My I3-Emacs Integration

SubiculumCode · 2026-05-24T01:37:17 1779586637

Side note: I am really enjoying HN today with the set of stories with personal hacks like this i3-emacs integration, someone's desk setup, someone's writer-deck laptop install, the kinda hilarious but also hecka geeky thermal ttrpg thingamabob, and the 16 byte wake up demo. Fun geeky stuff that isn't AI,and I love AI, but it ain't everything.

diminish · 2026-05-24T08:07:01 1779610021

Can you pls link to them?

nesarkvechnep · 2026-05-24T08:56:44 1779613004

I did the same integration with an Erlang daemon. All relevant key presses are sent to it and based on the current focused application the daemon does different things. I built an Erlang library i3_IPC to listen for events and send commands to Sway.

Zambyte · 2026-05-24T07:49:23 1779608963

Ooo this is nice. I may have to try to get this working with my personal setup using Emacs and Sway.

My long term vision is to make an Emacs implementation that is compatible only in philosophy. It would use Guile instead of Elisp, default to bindings that are more familiar to people coming from more modern systems, and would be built from the beginning with concurrency and graphics in mind. For now it remains a dream though.

volemo · 2026-05-24T10:15:42 1779617742

I know, right? However, one of the strongest points of Emacs is the huge amount of existing packages.

grumpyprole · 2026-05-24T08:12:05 1779610325

VSCode is pretty much this. But with typescript instead of Guile. After 30 years of Emacs, I switched .

bergheim · 2026-05-24T09:15:21 1779614121

after 30 years you say this? this cannot be serious.

cmrdporcupine · 2026-05-24T08:21:06 1779610866

Sounds like you want Lem. Though it's common lisp instead of guile.

https://github.com/lem-project/lem

timonoko · 2026-05-24T07:59:23 1779609563

Unrelated, but me and Gemini just invented "C-x 4" for multiscreens.

  (defun my-external-readonly-split ()
    "Open the current file in an external xfce4-terminal as read-only."
    (interactive)
    (if buffer-file-name
        (start-process "xfce-terminal-split" nil 
                       "xfce4-terminal" "-x" "emacs" "-nw" 
                       "--eval" "(find-file-read-only (pop command-line-args-left))"
                       buffer-file-name)
      (message "Current buffer is not visiting a file!")))

  (global-set-key (kbd "C-x 4") 'my-external-readonly-split)

timonoko · 2026-05-24T08:30:48 1779611448

Incredibly splendid. I just tested it myself.

Try C-x 2, C-x 3 and C-x 4

skulk · 2026-05-24T00:59:31 1779584371

I've started using ewm to get this kind of unification between emacs window management and non-emacs window management.

https://codeberg.org/ezemtsov/ewm

stebalien · 2026-05-24T03:56:50 1779595010

I keep trying it (coming from EXWM) but I get lots of lag, stutters, and poor fractional scaling. I'm not sure how much of that is "GTK under wayland", Emacs's PGTK build (known to have lag/rendering issues), AMD kernel drivers (?), or EWM itself; but it's not yet a replacement for EXWM in my experience.

PunchyHamster · 2026-05-24T00:03:56 1779581036

I just use super(win key)/hyper (bound to capslock) for i3-related commands and leave emacs to its own devices with normal binds

topaz0 · 2026-05-24T03:59:50 1779595190

That's fine as far as it goes, but I don't think that gets you what this article is for, which is things like using the same binding context-dependently to navigate between emacs splits and regular window manager windows, context-dependently. Which is a fun bit of overengineering.

noosphr · 2026-05-24T01:15:46 1779585346

There can never be too many modifier keys:

https://xcancel.com/octonion/status/1341113219142828039

rileymat2 · 2026-05-24T00:37:37 1779583057

Yes, I am misunderstanding the problem. The windows/mac command key leave shift, control and alt free for i3.

royal__ · 2026-05-24T00:27:59 1779582479

Yeah this is what I do. This article feels like crazy overengineering for something that's not really a problem

sudahtigabulan · 2026-05-24T06:30:55 1779604255

Unless you have RSI. Then it might be worth it. Depends on what hurts.

dima55 · 2026-05-24T00:41:50 1779583310

A dedicated key for all window-manager things is what people that have thought about it do (I use the "windows" key). But keyboard manufacturers haven't thought about it, so sometimes reasonable things aren't possible. I don't know.

gigatexal · 2026-05-24T05:17:48 1779599868

Ah no video it action??

Very interesting though. I don’t always read entire posts on blogs but this one I did. Lisp looks really interesting.