Developer(s) | Dana Jansens, [1] [2] Mikael Magnusson [3] |
---|---|
Initial release | 18 September 2002 |
Stable release | |
Repository | |
Written in | C |
Operating system | Unix-like |
Type | Stacking window manager |
License | GPL 2.0 or later [5] |
Website | openbox |
Openbox is a free, stacking window manager for the X Window System, licensed under the GNU General Public License. [5] Originally derived from Blackbox [5] 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. [6] 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. [7]
Openbox is designed to be small, fast, and fully compliant with the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM) and Extended Window Manager Hints (EWMH). [8] It supports many features such as menus by which the user can control applications or which display various dynamic information. [5]
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, ArchBang, Lubuntu, Trisquel and Manjaro. [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16]
The creator and primary author of Openbox is Dana Jansens of Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. [1] [17]
Openbox provides a right-click (or any other key-binding) "root menu" on the desktop, [5] 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, [5] launchers, eyecandy and others is common.
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. [5] [18] [19]
All mouse and key-bindings can be configured. For example, a user can set:
Openbox has a dynamic menu system that uses "pipe menus". [5] [20] 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 because the script can assess environmental conditions, piped menus enable conditional branching to be built into the menu system.[ citation needed ] A static menu system as used on most window managers gets its layout once, when the window manager is restarted, and will not have the ability to modify the menu layout depending on environmental factors.[ citation needed ]
An X window manager is a window manager that runs on top of the X Window System, a windowing system mainly used on Unix-like systems.
Fluxbox is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, which started as a fork of Blackbox 0.61.1 in 2001, with the same aim to be lightweight. Its user interface has only a taskbar, a pop-up menu accessible by right-clicking on the desktop, and minimal support for graphical icons. All basic configurations are controlled by text files, including the construction of menus and the mapping of key-bindings. Fluxbox has high compliance to the Extended Window Manager Hints specification.
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In computing, the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual is a standard protocol for the X Window System. It specifies conventions for clients of a common X server about selections and cut buffers, communication with the window manager and session manager, manipulation of shared resources, and color characterization.
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This article compares variety of different X window managers. For an introduction to the topic, see X Window System.
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