fluxbox - Man Page

fluxbox [-rc rcfile] [-no-slit] [-no-toolbar] [-log logfile] [-display display] [-screen all|scr,scr...] [-verbose] [-sync]

fluxbox [-v | -version] | [-h | -help] | [-i | -info] | [-list-commands]

fluxbox(1) is a window manager. As such it provides configurable window decorations, a root menu to launch applications and a toolbar that shows the current workspace name, a set of application names and the current time. There is also a workspace menu to add or remove workspaces.

Fluxbox can iconify (or minimize) windows to the toolbar One click and they reappear. A double-click on the titlebar of the window will shade it; i.e. the window will disappear, and only the titlebar will remain visible.

There are also two areas commonly used by small applets: the ‘slit’ can be used to dock small applications; e.g. most of the “bbtools” and “Window Maker dockapps” can use the slit, and the ‘systray’ which lives in the toolbar supports standard system tray icons provided by some applications.

Fluxbox uses its own graphics class to render its images on the fly. By using style files, you can determine in great detail how your desktop looks. fluxbox styles are compatible with those of Blackbox 0.65 or earlier versions, so users migrating can still use their current favourite themes.

Most of the default keyboard and mouse button actions mentioned in this manual can be changed and configured in the ‘keys’ file. This powerful configuration file can also be used to automate almost any action you may want to perform, from launching applications to moving windows around the screen. See fluxbox-keys(5) for details.

Fluxbox can also remember certain attributes of individual application windows and restore these settings the next time the window opens. See the fluxbox-apps(5) for details.

Fluxbox supports the majority of the Extended Window Manager Hints (EWMH) specification, as well as numerous other Window Hinting standards. This allows all compliant window managers to provide a common interface to standard features used by applications and desktop utilities.

-display display

Start fluxbox on the specified display. Programs started by fluxbox will share the DISPLAY environment variable also.

-h,  -help

Display command line options.

-i,  -info

Display useful information concerning the defaults and compiled-in options.

-log logfile

Starting fluxbox with this option will designate a file in which you want to log events to.

-no-slit

Do not use the container for DockApps (aka the Slit)

-no-toolbar

Do not use the toolbar

-rc rcfile

Use a different config file other than the default ~/.fluxbox/init.

-v,  -version

The version of fluxbox installed.

-screen all|scr,scr...

Run on specified screens only or all (by default).

-verbose

Print more information in process.

-sync

Synchronize with the X server for debugging.

-list-commands

Lists all available internal commands.

fluxbox(1) comes with a program called startfluxbox(1) usually located wherever you installed fluxbox. This script provides you with many options and variables that can be set when starting fluxbox. To actually call fluxbox and begin using it, you should place “exec startfluxbox” in your ~/.xinitrc as the last executed command. This is assuming that the location of fluxbox(1) and startfluxbox(1) are in your shell’s $PATH. Also note that you may need to create the ~/.xinitrc file or your setup may use ~/.xsession instead, depending on your X setup. Some X login managers like gdm(1) or kdm(1) may simply provide a “Fluxbox” session for you without having to alter any settings.

By using fluxbox -i you’ll see the defaults used by fluxbox(1). These are what fluxbox looks for upon startup. In the list of “Defaults:” you’ll see a menu file location, this is where you can provide a system-wide menu file for your users.

On exit or restart, fluxbox will save user defaults in the file ~/.fluxbox/init. Resources in this file can also be edited by hand, see the Resources section for more details. fluxbox(1) also has many tools to edit these; look through the main menu once fluxbox has started to find different ways of managing your session.

When using fluxbox for the first time, users who are more accustomed to full desktop environments such as KDE or Gnome may be a little surprised by the minimal screen content. fluxbox is designed to be fast and powerful, so it may take a bit of getting used to — however, the rewards are worthwhile.

In this section, we’ll give a quick summary of the common things. However, we recommend that you consult the referenced sections of this manual to further develop your understanding of what you can do with fluxbox.

fluxbox provides a popup menu facility that is used by a few different types of native menus.

When a menu is open, you can click on items with the mouse to activate them. Some special menu items react slightly differently depending on the mouse button you use, but normally you will want to use a left-click (button 1).

You can also use the the keyboard arrow key to navigate, or even type the first few letters of the item’s label to select it, and “enter” to activate the item.

Normally activating a menu item should close the menu. You can also right-click the title are of a menu or press “esc” to close it without activating an item.

