Who uses openbox without a panel? Can I pick your brain?

jcs · 2008-11-10 06:23:49

I've only been playing with openbox for a few days now.

I like the simplicity and screen real estate that stock openbox provides but I find the keybindings/menu/etc. aren't enough for me to lose the panel.

I'm running pypanel now but I'd like to know what setup works for those who have no use for a panel. Any creative solutions?

Cheers!

bslagowski · 2008-11-10 06:29:46

Well what do you use the panel for? To see which windows are open? A clock? A tray? All of them?

jcs · 2008-11-10 06:56:11

Mostly to see what windows are open. I can use conky for time/date, and I'm not opposed to running a small tray in a corner somewhere if needed.

A couple examples I guess:

-I don't like having to navigate to the desktop to launch the root menu/desktop menu if I have (a) window(s) maximized.
-When I've been away from the comp or just forget which windows I have open I must Alt-Tab through to get a feel for what I was doing before.
-Even if I have a handle on things but I'm multi-tasking like a fiend I have to navigate through many open windows to move between the 2-3 that I'm using heavily.

But I could fudge clumsy solutions to those problems. Mostly I'm looking for what works for others. I'm sure there are users here with much more experience than me who have developed elegant ways to manage their minimal desktops. I'm hoping to pick and choose ideas which could work for me. Thanks.

Last edited by jcs (2008-11-10 06:57:15)

Mr Green · 2008-11-10 07:18:42

I am sure you can get window list from a key binding rather that Alt-Tab

Stythys · 2008-11-10 07:18:49

I just use stalonetray + middle-click + desktop switching. works fine for me

chris_ak · 2008-11-10 07:54:27

I like having a panel. I use tint which looks quite nice. However, I have a solution for your problem of having to go to the desktop to open your menu. In your rc.xml find this section:

  <!-- You can reserve a portion of your screen where windows will not cover when
     they are maximized, or when they are initially placed.
     Many programs reserve space automatically, but you can use this in other
     cases. -->
  <margins>
    <top>0</top>
    <bottom>0</bottom>
    <left>3</left>
    <right>0</right>
  </margins>

As you can see, I have 3 pixels reserved on the left side of my screen. So I can just right click anywhere in that 3 px margin to get my menu, even if I have firefox or any other program maximized (of course you will be able to access your middle-click menu as well). Definitely try that out.

krisvek · 2008-11-10 08:37:09

Middle-click on the root window will open a task-list.

The middle-click command and the root-menu can both be assigned a keyboard shortcut, I believe.

iphitus · 2008-11-10 09:52:34

I got sucked in by expose on my girlfriend's mac. ATM I'm using skippy (AUR), which does the same thing on linux.

And bmpanel... though thats a panel.

Really... its a matter of time before I go back to a tiling wm.

Last edited by iphitus (2008-11-10 09:53:30)

ArchArael · 2008-11-10 10:22:39

I do, and I am not missing any bar. I guess that's just a matter of habits.

krisvek wrote:

Middle-click on the root window will open a task-list.
The middle-click command and the root-menu can both be assigned a keyboard shortcut, I believe.

Exactly. I mapped the middle-click (client-list-combined-menu feature) to Ctrl-space and I'm using it a lot.

I manipulate most of my windows through keyboard shortcuts.

Openbox is so flexible that I cannot use any other window manager anymore and I tried to.

I usually don't iconize my windows. Instead I use ToggleShade action mapped on Win-s shortcut when I need to see behind a window.

Oxyd · 2008-11-10 11:48:49

My main problem when using panel-less OpenBox is that I can't see any notifications. I want to see when someone messages me (and I hate using sound notifications for that) -- both in Pidgin (flashing tray icon) and in irssi (flashing taskbar icon/button/whatever). I can switch windows around with no panel just fine, but I keep constantly switching to desktop one to see if someone messaged me. How do you solve this? x)

Rasi · 2008-11-10 11:50:20

Oxyd wrote:

My main problem when using panel-less OpenBox is that I can't see any notifications. I want to see when someone messages me (and I hate using sound notifications for that) -- both in Pidgin (flashing tray icon) and in irssi (flashing taskbar icon/button/whatever). I can switch windows around with no panel just fine, but I keep constantly switching to desktop one to see if someone messaged me. How do you solve this? x)

stalonetray or trayer

iphitus · 2008-11-10 11:51:02

Oxyd wrote:

My main problem when using panel-less OpenBox is that I can't see any notifications. I want to see when someone messages me (and I hate using sound notifications for that) -- both in Pidgin (flashing tray icon) and in irssi (flashing taskbar icon/button/whatever). I can switch windows around with no panel just fine, but I keep constantly switching to desktop one to see if someone messaged me. How do you solve this? x)

stalonetray, docker or trayer all provide a system tray.

