i3-back

An i3 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 daemon to watch for window focus changes and records to a config file
• Supports floating windows
• Can be binded to any key through i3's bindsym

Demo

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/2672503/221384419-3d62413d-8987-4147-82bc-5e87cea8bb90.mp4

Installation

i3-back is written in Rust. It can be installed through many method:

• Cargo, Rust's package manager

  cargo install i3-back

• AUR - i3-back-bin, for Arch Linux

  ``` yay -S i3-back-bin

  or

  paru -S i3-back-bin

  or any AUR wrapper, or manually: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ArchUserRepository#Installingandupgrading_packages

  ```

• GitHub Releases, as binary

Setup

In your i3 configuration (~/.config/i3/config):

```

Start the daemon which listens to focus changes and records it to ~/.config/i3-back/config.toml

exec --no-startup-id ~/.cargo/bin/i3-back start

Bind a switch key, which focuses the previously focused window

bindsym $mod+Tab exec ~/.cargo/bin/i3-back switch ```

Replace ~/.cargo/bin with wherever the i3-back binary is placed if not installed through Cargo.