Openbox

Resources

Openbox is a highly configurable stacking window manager for X11 with extensive standards support. It was originally forked from Blackbox. It is used by the LXDE as its default window manager and KDE can also use Openbox as its window manager instead of its default window manager, KWin.

Installation

USE flags

USE flags for x11-wm/openbox Standards compliant, fast, light-weight, extensible window manager

`branding`	Enable Gentoo specific branding
`debug`	Enable extra debug codepaths, like asserts and extra output. If you want to get meaningful backtraces see https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Quality_Assurance/Backtraces
`imlib`	Add support for imlib, an image loading and rendering library
`nls`	Add Native Language Support (using gettext - GNU locale utilities)
`session`	Enables support for session managers
`startup-notification`	Enable application startup event feedback mechanism
`svg`	Add support for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)
`xdg`	Install the python xdg files for xdg autostart

Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2023-12-23 20:00 More information about USE flags

Emerge

Emerge Openbox:

root #emerge --ask x11-wm/openbox

Configuration

There are four configuration files:

/etc/xdg/openbox/ contains the system-wide default version of these files. ~/.config/openbox/ is used to store the user-specific custom version of these files, though it needs to be created and populated.

For example:

user $

mkdir -p ~/.config/openbox/

user $

cp /etc/xdg/openbox/* ~/.config/openbox/

user $vim ~/.config/openbox/autostart

Starting

To start Openbox it is possible to use a display manager or the startx command.

To use startx, set the XSESSION variable your shell to openbox, for example:

FILE ~/.bashrcOpenbox with startx

# ...other .bashrc content...
export XSESSION=openbox

Note that there are an infinite number of ways of achieving the above and this example only applies to bash for users using ~/.bashrc and those who wish to start X manually from the command line.

Also note that a common misconception is to create a ~/.xinitrc file - please do not do that, as it will prevent X from executing all the automatically provided scripts in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/ - if you wish to add anything in particular, you can create an executable file in that directory.

autostart

The autostart script is the place to execute specific commands and programs when Openbox starts. It makes no difference if Openbox is started using the startx command or a display manager, autostart will be executed either way.

FILE ~/.config/openbox/autostartOpenbox autostart example

# Sets the wallpaper to an image of choice.
wallpaper="planet.jpeg"

# Sets the DESKTOP_ENV variable to "OPENBOX"
DESKTOP_ENV="OPENBOX"

# The following are examples on how to call programs;
# unless programs are called in a daemon mode like the 
# conky example below an ampersand (&) will need to be included 
# in order to start the command and fork it to the background
# See job control for more information.
conky --daemonize

# Waits one second then starts the NetworkManager applet.
sleep 1 && nm-applet --sm-disable &

# Starts a light-weight X11 desktop panel.
fbpanel &

# Starts a lightweight image viewer to display the wallpaper.
feh --bg-scale ~/Artwork/${wallpaper} &

# Starts a simple battery monitor for the system tray.
batti &

# Starts a program that turns on numlock in X (after the X server starts).
numlockx &

environment

The environment script is the place to export global variables and configure the Openbox environment.

FILE ~/.config/openbox/environmentOpenbox environment example

eval $(gpg-agent --daemon)
eval $(gnome-keyring-daemon)
if which dbus-launch >/dev/null && test -z "$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS"; then
       eval `dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session`
fi
LANG="el_GR.UTF8"

menu.xml

The menu.xml file defines the right-click Openbox menus. By default the right-click menu is predefined with some common applications, so unless the applications are installed on the system most of the default links on the menu will not be operational.

Dynamic generation

openbox-menu

openbox-menu can dynamically generate new Openbox right-click menus based off information defined in the /etc/xdg/menus/ directory.

Install x11-misc/openbox-menu:

root #emerge --ask x11-misc/openbox-menu

To create a new menu for the present user:

user $openbox-menu

obmenu-generator

obmenu-generator can generate either static or dynamic (pipe) menus based on a user-modifiable schema and the .desktop files installed by most applications. It supports themed icons and arbitrarily nested submenus.

http://trizenx.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/obmenu-generator.html

https://github.com/trizen/obmenu-generator

Install x11-misc/obmenu-generator:

root #emerge --ask x11-misc/obmenu-generator

To generate a static menu with icons:

user $obmenu-generator -i -s

To generate a pipe menu with icons:

user $obmenu-generator -i -p

Add '-c' to automatically reconfigure a running instance of Openbox:

user $obmenu-generator -i -s -c

MenuMaker

maker can automatically configure your menu, and also works with JWM, IceWM, BlackBox, FluxBox, PekWM and others.

