An i3/Sway utility to switch focus to your last focused window. Allows for behavior similar to Alt+Tab on other desktop environments.
Features:
- Can switch between your 2 most recent windows
- Runs a daemon (background process) to listen for focus changes and sets a mark
- Supports i3 and Sway
- Supports floating windows
- Can be binded to any key through i3's
bindsym
2023-02-25.18-32-33.mp4
i3-back requires i3/Sway. It is written in Rust. It can be installed through many method:
-
Cargo (Rust's package manager) package:
cargo install i3-back -
Arch Linux from the AUR (i3-back-bin):
yay -S i3-back-bin # Or with paru or other AUR wrappers # Or manually: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository#Installing_and_upgrading_packages -
Debian/Ubuntu as a
debfrom GitHub releases -
Binary from GitHub releases
In your i3/Sway configuration (~/.config/i3/config/~/.config/sway/config):
# Start the daemon which listens to focus changes and sets _back mark
exec --no-startup-id ~/.cargo/bin/i3-back
# Bind a switch key, which focuses the previously focused window
bindsym $mod+Tab [con_mark=_back] focus
Replace ~/.cargo/bin with wherever the i3-back binary is placed if not installed through Cargo.
The daemon (i3-back) listen for i3 window events. When a window event is received, i3-back records the previously focused window ID. When the previous focus has changed, it sets the _back mark.
When the switch bind is called, it focuses the mark set by the daemon.