WhiteMagic · 2008-11-10 11:57:07

When I still was using openbox I quite liked visibility. I didn't really like any of the panels I tried and only wanted to know which apps I had running and for this job visibility was perfect for me, you can find it in aur.

Oxyd · 2008-11-10 12:17:53

iphitus wrote:

stalonetray, docker or trayer all provide a system tray.

Yes, but I'm not seeing the tray if it's hidden behind a fullscreen window. And if I reserve a margin at some side of the screen I can just put a full panel there. Also, tray won't notify me when irssi terminal window begins flashing.

Last edited by Oxyd (2008-11-10 12:18:45)

ArchArael · 2008-11-10 13:05:11

Oxyd wrote:

iphitus wrote:
stalonetray, docker or trayer all provide a system tray.
Yes, but I'm not seeing the tray if it's hidden behind a fullscreen window. And if I reserve a margin at some side of the screen I can just put a full panel there. Also, tray won't notify me when irssi terminal window begins flashing.

Well, I have the same problem. My solution is ToggleVisibility. I use this feature to look at the stalonetray state, really simple if you activate it by pressing some keyboard shortcut. As I said before my combination is win-s. Otherwise just use a panel. I don't use it because of the space it occupies. But if loosing some space doesn't bother you just use a panel.

I would like to hear other solutions as well. Mine is not so good because is not working when you have two windows maximized. Well I usually have just one window maximized on workspace so for me is not a great problem but for people with other habits it could be.

moljac024 · 2008-11-10 13:06:27

Oxyd wrote:

iphitus wrote:
stalonetray, docker or trayer all provide a system tray.
Yes, but I'm not seeing the tray if it's hidden behind a fullscreen window. And if I reserve a margin at some side of the screen I can just put a full panel there. Also, tray won't notify me when irssi terminal window begins flashing.

I use weechat. It has a perl plugin called sound (sound.pl). In that plugin you can define what gets run when someone messages you, privately or in a channel. You could experiment with that. I've configured it to pop up a temporary dzen2 to notify me.

Irssi should also be able to run custom commands upon those events, although I've never used it.

Last edited by moljac024 (2008-11-10 13:07:56)

MarCustomized · 2008-11-10 14:55:01

I have a 1 pixel margin on all sides so I can still easily use root menu when windows are maximized by clicking any screen edge.

ArchArael · 2008-11-10 15:27:07

By the way, I don't use much the openbox standard applications menu.

I have shortcuts to start the apps I use most (sakura, firefox, opera, thunderbird, sonata, gimp, ecc ).

For any other application I usually launch gmrun or launchy. That's more easier than search an entry in a menu IMHO. Just few keystrokes and done.

Maybe my keyboard mindset let me live well without a panel.

Last edited by ArchArael (2008-11-10 15:27:58)

monstermudder78 · 2008-11-10 16:13:50

Personally I have conky across the top of the screen, showing the date and time among other things. I then set the desktop margins at 1px around the three sides and something like 15px across the top, to show conky. The 1px around the edges allows me to maximize a window and still move the mouse to the edge of the screen and right-click to show the menu. Between always having the right-click available and using alt-tab to show open windows I haven't even missed the tray.

Edit: Oh, and I have shortcuts for my most-used programs, alt-f for firefox, alt-s for sakura, alt-m for medit, and alt-t for thunar.

Edit x 2

MarCustomized wrote:

I have a 1 pixel margin on all sides so I can still easily use root menu when windows are maximized by clicking any screen edge.

Dammit! You beat me to it!

Last edited by monstermudder78 (2008-11-10 16:16:55)

skottish · 2008-11-10 16:19:05

For both E17 and my occasion tryouts of Openbox I only have a clock on the desktop. The clock is set in a shelf (E17 terminology) that won't let windows maximize over it unless I make it. From there it guarantees that I have somewhere that I can middle click to get to the open programs menu.

Hrod beraht · 2008-11-10 16:46:12

I think Openbox has built-in functionality that is actually better than some panels. That is, the right-click on the desktop to open the menu and the center-click to switch between open programs. It's nicer than Alt-Tabbing if you've got a lot of winows open, and it shows all desktops at once too! The one problem is that if you have a window maximized, there may be no desktop available to click on. So, I just made keybindings for right-click and center-click and put them in ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml

<!-- Keybindings for root menus -->

<!-- This one makes the Window-z key combination show the open-programs-list. It's equivalent to a center-click on the desktop -->
    <keybind key="W-z">
      <action name="ShowMenu">
        <menu>client-list-combined-menu</menu>
      </action>
    </keybind>

<!-- This one makes the Window-x key combination show the menu. It's equivalent to a right-click on the desktop -->
    <keybind key="W-x">
      <action name="ShowMenu">
        <menu>root-menu</menu>
      </action>
    </keybind>

Bob

Last edited by Hrod beraht (2008-11-10 16:50:23)

krisvek · 2008-11-10 16:48:27

Oxyd wrote:

iphitus wrote:
stalonetray, docker or trayer all provide a system tray.
Yes, but I'm not seeing the tray if it's hidden behind a fullscreen window. And if I reserve a margin at some side of the screen I can just put a full panel there. Also, tray won't notify me when irssi terminal window begins flashing.

