Arch Linux

felixculpa

Member

From: Alberta, Canada

Registered: 2012-06-12

Posts: 270

Simulating "tags" with Openbox and Lemonbar

Hi all. I'm looking to crowd source some tips to accomplish what I'm setting out to do here.  I am using Lemonbar-git in an Openbox environment and need help setting up some kind of taskbar to keep track of my open windows/apps. I know that in Openbox you can configure "Actions" through rc.xml to create or remove desktops/virtual desktops/workspaces (whatever you wish to call them) on the fly (basically). I know you can also spawn apps onto certain desktops through the same file. With Lemonbar you can pipe the names of these desktops to it using something like:

xprop -root _NET_DESKTOP_NAMES | cut -c 36- | sed 's/"//g'

and you can also grep the active desktop with

xprop -root _NET_CURRENT_DESKTOP

.  Given all this, I think it is very possible to emulate some kind of on the fly tagging system and taskbar. I've seen similiar things on BSPWM and Lemonbar threads but for some reason people don't seem to share how to set up their Lemonbar taskbar.

If anyone is wondering why I'm not using something like Tint2, there are a few reasons. Mainly I don't because it is noticeably slower to launch than my current Lemonbar setup. Also I like being able to pipe information to my panel/status bar.