The toolbar is a small area to display information like a clock, workspace name, a system tray or a taskbar (iconbar) that can contain the running programs. The color, look, font etc. is defined in the STYLE.

The tools in the toolbar can be enabled/disabled in the ‘init’ file with the session.screen0.toolbar.tools resource. See the Resources section for details on how to alter this value.

The possible tools are:

Clock

This will show an area to display a clock and the date according to the format specification listed in "man strtftime"

Iconbar

This is the area that contains all windows (all running applications, all minimized windows or maybe no window, all depending on the Toolbar Settings).

Systemtray

The Systemtray can hold applications that are made to use it.

WorkspaceName

This displays the name of the current workspace. Also, one is able to switch to the workspace left of the current one with a left click and to the workspace right of the current one with a right click.

PrevWorkspace

This displays an arrow that allows one to switch to the workspace left of the current one.

NextWorkspace

This displays an arrow that allows one to switch to the workspace right of the current one.

PrevWindow

This displays an arrow that switches focus to the previous visible window on the current workspace.

NextWindow

This displays an arrow that switches focus to the next visible window on the current workspace.

Other aspects of the toolbar can be configured in two ways: through the toolbar menu, which is accessible in the Configuration part of the RootMenu or with a middle click on the edge the toolbar, or by editing the init file (see the Resources section for more information about that).

The Focus Model defines how windows gain focus (i.e. become the active window, which receives keyboard and mouse events). The focus model can be changed in the configuration menu (usually located under fluxbox menu in the Root Menu.

There are two main aspects of the focus model: how windows gain focus and how tabs gain focus. Each of these has two options: focus follows mouse and click to focus. Focus follows mouse means that windows will gain focus when the mouse hovers over them. Click to focus means that windows will gain focus when the mouse clicks on them.

Thus, there are four main options when choosing a focus model. You should choose one of the first two and one of the last two. They are:

Click To Focus

Click to focus windows.

Mouse Focus

Window focus follows mouse.

ClickTabFocus

Click to focus tabs.

MouseTabFocus

Tab focus follows mouse.

There are three more settings in the “Focus Model” menu:

Focus New Windows

This section of fluxbox configuration menu lets you configure many features of tabs. Inside of it there are three main options:

Placement

You can choose where the external tabs will be positioned relative to the window. For these options to work, Tabs in Titlebar must be off.

Tabs in Titlebar

When this option is on, tabs are fixed in window titlebar and the width varies according to the amount of windows grouped.

Maximize Over

When this option is on, maximizing a window will disregard the size and location of external tabs, which means they may be pushed out of the screen entirely.

External Tab Width

This specifies in pixels the width of external tabs.

fluxbox enables you to use specialized files that contain X(1) resources to specify colors, textures, pixmaps and fonts, and thus the overall look of your window borders, menus and the toolbar.

The default installation of fluxbox provides some of these style files. See fluxbox-style(5) to accommodate the growing number of style components.

The slit is a special fluxbox window frame that can contain dockable applications, such as “bbtools” or “window maker dockapps”.

When applications are run in the slit they have no window borders of their own; instead they are framed in the slit, and they are always visible in the current workspace.

Most dockable applications use the -w option to run in the slit. For example, you could put in your ~/.fluxbox/startup:

bbmail -w &
bbpager -w &
wmdrawer &
exec fluxbox

To use the slit you must have it compiled into fluxbox. This is the default setting.

Layers affect the way that windows will overlap each other on the screen. Windows on a higher layer will always appear above those on a lower one, whether they are focused or not. Fluxbox uses 13 layers, starting from 1 (highest).

There are two ways to assign a window to a different layer. When the window is open, you may select the layer in the ‘Layer ...’ submenu of the window menu. The menu gives six choices for the layer, which fluxbox manages by name. The names are (from highest to lowest layer):

• 2 - Above Dock
• 4 - Dock
• 6 - Top
• 8 - Normal
• 10 - Bottom
• 12 - Desktop

The other way to set the layer for a window is through the ‘apps’ file. This method is described in fluxbox-apps(5).

Usually the ~/.fluxbox/init resource file is created and maintained by fluxbox itself. You can use the Configure Menu, mentioned above, to set most of these options. However, we’ll cover all of the resource options that are available to the user. If you edit this file while fluxbox is running, you must “reconfigure” to reload the resource options.