I use lxpanel to suit these needs. I have lxpanel set so that it stays on top of a maximized-window's title bar, with it's width being a couple/few hundred pixels, and situated enough to the left of my top-right corner so that I can clicky on the close button if I desire (it's the only button I find myself still needing to click on, lol). I can try and provide a screenshot if my description isn't getting the idea across, heheh.

This method doesn't require any margin to be dedicated to it (which always defeated the pupose of anything less than a full panel in my mind). However, if you full-screen an application, it WILL cover it... I'm not sure if there is any real way to keep notification tray functionality with a full-screened window, unless you could somehow make it all use inotify or something and pop up little bubbles of info.

thayer · 2008-11-10 16:57:04

Because nobody else has mentioned it, I want to put in a good word for Openbox's built-in dock system. The dock, a legacy tray-like feature, is built into most of the *box window managers. It swallows 'dockapps', of which there are dozens. Though most of these are very old school (http://dockapps.org/), there are still quite a few that look great with modern themes:

lal -- a simple and configurable clock
docker -- a system tray for tray icons and notifications
bbdock -- an icon-based application launcher (similar to the Windows XP quick launch)
bbpager -- a visual desktop pager which shows open client windows

All of these dockapps are visible in my screenshot below:

The 'dock' has the added benefit of being native to Openbox (no extra software required) and much of its behaviour can be control via Obconf (yep, that's what that last tab is for!). It truly is one of the *box's best kept secrets.

Last edited by thayer (2008-11-10 16:58:05)

Hrod beraht · 2008-11-10 18:03:50

MarCustomized wrote:

I have a 1 pixel margin on all sides so I can still easily use root menu when windows are maximized by clicking any screen edge.

Well I thought that keybindings for right-click and middle-click was a great way to do it until now.
I just added a 1 pixel margin on the bottom so I can right-click and middle-click there. That's definitely the ultimate way! The Openbox middle-click is as good/better than switching with any panel.

Bob

Oxyd · 2008-11-10 18:13:47

Hrod beraht wrote:

Well I thought that keybindings for right-click and middle-click was a great way to do it until now.
I just added a 1 pixel margin on the bottom so I can right-click and middle-click there. That's definitely the ultimate way! The Openbox middle-click is as good/better than switching with any panel.

I've got a five-button mouse and I bound the buttons on the sides (8 and 9 in Xorg's parlance) to pop up the menus when clicked anywhere on the screen. That means I can't use the two buttons with my apps but also that I can just click without moving the mouse anywhere and see the menus. I haven't seen an app that'd utilise these two buttons in a meaningful way anyway.

thayer wrote:

All of these dockapps are visible in my screenshot below:

Wow, you mean that panel-like thingy at the bottom is in fact dockapps? Gotta try those.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-11-10 06:23:49

Who uses openbox without a panel? Can I pick your brain?

#2 2008-11-10 06:29:46

Re: Who uses openbox without a panel? Can I pick your brain?

#3 2008-11-10 06:56:11

Re: Who uses openbox without a panel? Can I pick your brain?

#4 2008-11-10 07:18:42

Re: Who uses openbox without a panel? Can I pick your brain?

#5 2008-11-10 07:18:49

Re: Who uses openbox without a panel? Can I pick your brain?

#6 2008-11-10 07:54:27

Re: Who uses openbox without a panel? Can I pick your brain?

#7 2008-11-10 08:37:09

Re: Who uses openbox without a panel? Can I pick your brain?

#8 2008-11-10 09:52:34

Re: Who uses openbox without a panel? Can I pick your brain?

#9 2008-11-10 10:22:39

Re: Who uses openbox without a panel? Can I pick your brain?

#10 2008-11-10 11:48:49

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#11 2008-11-10 11:50:20

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#20 2008-11-10 16:19:05

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#22 2008-11-10 16:48:27

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#23 2008-11-10 16:57:04

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#24 2008-11-10 18:03:50

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#25 2008-11-10 18:13:47

Re: Who uses openbox without a panel? Can I pick your brain?

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