---
title: A Friendly Guide to Luke's i3 Rice
author: Luke Smith
output: pdf_document
linkcolor: blue
---

Use vim keys (h/j/k/l) to navigate this document. Pressing W will fit it to window width. + and - zoom in and out. f to toggle fullscreen. q to quit. (These are general mupdf shortcuts.)

+ Mod+F1 will show this document at any time.
+ By "Mod" I mean the Super Key, usually known as "the Windows Key."

Questions or suggestions? Email me at [luke@lukesmith.xyz](mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz).

## Basic goals and principles of this system:

+ Naturalness -- Remove the border between mind and matter: everything important should be as few keypresses as possible away from you, and you shouldn't have to think about what you're doing. Immersion.
+ Economy -- Programs should be simple and light on system resources and highly extensible. Because of this, many are terminal or small ncurses programs that have all the magic inside of them.
+ Keyboard/vim-centrality -- All terminal programs (and other programs) use vim keys when possible. Your hands never need leave the home row or thereabout.

## General changes

+ Capslock is now an alternative escape. Makes vim-craft much more efficient.
+ The menu button (usually between the right Alt and Ctrl) is an alternative Super/Mod button. This is to make one-handing on my laptops easier.
+ The rice also uses the US International keyboard by default. This allows you to type a lot of characters in many different European languages. If you'd like to change this, you need only remove the `setxkbmap` line in the i3 config.

# The Polybar Status Bar

If you're new to i3, notice the status bar on the top of the screen. This is Polybar. To the left side, you'll see the numbers of your current workspace(s). If you have a song playing in mpd, its name will appear to the left as well. On the right side, you'll see various system status notifiers, date, CPU tempurature, remaining hard drive space, etc. I'm sure you can figure it out. Several modules will be click-sensitive, although if you're using my system as indended, you probably won't be doing much clicking.

# Key Bindings

## Window basics

Notice the case sensitivity of the shortcuts.

Be sure you play around with these. Be flexible with the basic commands and the rice will grow on you quick.

+ Mod+Enter -- Spawn terminal
+ Mod+q or Q -- Close window
+ Mod+d -- rofi (For running commands or programs without shortcuts)
+ Mod+t -- Toggle between spawning vertically and horizontally
+ Mod+f or F11 -- Fullscreen
+ Mod+h/j/k/l -- Move to different windows
+ Mod+H/J/K/L -- Move a window around
+ Mod+Y/U/I/O -- Resize windows
+ Mod+/ -- Spawn vertical terminal
+ Mod+' -- Spawn horizontal terminal
+ Mod+s/S -- Increase/decrease inner gaps
+ Mod+z/Z -- Increase/decrease outer gaps
+ Mod+D -- Reduce gaps to 0 pixels
+ Mod+T -- Restore gaps to default (15 pixels)
+ Mod+Shift+Space -- Make a window float (you can still resize and move floating windows with the same keys above)
+ Mod+Space -- Switch focus from a floating window to a non-floating one (or vice versa)

## Basic Programs

+ Mod+r -- ranger (file browser/manager)
+ Mod+e -- mutt (email)
+ Mod+m -- ncmpcpp (music player)
+ Mod+a -- R calculator (be sure to close with Mod+a for reusability)
+ Mod+i -- htop (system info)
+ Mod+n -- newsboat (RSS feed reader)
+ Mod+y -- calcurse (calendar and schedule)
+ Mod+u -- "Dropdown" terminal (close with Mod+u for reusability)
+ Mod+A -- ncpamixer (audio system control)
+ mod+w -- wifi-menu (accessing wifi networks)

## Larger programs

+ Mod+W -- qutebrowser
+ Mod+B -- Blender (video and 3d editor)
+ Mod+G -- GIMP (for general image manipulation)
+ Mod+P -- MyPaint (for light sketching)

## System

+ Mod+R -- ranger as root user
+ Mod+x -- i3lock (Enter password to return)
+ Mod+X -- shutdown now (Be careful with this one!)
+ Mod+Shift+Backspace -- reboot (And this one!)
+ Mod+Shift+Escape -- exit i3 (And this one as well!)
+ Mod+F1 -- Shows this document
+ Mod+F2 -- Refresh i3
+ Mod+F3 -- arandr (For adding screens/HDMI/VGA connections)
+ Mod+F4 -- Hibernate
+ Mod+F6 -- transmission torrent client (cli)
+ Mod+F5 -- Reset Network Manager, search for new networks
+ Mod+F7 -- <++>
+ Mod+F8 -- <++>
+ Mod+F10 -- Switch to laptop screen
+ Mod+F11 -- Switch to VGA display (if available)
+ Mod+F12 -- Switch to dual VGA/laptop display (if available)

## Audio

I use ncmpcpp as a music player, which is a front end for mpd. If you prefer cmus or mocp, I have commented out shortcuts you can activate for it instead in the i3 config.