When running fluxbox in a multiple-screen environment the screen0 key can also be screen1, screen2, to customize the behavior of fluxbox on each desktop accordingly. Here are the resources that are currently available:

session.screen0.window.{focus|unfocus}.alpha: integer

These resources are available to the user to set different levels of transparency for different components of fluxbox. Each one accepts a value between 0-255, 255 being opaque and 0 being completely transparent.

Default: 255

session.screen0.{slit|toolbar}.autoHide: boolean

The autoHide resources allow the user to set the behavior of the toolbar and slit. This behavior can be that they disappear when they are not being used actively by the user, or they remain visible at all times.

Default: False

session.screen0.{slit|toolbar}.layer: layer

With these two resources, you can set the layer you want the toolbar and the slit to appear on. Please read the LAYER section for more information.

Default: Dock

session.screen0.{slit|toolbar}.placement: placement

These allow users to place the slit and toolbar where they like.

Possible options are:

BottomLeft BottomCenter BottomRight LeftBottom LeftCenter LeftTop RightBottom RightCenter RightTop TopLeft TopCenter TopRight

Slit default: RightBottom

Toolbar default: BottomCenter

session.screen0.{slit|toolbar|tabs}.maxOver: boolean

Setting these to True will allow application windows to maximize over the complete screen. Setting to False allows the slit, toolbar, and external tabs to hold their territory and will always be visible when an application is maximized.

Default: False

session.screen0.toolbar.height: integer

Set the height of the toolbar. If the value is set to 0, the style file will gain control over the toolbar height. It is possible to set a fixed height by changing this value to something greater than 0.

Default: 0

session.screen0.toolbar.visible: boolean

The user can set whether they want to have a toolbar on screen at all. Setting to False removes the toolbar from the screen.

Default: True

session.screen0.toolbar.widthPercent: integer

This resource sets the width percentage of the toolbar on the screen.

Default: 100

session.screen0.toolbar.tools: tools

This resource specifies the tools plugged into the toolbar. Read the Toolbar section in this manual for a description of each of these. They may be specified in any order, delimited by the , character. They will appear in the order given.

Possible tools:

clock iconbar nextwindow prevwindow nextworkspace prevworkspace systemtray workspacename

Default:

workspacename, prevworkspace, nextworkspace, iconbar, prevwindow, nextwindow, systemtray, clock

session.screen0.{slit|toolbar}.onhead: integer

For those that use xinerama, users can set this value to the number of the head where they would like to see the slit and toolbar, starting from 1. Setting this to 0 will ignore xinerama information.

Default: 0 for slit, 1 for toolbar

session.screen0.iconbar.mode: pattern

This determines which windows will be displayed in the iconbar. Any window pattern is acceptable. See the section CLIENT PATTERNS in either fluxbox-keys(5) or fluxbox-apps(5) for details.

Default: {static groups} (workspace)

session.screen0.iconbar.usePixmap: boolean

This is also set in the Iconbar Mode menu. When set to True, this will show the native icon of applications.

Default: True

session.screen0.iconbar.iconTextPadding: integer

This specifies the space between the window title and the edge of the button.

Default: 10

session.screen0.iconbar.alignment: position

This value should be changed in the Iconbar Mode menu.

Available options:

• Left: Fixed width, aligned left
• Relative: Width varies to fill the iconbar
• Right: Fixed width, aligned right

Default: Relative

session.screen0.iconbar.iconWidth: integer

Used to specify the iconbar button width for Left/Right alignment.

Default: 128

session.screen0.strftimeFormat: date

This adjusts the way the current time is displayed in the toolbar. The strftime(3) format is used.

Default: %k:%M

session.screen0.tabs.intitlebar: boolean

This specifies whether tabs should be embedded in the titlebar or placed outside the window.

Default: True

session.screen0.tab.placement: placement

This specifies where external tabs will appear on the window. It has the same possible values as sesion.screen0.{slit|toolbar}.placement.

Default: TopLeft

session.screen0.tab.width: integer

This specifies the width of external tabs in pixels.

Default: 64

session.screen0.focusModel: ClickToFocus|MouseFocus|StrictMouseFocus

This controls how windows gain focus via the mouse. With ‘ClickToFocus’, the user must click on the window. With ‘MouseFocus’, windows gain focus whenever the mouse moves over them, but only when the mouse is moving. With ‘StrictMouseFocus’, windows gain focus whenever the mouse enters any exposed area, even if this is due to layer changes, window movement, changing desktops, closing windows, etc.

