fluxbox-apps - Man Page

~/.fluxbox/apps

Variable parameters are shown in emphasis: argument

All other characters shown are required verbatim. Whitespace is only required to delimit words, but it is fine to add more whitespace.

It is possible to force an application to always have the same dimensions, position, and other settings when it is first launched. These settings are saved in the ‘apps’ file.

Most simple settings can be saved using the “Remember...” submenu of the window menu, which can usually be opened with a right-click on the titlebar. More advanced features require manually editing the ‘apps’ file. This may include using Group Sections to set up automatic window tab groups.

You do not need to “reload” fluxbox after editing the apps file, the changes should be rescanned when the next window is opened.

The file is made up of two main types of sections, apps and groups, detailed below.

[app] sections provide settings for individual application windows.

These sections begin with a line of the format

The pattern can be one or more patterns which match windows. For more details, see Client Patterns. If you specify more than one pattern, they must ALL match for the settings to be applied.

The {count} is optional. If specified, then the entry will only match at most that many windows at any time. If omitted, the default is to apply the settings to all matching windows.

This opening [apps] line is followed by any number of settings for the application. See Settings for more details.

Each of these sections ends with the single line

The primary purpose of [group] sections is to group windows together. All windows in a group will be tabbed together automatically.

These sections begin with a line of the format

Where the pattern item is optional. If specified, this pattern must match for the group to take effect. It is common to use non-window-specific patterns such as (workspace) here. See Client Patterns for more details.

This is followed by any number of [app] lines. These have a similar format to the [app] section detailed above in App Sections, but do not contain any settings and do not have an associated [end] line.

Like this

This section may also contain settings that are applied to every window in the group. See the Settings section for details.

As with [app] sections, each of these sections ends with the single line

These settings may be stored in the ‘apps’ file. A settings line must appear inside either an [app] or [group] section.

The general format is

All allowed values are described below, except for bool which can simply have the value yes or no, which enables or disables the associated setting, respectively.

[Workspace] {number}

Forces the application to open on the number workspace specified. Workspaces are set by number, beginning with 0.

[Jump] {bool}

Changes the active workspace to the remembered one when the application is opened. This is only useful when used in conjunction with [Workspace]. See Examples.

[Head] {number}

Forces the application to open on the number head specified (Xinerama only).

[Layer] {number}

Specify the layer to open the window on (by number). Each layer has a number. The named ones are: 2-AboveDock, 4-Dock, 6-Top, 8-Normal, 10-Bottom, 12-Desktop.

[Dimensions] {width[%] height[%]}

Opens the application with the specified width and height, in pixels. If the value is given in percent, then the window size will be based on the current screen’s size.

[Position] (anchor) {X[%] Y[%]}

Position the application at a particular spot. By default the upper-left corner is placed at screen coordinates (X,Y). If you specify an anchor, say BottomRight, then the lower-right corner of the window is positioned (X,Y) pixels from the lower-right corner of the screen. If the value is given in percent, then the coordinates will be based on the current screen’s size.

anchor may be set to one of:

TopLeft Left BottomLeft Top Center Bottom TopRight Right BottomRight

[Deco] {value}

Specify the decoration state. There are several predefined value sets:

NORMAL

Standard decorations

NONE

No decorations

BORDER

Like NONE except keep the X window border

TAB

Like BORDER except keep external tabs (if enabled)

TINY

Titlebar with only an iconify button

TOOL

Titlebar only

The value may also be a bitmask for finer-grained control. The bits are, from (1<<0) to (1<<10): Titlebar, Handle/Grips, Border, Iconify Button, Maximize Button, Close Button, Menu Button, Sticky Button, Shade Button, External Tabs, Focus Enabled.

[Shaded] {bool}

Whether the window is Shaded (rolled-up) or not.

[Tab] {bool}

Whether the window has tabs enabled.

[FocusNewWindow] {bool}

If enabled, a new window will grab X focus as soon as it is opened. If disabled, a new window will not grab X focus as soon as it is opened.

[FocusHidden] {bool}

If enabled, the window will not appear in NextWindow/PrevWindow lists.