+ Mod+m -- ncmpcpp music player
+ Mod+. -- Next track
+ Mod+, -- Previous track
+ Mod+< -- Restart track
+ Mod+p -- Pause
+ Mod+M -- Mute all audio
+ Mod+v -- visualizer
+ Mod+- -- Decrease volume (holding shift increases amount)
+ Mod++ -- Increase volume (holding shift increases amount)
+ Mod+[ -- Back 10 seconds (holding shift increases amount)
+ Mod+] -- Forward 10 seconds (holding shift increases amount)
+ Mod+A -- ncpamixer (general volume sink/source control)

## Workspaces

There are ten workspaces. They work just like those in vanilla i3 with some additions.

+ Mod+(Number) -- Go to that number workspace
+ Mod+Shift+(Number) -- Send window to that workspace
+ Mod+Tab -- Go to previous workspace
+ Mod+g or escape -- Go to left workspace
+ Mod+; -- Go to right workspace
+ Mod+Shift+Delete -- "Porno-mode" Press this key sequence if you want to hide what you have on your screen. Moves to a totally new workspace, mutes sound, pauses music and brings up distraction windows.

## Recording

I use scrot and ffmpeg to make different recordings of the desktop and audio. All of these recording shortcuts will output into `~`, and will not overwrite previous recordings.

+ Print Screen -- Take a scrot screenshot
+ Shift+Print Screen -- Take a scrot screenshot of only selected window
+ Mod+Insert -- Begin screencast
+ Mod+ScrollLock -- Begin audio recording
+ Mod+Pause -- Begin screen recording without audio
+ Mod+Print Screen -- Start screenkey
+ Mod+Delete -- kills ffmpeg and screenkey, thus ending recordings and screen
+ ThinkVantage button (on Thinkpads) -- kills ffmpeg and screenkey, thus ending recordings

Each of the recording scripts are located in `~/.scripts`. You can check them out or modify them if needed.

## Other buttons

I've mapped those extra buttons that some keyboards have (play and pause buttons, email, webbrowsing buttons, etc.) to what you would expect.

# Special traits of my rice

## Easy config access

Open a terminal and type `cfc`. This will open a file where you will see customizable pairs of key shortcuts and config files. Enter any of these shortcuts in bash or ranger to immediately open the file in vim.

You may add new entries here and they will be refreshed when you save the file in vim. This will take effect immediately once you start a new instance of bash or ranger.

## Folder and config shortcuts

Open a terminal and type `cff`. This opens a file when you can keep and create folder shortcuts. There are only a few here now, because I don't know what your folder structure is going to look like, but on my machine, I have 81 and growing.

Each line has a shortcut key/keys and its target. These can be used in serveral applications. In bash, simply press `d`, the shortcut for `~/Documents` and you will cd there (and automatically `ls -a`).

ranger works similarly. When in ranger, just press `g` then the shortcut of the folder you want to go to. You may also press `t` plus the shortcut to open a new tab there. `m` plus the shortcut moves the selected files to the folder and `Y` copies them there. **Get good at this. It will make management of even the most complex file system easy.**

Lastly qutebrowser implements these shortcuts as well. When you see a file or image you want to download, press `;` followed by the folder shortcut and qutebrowser will let you select the file with its hint system. The file will then download to the directory you chose.

## Dynamically constructed configs

Each time you save changes to either the config shortcut file or the folder shortcut file in vim, vim will automatically run a bash script that updates your bash/ranger config, allowing you to use your new shortcuts in your next instance of bash/ranger or after resourcing your rc files.

# Explore and customize

Don't like something about the rice? Change it. If you have a problem, try figuring it out yourself, but if you can't, ask on my YouTube or by my email.

EDIT: July 31, 2017. All the feedback I've gotten is tremendous and I'm glad this has gotten so many people into customization!

# Contact

[luke@lukesmith.xyz](mailto:luke@lukesmith.xyz) -- For questions!

[http://lukesmith.xyz](http://lukesmith.xyz) -- For stalking!

[Send Me Money!](https://paypal.me/LukeMSmith) -- For gratitude!

[My Github Page](https://github.com/LukeSmithxyz) -- For the code behind it!

[Twitter](https://twitter.com/lukesfiat) -- For updates!

[RSS](http://lukesmith.xyz/rss.xml) -- For even better updates!