Default: ClickToFocus

session.screen0.autoRaise: boolean

When True, this setting automatically raises any window that gains focus.

Default: True

session.autoRaiseDelay: integer

Adjusts the delay (in milli-sec) before focused windows will raise when using the Autoraise option.

Default: 250

session.screen0.clickRaises: boolean

This setting allows a user to click anywhere on a window to bring it on top of other windows. Otherwise, only the titlebar will work.

Default: True

session.screen0.workspacewarping: boolean

This setting enables a user to change workspaces by dragging a window across the edge of the screen.

Default: True

session.screen0.showwindowposition: boolean

Setting this resource to True shows the user, in a little window, the exact position of the application window while the user is dragging it. Allows a precise placement of windows on a screen.

Default: False

session.screen0.defaultDeco: string

This specifies the default window decorations, according to the same options available to the [Deco] option in the ‘apps’ file, described in fluxbox-apps(5).

Default: NORMAL

session.screen0.menuDelay: integer

This sets the delay in milliseconds for submenus to open when you hover over them or to close when you hover over another item.

Default: 200

session.screen0.focusNewWindows: boolean

This sets whether or not new windows will become focused automatically.

Default: True

session.screen0.workspaceNames: names

Here is where the user can name their workspaces, in a comma-delimited list. However it is recommended to use the tool available in the Workspace Menu to set these.

Default: Workspace 1, Workspace 2, Workspace 3, Workspace 4

session.screen0.edgeSnapThreshold: integer

When moving a window across your screen, fluxbox is able to have it ‘snap’ to the edges of the screen and other windows for easy placement. This variable tells fluxbox the distance (in pixels) at which the window will jump to the edge.

Default: 10

session.screen0.windowPlacement: strategy

This resource specifies where to place new windows when not otherwise specified (by the program or the ‘apps’ file, for example).

Available strategies:

• RowSmartPlacement: tries to place windows in rows without overlapping
• ColSmartPlacement: tries to place windows in columns without overlapping
• CascadePlacement: places windows below the titlebar of the previous one
• UnderMousePlacement: places new windows underneath the mouse

Default: RowSmartPlacement

session.screen0.rowPlacementDirection: LeftToRight|RightToLeft

These settings control the direction in which windows are tiled using the RowSmartPlacement and ColSmartPlacement strategies described above.

Default: LeftToRight

session.screen0.colPlacementDirection: TopToBottom|BottomToTop

These settings control the direction in which windows are tiled using the RowSmartPlacement and ColSmartPlacement strategies described above.

Default: TopToBottom

session.screen0.fullMaximization: boolean

If this setting is enabled, windows will maximize over the toolbar, slit, and any other window that creates a strut, no matter what their individual settings are.

Default: False

session.screen0.opaqueMove: boolean

When moving a window, setting this to True will draw the window contents as it moves (this is nasty on slow systems). If False, it will only draw an outline of the window border.

Default: True

session.screen0.workspaces: integer

Set this to the number of workspaces the users wants.

Default: 4

session.cacheLife: minutes

This tells fluxbox how long unused pixmaps may stay in the X server’s memory.

Default: 5

session.cacheMax: KbSize

This tells fluxbox how much memory it may use to store cached pixmaps on the X server. If your machine runs short of memory, you may lower this value.

Default: 200

session.colorsPerChannel: integer

This tells fluxbox how many colors to take from the X server on pseudo-color displays. A channel would be red, green, or blue. fluxbox will allocate this variable ^ 3 and make them always available. Value must be between 2-6. When you run fluxbox on an 8bpp display, you must set this resource to 4.

Default: 4

session.doubleClickInterval: integer

Adjust the delay in milliseconds between mouse clicks for fluxbox to consider a double click.

Default: 250

session.forcePseudoTransparency: boolean

If you have Xorg’s composite extension enabled, this setting will force the menu, windows, toolbar, and slit to use pseudo-transparency instead of true transparency.

Default: False

session.ignoreBorder: boolean

This configures the ability to move windows by dragging the border.

Default: False

session.tabPadding: integer

This specifies the spacing between tabs.

Default: 0

session.tabsAttachArea: Window|Titlebar

With this set to ‘Window’, windows may be grouped by dragging one tab with the middle mouse button and dropping it anywhere on another window. With ‘Titlebar’, the user must drop the tab on the target window’s titlebar.

Default: Window

session.titlebar.{left|right}: buttons

The buttons or icons to place in the titlebar of decorated windows. You may specify any number, space-delimited.

