Openbox is a free, stacking window manager for the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...

, licensed under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

. Originally derived from Blackbox 0.65.0 (a C++ project), Openbox has been completely re-written in the

C programming language C (''pronounced'' '' – like the letter c'') is a general-purpose programming language. It was created in the 1970s by Dennis Ritchie and remains very widely used and influential. By design, C's features cleanly reflect the capabilities of ...

and since version 3.0 is no longer based upon any code from Blackbox. 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. Openbox is designed to be small, fast, and fully compliant with the

Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual In computing, the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM or I39L short for "I", 39 letters and "L")Extended Window Manager Hints (EWMH). It supports many features such as menus by which the user can control applications or which display various dynamic information. Openbox is the standard window manager in

LXDE LXDE (abbreviation for Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) is a Free and open-source software, free desktop environment with comparatively low resource requirements. This makes it especially suitable for use on older or resource-constrained pe ...

, and often set as the default for

LXQt LXQt is a free and open-source software, free and open source lightweight desktop environment. It was formed from the merger of the LXDE and Razor-qt projects. Like its GTK predecessor LXDE, LXQt does not ship or develop its own window manager ...

. It is used in

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

s such as BunsenLabs,

ArchBang ArchBang Linux is a simple lightweight rolling release Linux distribution based on a minimal Arch Linux operating system with the i3 tiling window manager, previously using the Openbox stacking window manager. ArchBang is especially suitable ...

Lubuntu Lubuntu ( ) is a lightweight Linux distribution based on Ubuntu that uses the LXQt desktop environment in place of GNOME. Lubuntu was originally touted as being "lighter, less resource hungry and more energy-efficient", but now aims to be "a f ...

, Trisquel and Manjaro. The creator and primary author of Openbox is Dana Jansens of

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public university, public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to se ...

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada.

Using Openbox

Openbox provides a right-click (or any other key-binding) "root menu" on the desktop, 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 or the ''Desktop menu'', accessible by right-clicking. Or, sometimes, by middle-button-clicking. Extending Openbox with other small programs that add icons,

taskbar The taskbar is a graphical user interface element that has been part of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95, displaying and facilitating switching between running computer program, programs. The taskbar and the associated Start menu, Start Menu were ...

s, launchers, eyecandy and others is common.

Configuration

There are only two configuration files, both located in . They are named and . These can either be edited manually or with the graphical configuration tools ObConf and obmenu. 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". A menu item in a piped menu system can accept the

standard output Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object t ...

of a

shell script A shell script is a computer program designed to be run by a Unix shell, a command-line interpreter. The various dialects of shell scripts are considered to be command languages. Typical operations performed by shell scripts include file manipu ...

(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. 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.

References

External links

* {{X desktop environments and window managers Free software programmed in C Free X window managers LXDE Window managers that use GTK

Using Openbox

Configuration

Pipe menus

See also

References

External links