Openbox Window Manager
Screenshot2010-04-24-133031 1280x800 scrot.png
DeveloperDana Jansens,[1][2] Mikael Magnusson[3]
Released18 September 2002 (age 23)
Programming languageC
Operating systemUnix-like
GenreStacking window manager
LicenseGPL 2.0 or later[4]

Openbox is a free, stacking window manager for the X Window System, licensed under the GNU General Public License.[4] Originally derived from Blackbox[4] 0.65.0 (a C++ project), Openbox has been completely re-written in the C programming language and since version 3.0 is no longer based upon any code from Blackbox.[5] Since at least 2010, it has been considered feature complete, bug free and a completed project. Occasional maintenance is done to keep it working, but only if needed.[6]

Openbox is designed to be small, fast, and fully compliant with the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM) and Extended Window Manager Hints (EWMH).[7] It supports many features such as menus by which the user can control applications or which display various dynamic information.[4]

Openbox is the standard window manager in LXDE, and often set as the default for LXQt. It is used in Linux distributions such as BunsenLabs, Lubuntu, Trisquel and Manjaro.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]

The creator and primary author of Openbox is Dana Jansens of Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.[1][16]

Using Openbox

Openbox provides a right-click (or any other key-binding) "root menu" on the desktop,[4] and allows users to configure the way windows are managed. When a window is minimized, it becomes invisible. To bring windows up again, most use Alt+Tab or the Desktop menu, accessible by right-clicking. Or, sometimes, by middle-button-clicking. Extending Openbox with other small programs that add icons, taskbars,[4] launchers, eyecandy and others is common.

Configuration

There are only two configuration files, both located in ~/.config/openbox. They are named menu.xml and rc.xml. These can either be edited manually or with the graphical configuration tools ObConf and obmenu.[4][17][18]

All mouse and key-bindings can be configured. For example, a user can set:

  • a window to go to desktop 3 when the close button is clicked with the middle mouse button
  • when scrolling on an icon to move to the next/previous desktop
  • raise or not raise when clicking/moving a window

Pipe menus

Openbox has a dynamic menu system that uses "pipe menus".[4][19] A menu item in a piped menu system can accept the standard output of a shell script (or other executable) in order to generate a sub-menu. Because the script runs every time the pointer activates it, and as the script can assess environmental conditions, piped menus enable conditional branching to be built into the menu system.[citation needed] When the window manager is restarted, a static menu system as used on most window managers gets its layout once and will not have the ability to modify the menu layout depending on environmental factors.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Jansens, Dana (November 2007). "User:DanaJansens". Retrieved 19 January 2015.
  2. ^ Jansens, Dana. "Openbox Developer Dana Jansens". Retrieved 19 January 2015.
  3. ^ "git.openbox.org Git - dana/openbox.git/summary". openbox.org. Retrieved 25 August 2015.
  4. ^ * Saunders, Mike (March 2008). "Lightweight window managers". Linux Format. ' (103). UK: Future Publishing* Сондерс, Майк (March 2008). "ru:Легковесные ОМ" (in Russian). Linux Format. ' (103): 21. Russia: Mezon.ru. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 3 March 2010.
  5. ^ GentooWiki (March 2008). "HOWTO Openbox". Archived 2008-04-03 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2008-04-07.
  6. ^ "is Openbox still being developed?". Reddit. June 2021. Retrieved 2022-06-11.
  7. ^ "EWMH Compliance Document". Archived from the original on 31 October 2019. Retrieved 2009-09-09.
  8. ^ LXDEWiki (September 2008). "LXDE Wiki". Archived from the original on 7 April 2015. Retrieved 2008-09-28.
  9. ^ BunsenLabs Linux (December 2020). "BunsenLabs Linux". Retrieved 2020-07-17.
  10. ^ "Rolling-release (Linux Wiki)". Retrieved 2014-05-29.
  11. ^ Lavergne, Julian (October 2010). "Lubuntu Applications". Retrieved 14 January 2011.
  12. ^ DistroWatch (August 2010). "Tiny Me". Retrieved 14 January 2011.
  13. ^ "Trisquel Mini GNU/Linux". The Trisquel Project. Retrieved 7 November 2012.
  14. ^ "Openbox window manager grows up". linux.com. 11 July 2007. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
  15. ^ "Manjaro - Openbox - Stable". manjaro.org. Archived from the original on 14 December 2018. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  16. ^ "Dana Jansens". medium.com. Archived 30 October 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
  17. ^ Openbox project (June 2007). "ObConf:About". Retrieved 2008-04-07.
  18. ^ "obmenu:Index", retrieved 2012-03-28
  19. ^ "Openbox Wiki:Pipe menus"