 10 5

The last three arguments control the amount by which windows are resized:

$ easy_i3_neovim_nav help resize
Usage: easy-i3-neovim-nav resize <ACTION> <DIMENSION> [AMOUNT_VIM] [AMOUNT_I3_PX] [AMOUNT_I3_PPT]

Arguments:
  <ACTION>         [possible values: shrink, grow]
  <DIMENSION>      [possible values: width, height]
  [AMOUNT_VIM]     Will be passed as a count to vim's wincmd, see :h wincmd [default: 5]
  [AMOUNT_I3_PX]   Number of pixels by which to resize a floating window, for details see https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#resizingconfig [default: 10]
  [AMOUNT_I3_PPT]  Percentage points by which to resize a tiled window, for details see https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html#resizingconfig