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Fluxbox FAQ
1. What is the "Slit"?
The first thing to know about the slit is that it is NOT the fluxbox
toolbar.
If you see anyone telling anyone else that is, whack them with something
painful
and point them here. :)
The Slit is a place where dockable applications can 'dock'.
We have an entire document DEVOTED to the slit and, check it out
Here before asking any questions at
all about
what the slit is.
2. How do I make my menus transparent?
You can make your menus transparent if you are running a recent version
of fluxbox (0.9.2 or above) by changing the "Menu Alpha" value in the
configure menu. 255 = Opaque, 0 = Invisible (completely transparent).
A value around 160 seems to satisfy most people. You should probably also
read the next question for other things you need...
3. I've set a transparency value, but nothing is transparent?!
Here are some things to check:
- You must be running a Fluxbox version 0.9.2 or newer. 0.1.x does not contain transparency support.
- Fluxbox must be restarted for changes in the alpha value to take
effect (just choose restart in the menu).
- You need to have the XRender extension enabled in X, and compiled
into fluxbox.
Running fluxbox -i and xdpyinfo | grep
RENDER should
both say "RENDER".
- You must have set the background with an XRender-compatible tool.
fbsetbg
comes with fluxbox and tries to make this easy for you, try it (the web
page also has list of transparency supporting background tools). Run
fbsetbg -i to see if it can find a suitable tool.
4. How do I add fluxbox to my KDM sessions menu.
There are a couple of ways. You can either choose the "default" session,
which should load your .xsession file and thus you'd put "exec
fluxbox" at the
end of that.
Or, to get a fluxbox option, go into KDE Control Center and add a
session type
"fluxbox".
Or, edit your kdmrc file (probably
/etc/kde2/kdm/kdmrc). Find the "SessionTypes=" line,
and add fluxbox to the list.
If you are running Debian (thanks Dave Selby), then
after adding the fluxbox session edit
/etc/kde2/kdm/kdm.options and delete the line:
generate-sessiontypes
If you don't delete this Debian will loose the entry
in the KDM menu when you reboot.
That should be enough. However, some older configurations require a
little more effort - you may need to find your
Xsession file (e.g. /etc/X11/Xsession, or
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xsession)
and add an option in the case statement containing other WMs, i.e.
fluxbox)
exec fluxbox
;;
5. How do I add fluxbox to my GDM sessions menu.
Create the file:
/etc/gdm/Sessions/fluxbox
with contents:
#!/bin/sh
#
# /etc/gdm/Sessions/fluxbox
#
# global fluxbox session file -- used by gdm
exec /etc/X11/Xsession /usr/bin/fluxbox
Of course, change /usr/bin/fluxbox to wherever your fluxbox binary is.
If the /etc/gdm directory doesn't
exist, it may be /etc/X11/gdm/Sessions/fluxbox on your
computer.
6. How do I add fluxbox to my sessions menu in Fedora.
The fedora distribution uses a
different setup again. Instead of the
dm-specific locations, it requires session files to be in
/etc/X11/dm/Sessions.
So, to get Fluxbox into its session menu, create the file:
/etc/X11/dm/Sessions/fluxbox.desktop
with contents:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Fluxbox
Type=Application
Icon=
Exec=fluxbox
You may need to put the full path to fluxbox in the Exec line if
it is in a non-standard location.
It is also reported that the file needs execution right:
chmod +x /etc/X11/dm/Sessions/fluxbox.desktop
One might check other files attributes.
This is a barebones entry. Hopefully one day we will be able to make a
version with translations available in the main source distribution.
7. How do I set my background?
Try reading the Fluxbox
Backgrounds Document.
8. HEEEEEEEEELLLPPPPP! I don't understand Tabs!
Try reading the Ultimate Guide to
Fluxbox Tabbing.
9. Why does my application (e.g. xmms, mplayer) pause when I move a window?
This behaviour is not a bug. It occurs because of the nature of outline
window moving.
Long version:
Outline moving works by drawing a rectangle of inverted pixels around a
window. When you move the mouse, the old rectange is erased (by
inverting the pixels again) and a new one drawn. Fluxbox grabs
the display to freeze all the applications display windows. If it
doesn't to this, then window changes can occur which change bits of the
rectangles, ultimately leaving sections of rectangle randomly around the
screen.
All window managers that offer outline moving need to enforce the
same rule so that the display doesn't become messy with rectange
fragments during or after the move operation. If you find one that doesn't
let us know :)
The author believes that applications such as xmms whose primary
function is not graphical ought to be able to continue to operate
without the display updating (mplayer has a good excuse to pause).
However, this behaviour is not under the control of the Fluxbox
developers - you should talk to XMMS people to see if they can make it
continue playing even without display updates (though I imagine this may
also be a difficult problem).
10. I keep hearing about these Artwiz fonts! What gives?
Try reading the Artwiz/Fluxbox
Guide.
If you like the Artwiz fonts, but don't like the way they look in
terminals,
Consider checking out the 'LFP' Fontpack, located at
This Address.. There are
two sets of fonts there,
The LFP-Fixed width (good for terminals), and LFP Variable-width (good for
other things).
11. How do I change the toolbar Time format?
Change this line in your init:
session.screen0.strftimeFormat: %a %d %H:%M
For information on the format, run 'man 3 strftime' on your machine.
12. Is there a way to have slit dockapps be in a certain order?
As of 0.1.10, YES! There's an explanation Here.
13. How do i launch apps automatically on Fluxbox startup?
How to set up your .xinitrc/.xsession (Contributed by
Verin)
1) The place of .xinit in things
You have to understand that a windowmanager is just one more application
for X, like netscape or gimp or xterm. Many people new to X come to
believe that X runs the window manager and the window manager runs
programs. But thats not true. If configured right, you can run all
your applications under X, kill the window manager, and start another
window manager up.
