adding i3lock to config file

I want to created a shortcut for locking my screen. Normally I lock my screen by typing the following in the terminal

i3lock -c 000000

I try adding to my config file by doing following but nothing works

1. copy copy /etc/i3/config to ~/.i3/config
2. $ vim .i3/config
3. scroll down and add following line to file: bindsym Mod1+l i3lock -c 000000. I also tried variants such as bindsym Mod1+l exec i3lock -c 000000 and bindsym Mod1+l exec "i3lock -c 000000"
4. Save file
5. Reload i3 with Mod1+Shift+R
6. Try login out with shortcut Mod1+l but it doesn't work. In fact Mod1+l simply change focus of my window to another window.

1 Answer

It turns out in addition to having the ~/.i3/config file, I also had a ~/.config/i3/config file. So even though I was editing ~/.i3/config, the system was not seeing my changes. So I went ahead and deleted ~/.config/i3/config. Now it works fine.