The available options are:

Close Maximize MenuIcon Minimize Shade Stick LHalf RHalf

Default left: Stick

Default right: Shade Minimize Maximize Close

LHalf and RHalf are buttons to quickly place a window into the left and right half of the current monitor.

All of the location resources following require a pathname to their specific files. This is where you can specify different files. Most of the defaults will be located in the user’s ~/.fluxbox directory.

session.appsFile: location

Location of persistent application settings, or the ‘apps’ file. See the Remember... item in the Window Menu section above or fluxbox-apps(5) for details.

session.groupFile: location

Deprecated, auto-grouping is now done in the ‘apps’ file, see fluxbox-apps(5) for details.

session.keyFile: location

Location of the keyboard mapping settings, or the ‘keys’ file. See fluxbox-keys(5) for details.

session.menuFile: location

Location of the Root Menu file. See fluxbox-menu(5) for details.

session.slitlistFile: location

Location of the file used to remember slit client ordering. See Slit above for details.

session.styleFile: location

Location of the currently selected style. See fluxbox-style(5) for details.

session.styleOverlay: location

Location of the style overlay file. See fluxbox-style(5) for details.

session.screen0.windowMenu: location

This optionally specifies the location of a user-defined window menu. If left blank, it will use ~/.fluxbox/windowmenu.

Default: blank

session.menuSearch: nowhere|itemstart|somewhere

This setting controls the way the menu search feature works.

Available options:

• nowhere: disables the menu search
• itemstart: typed text matches at the start of a menu items
• somewhere: typed text matches somewhere in a menu item

+ Default: itemstart

HOME

fluxbox uses $HOME to find the .fluxbox/init file and to resolve style file and -directory names.

DISPLAY

When no other display was given on the command line, fluxbox will start on the display specified by this variable.

fluxbox can also take advantage of other environment variables if they are set before fluxbox is started. For example, if $TERM is set, then it will be available whenever fluxbox uses the shell, such as the ‘keys’ file ExecCommand or the root menu’s [exec] tag. See fluxbox-keys(5) and fluxbox-menu(5) for details.

The ‘keys’ file also provides two commands that can alter the current environment of fluxbox: SetEnv and Export. Any changes made by these commands will also affect the environment as seen by fluxbox and all child processes started after that point. See fluxbox-keys(5) for details.

For more information about environment variables in general, see your shell’s manual.

fluxbox responds to the following signals:

• SIGUSR1 restarts fluxbox.
• SIGUSR2 Forces reloading of configuration.

fluxbox is written and maintained by Henrik Kinnunen <fluxgen at fluxbox org>, Simon Bowden <rathnor at fluxbox org>, Mathias Gumz <akira at fluxbox org>, and Mark Tiefenbruck <mark at fluxbox org>, with contributions and patches merged from many individuals around the world.

Blackbox was written and maintained by Brad Hughes <blackbox at alug org> and Jeff Raven <jraven at psu edu>.

This manpage is the combined work of:

• Jim Ramsay <i.am at jimramsay com> (>fluxbox-1.0.0)
• Curt Micol <asenchi at asenchi com> (>fluxbox-0.9.11)
• Tobias Klausmann <klausman at users sourceforge net> (⟨fluxbox-0.9.11)
• Grubert <grubert at users sourceforge net> (fluxbox)
• Matthew Hawkins <matt at mh dropbear id au> (blackbox)
• Wilbert Berendsen <wbsoft at xs4all nl> (blackbox)
• Numerous other languages could be available if someone jumps in.

The Official fluxbox website: http://www.fluxbox.org

The Official fluxbox wiki: http://www.fluxbox-wiki.org

Many compatible themes: http://tenr.de

If you find any bugs, please visit the #fluxbox irc channel on irc.freenode.net or submit them to the bug tracker at http://sf.net/projects/fluxbox . Or you may subscribe to one of the mailinglists. More information can be found on the official website.

fluxbox-apps(5) fluxbox-keys(5) fluxbox-style(5) fluxbox-menu(5) fluxbox-remote(1) fbsetroot(1) fbsetbg(1) fbrun(1) startfluxbox(1)

Henrik Kinnunen <fluxgen@fluxbox.org>

fbrun(1), fbsetbg(1), fbsetroot(1), fluxbox-apps(5), fluxbox-keys(5), fluxbox-menu(5), fluxbox-remote(1), fluxbox-style(5), startfluxbox(1), xde-menu(1).