oh huh, i sort of had it like that as well when i first used i3, i had it installed alongside cinnamon. right now i'm running niri with xfce running on top of it, which works surprisingly well

ooo cinnamon i love cinnamon.... how is it running i3 with it? i've always ran twms with xfce since replacing xfwm4 is really simple, i did briefly think about trying it with cinnamon or budgie but never got around to it