The *real* program that X runs, that runs other programs, is your
.xinitrc or .xsession script. When X is started, your .xinitrc
or .xsession script is run, and when the script is done, X comes down.
Let me repeat that, its important: WHEN .xinitrc IS FINISHED, *THAT*
IS WHEN X ENDS. It isn't when your windowmanager exits.
14. All right, so how do I lay out my script?
Well, first you should realize something you already know. When you
type a command in a shell, you can't do anything else until that
command is done, when it exits. Your .xinitrc or .xsession script
is just the same. When it starts going through it, if it hits any
program that takes a long time to run (like most X programs), it stops
right there until that program is finished.
Ideally, you should only have one place where the script 'hangs'. And
usually you want this to be at the end. So, if you have any programs
you want to run under X before you get to this 'hang' spot, you should
background them. You put an & at the end of the line. So, say you
want xclock to run in addition to other things, put this line before
your 'hang' spot:
xclock &
Now, the next thing is the 'exec' thing you see, where lots of sources
recommend how to add your windowmanager to your script. But honestly,
its not really necessary, if you put your window manager on the last
line of your script, it will hang there just fine without the exec.
So why the 'exec'? Well, lets say you want to put lots of windowmanager
start lines in your script, and you want only one to work. Well, with
exec you can put your chosen start-line at the top. Because this is
what 'exec' means:
When this program is finished, finish myself right here.
So if you put an 'exec wmaker' line atop of a 'exec enlightenment' line,
when wmaker is done, so is the script, it never gets to the next line.
See what I mean by being unnessary? You could just put a bunch of
commented-out windowmanager lines, and it would work just the same.
15. Is there another way to do things?
As an alternative, you could start up your windowmanager FIRST, and
store the process id in a environment variable:
wmaker & wmpid=$!
that puts it in the background (&) and puts the process id ($!) in a
variable (wmpid). Then, to make your hang point, you can wait:
wait $wmpid
or you could hang on a program you always want to use, like maybe
gkrellm, by just not backgrounding it.
Now, I use the wait thingie, because I like picking my window manager
before I launch my dockapps and stuff. Also, before everything, I
like to change the settings on my x server, like the dpms, the
screen saver, and even add some directories to my font path (fonts I
don't want to install universally). And then after everything is
done, I like to clean up my fontpath, mainly because if I ran a display
manager, its not good at resetting the font path all the time.
16. Can I have an example of these startup files?
Here is my .xinitrc:
# LICQ is very badly designed. clean up before it.
rm .licq/licq.pid
# turn off screen blanking and turn on energy star features
xset s off
xset dpms 600 60 60
# add my optional fonts to the font path
xset +fp "$X_FONTPATH"
xset fp rehash
# export the current environment, in case it needs to be debugged
env > ~/.xenv
# window manager
fluxbox & wmpid=$!
bbrun &
wmCalClock &
wmnet -x 70000 -d 300000 -L cablemodem -w &
wmxmms &
# HANG POINT - wait for windowmanager to exit
wait $wmpid
# restore the x fontpath
xset fp default
17. I make changes to my ~/.fluxbox/init, but they are getting
overwritten.
This is a bug in versions of fluxbox prior to 0.1.8-bugfix2. Please
upgrade to the latest version / bugfix before reporting this as a bug.
18. Can I use my existing .blackboxrc for Fluxbox?
You may certainly, be sure to add some lines for titlebar and keygrabbing,
though.
It may also be wise to symlink your blackboxrc and ~/.fluxbox/init
together somehow.
19. Can I use blackbox styles (themes) with Fluxbox?
Yes. The tarballs for both packages should be 100% interchangeable. (This
should also stay true for the
Waimea and Openbox projects, although I can't guarantee it. I've not seen
such a promise from either of
the two projects, but one of the goals of fluxbox is to stay compatible
with blackbox styles.)
20. How about Waimea and Openbox themes?
These are two more blackbox Code Forks (To be perfectly precise, the only
BB code waimea uses is the
Styles and Rendering engines, but that means that stylefiles should be
compatible, at least):
Look here for info on OpenBox, And
Waimea lives here.
21. Is there KDE support?
Yeah, do ./configure --enable-kde. This makes it so that the
KDE tray icons will appear in the slit.
22. Is there GNOME support?
Yeah, do ./configure --enable-gnome. This enables GNOME
hints.
23. BBtools won't copy my current style settings, even after restart!
Just link your ~/.blackboxrc ->
~/.fluxbox/init
24. Gtk2/Gnome2 applications look wired under Fluxbox, but they look ok when gnome is started
Run gnome-settings-daemon when Fluxbox starts, eg. put this into your ~/.xinitrc
#load this to have gtk2 apps look ok
GSDPID=`pidof gnome-settings-daemon`
if [ "x$GSDPID" == "x" ]; then
gnome-settings-daemon &
fi
If you don't have gnome installed you can use gtk+/gtk2 theme switcher.
25. How to make cool terminal?
Check man page for given terminal you use. Read quick hints on aterm and xterm.
26. How to display logs on root window?
Use, eg.root-tail.
Example of usage:
root-tail -f -fn 'glisp' -g 220x10+20+50 /var/log/messages,gray,MESSAGES
27. Where can see examples of dotfiles (configuration files)?
Look here.
28. Fluxbox 0.9.6 is slow....
Add the following line to your .xinitrc before you exec fluxbox:
export LC_ALL=C
this should help on newer Redhats.
29. How can I put Fluxbox logo onto slit?
You can find Fluxbox logo here.
Program which does it is wmdrawer - it does far more than just displaying logo onto Fluxbox slit.
30. Where can I find Fluxbox logo (and graphics, icons, banners, etc?)
Check here.
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