Install x11-misc/menumaker:

root #emerge --ask x11-misc/menumaker

To generate a static menu for OpenBox with sakura terminal:

user $mmaker -vf OpenBox -t Sakura

If no terminal is specified, xtem will be used by default. You can check the availiable terminal emulators, terminals and otehr options by running:

user $mmaker --help

Manual configuration

FILE ~/.config/openbox/menu.xmlOpenbox menu.xml example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<openbox_menu>
    <menu id="root-menu" label="OpenBox 3">
        <menu id="2" label="Editors">
            <item label="Mousepad"> <action name="Execute">
                <execute>mousepad</execute>
            </action> </item>
            <item label="Xournal"> <action name="Execute">
                <execute>xournal</execute>
            </action> </item>
        </menu>
        <menu id="18" label="Games">
            <item label="Nibbles"> <action name="Execute">
                <execute>gnome-nibbles</execute>
            </action> </item>
            <item label="DeSmuME (Gtk)"> <action name="Execute">
                <execute>desmume</execute>
            </action> </item>
        </menu>
        <menu id="5" label="Network">
            <item label="FireFox"> <action name="Execute">
                <execute>firefox</execute>
            </action> </item>
        </menu>
        <menu id="19" label="File Managers">
            <item label="File Manager PCManFM"> <action name="Execute">
                <execute>pcmanfm</execute>
            </action> </item>
        </menu>
        <separator/>
        <menu id="40" label="OpenBox">
            <menu id="client-list-menu"/>
            <item label="Reconfigure"> <action name="Reconfigure"/> </item>
            <separator/>
            <item label="Exit"> <action name="Exit"/> </item>
        </menu>
    </menu>
</openbox_menu>

In this example shown is a couple of applications in different categories. Each submenu goes inside the root <menu> which must go inside the <openbox_menu> tag. Specify a name for the subcategory to be displayed with the label "attribute", also specify an "id" for each submenu inside the main menu tag, which must be unique, but can be any positive number aside from 1 which is reserved for the parent <menu tag>. Items inside menus are specified with the <item> tag, and the name to be displayed is as in the <menu> tag case specified with the "label" attribute. The actions executed by the item are specified with the tag <action> which will likely want to used with the label name="Execute", in that case, inside the <action> tag to define an <execute> tag and inside that tag place a terminal instruction to be called when the user clicks that button, for example "firefox" to start Firefox or "loginctl poweroff" to turn off the system, to give some examples.

On each <item>tag there's also the possibility to specify an icon using the "icon" attribute with must be filled with a path pointing to the icon wanting to display in the menu.

rc.xml

The rc.xml file defines Openbox behavior, keyboard bindings, and mouse bindings.

The following is a list of special key 'modifiers':

Key	Description
S	`Shift` key
C	`Ctrl` key
A	`Alt` key
W	Super (windows) key
M	Meta key
H	Hyper key

To make a key binding, combine modifiers and a key. They are separated with the - (dash) sign.

Important
Case matters! S (uppercase) equates to the Shift key while s (lowercase) is the s alphabet key.

Key binding examples

Keybinding	Modifier
`Alt`+`o`	A-o
`Ctrl`+`Alt`+`x`	C-A-x
`Ctrl`+`Alt`+`Shift`+`y`	C-A-S-y
`Shift`+`s`	S-s

Important
Any custom key bindings should go between <keyboard> and </keyboard> tags in rc.xml.

To open a xterm window with Super+t, add the following to the rc.xml file:

FILE ~/.config/openbox/rc.xmlXTerm key bind example

<keybind key="W-t">
  <action name="Execute">
    <command>xterm</command>
  </action>
</keybind>

To open Openbox's right-click menu with Super+x, and Openbox's middle-click menu with Super+z, add the following to the rc.xml file:

FILE ~/.config/openbox/rc.xmlRoot-Menu key bind example

<keybind key="W-x">
  <action name="ShowMenu">
    <menu>root-menu</menu>
  </action>
</keybind>

<keybind key="W-z">
  <action name="ShowMenu">
    <menu>client-list-combined-menu</menu>
  </action>
</keybind>

Tips

Icons in the Openbox menu

Openbox is able to have icons next to menu entries.

To emerge Openbox with imlib support add imlib USE flag to x11-wm/openbox in /etc/portage/package.use
root #echo "x11-wm/openbox imlib" >> /etc/portage/package.use
Re-emerge Openbox so that support for the imlib USE flag is considered:
root #emerge --ask --changed-use x11-wm/openbox
Add a <showIcons>yes</showIcons> line to the <menu> section of the rc.xml file.

Add in menu.xml icon="<path>" like this:

FILE ~/.config/openbox/menu.xmlManually add icons to Openbox example

<menu label="Shells" icon="/usr/share/icons/shell.png">
<item label="xterm" icon="/usr/share/icons/xterm.png">
	<action name="Execute">
		<execute>xterm</execute>
	</action>
</item>

External resources

Openbox page on the Arch Linux wiki