[IconHidden] {bool}

If enabled, the window will not appear in the icon area of the toolbar.

[Hidden] {bool}

A shortcut for setting both FocusHidden and IconHidden at the same time.

[Sticky] {bool}

Specify if an application should be sticky (shown on all workspaces) or not.

[Minimized] {bool}

Application should start minimized

[Maximized] {value}

Application should start maximized. value may be:

yes

Fully maximized

horz

Horizontally maximized

vert

Vertically maximized

no

Not maximized

[Fullscreen] {bool}

Application should start in fullscreen mode (fully maximized without any decorations).

[Close] {bool}

Save settings on close. By default, application settings are not updated when a window is closed.

[Alpha] {value [value]}

Set the alpha value for this window. If two values are given, they correspond to the focused and unfocused transparency, respectively. One number only will be used for both values. value is an integer between 0 and 255.

A pattern looks like this

Match definitions are enclosed in parentheses (...), and if no propertyname is given then Name is assumed. The regexp can contain any regular expression, or the special value [current], which matches the corresponding value of the currently focused window. See regex(7) for more information on acceptable regular expressions.

propertyname is not case sensitive, whereas the regexp is.

If you specify multiple (pattern) arguments, this implies an AND condition - All specified patterns must match.

You can use = to test for equality or != to test for inequality.

The following values are accepted for propertyname

Name

A string, corresponding to the CLASSNAME property (The first field of WM_CLASS from the output of the xprop(1) utility).

Class

A string, corresponding to the CLASSCLASS property (The second field of WM_CLASS from the output of the xprop(1) utility).

Title

A string, corresponding to the window title (WM_NAME from xprop(1)).

Role

A string, corresponding to the ROLE property (WM_WINDOW_ROLE from xprop(1)).

Transient

Either yes or no, depending on whether the window is transient (typically, a popup dialog) or not.

Maximized

Either yes or no, depending on whether the window is maximized or not.

MaximizedHorizontal

Either yes or no, depending on whether the window is maximized horizontally or not.

MaximizedVertical

Either yes or no, depending on whether the window is maximized vertically or not.

Minimized

Either yes or no, depending on whether the window is minimized (iconified) or not.

Fullscreen

Either yes or no, depending on whether the window is fullscreen or not.

Shaded

Either yes or no, depending on whether the window is shaded or not.

Stuck

Either yes or no, depending on whether the window is sticky (on all workspaces) or not.

FocusHidden

Either yes or no, depending on whether the window has asked to be left off the focus list (or, the alt-tab list), or not.

IconHidden

Either yes or no, depending on whether the window has asked to be left off the icon list (or, the taskbar), or not.

Urgent

Either yes or no, depending on whether the window has the urgent hint set.

Workspace

A number corresponding to the workspace number to which the window is attached. The first workspace here is 0. You may also use [current] to match the currently visible workspace.

WorkspaceName

A string corresponding to the name of the workspace to which the window is attached.

Head

The number of the display head to which the window is attached. You may match this against the special value [mouse] which refers to the head where the mouse pointer currently resides.

Layer

The string name of the window’s layer, which is one of AboveDock, Dock, Top, Normal, Bottom, Desktop

Screen

The number of the currently used screen. If the setup of the running xserver involves independent screens (not Xinerama), the $DISPLAY environment contains something like :0.1 or :1.0. The part after the dot (.) is the number of the screen.

@XPROP

A string, corresponding to any xproperty (Use either the xprop(1) utility or the SetXProp command to set a xproperty to a window)

Matches any windows with the CLASSNAME of "xterm".

(xterm)

Matches any windows with the same CLASSNAME as the currently focused window.

(Name=[current])

Matches any windows on the same head as the mouse but on a different layer than the currently focused window.

(Head=[mouse]) (Layer!=[current])

Matches any windows having a xproperty named FOO with "bar" in it.

(@FOO=.*bar.*)

~/.fluxbox/apps

This is the default location for the application settings.

session.appsFile: location

Here are some interesting and/or useful examples you can do with your apps file.

# Put the first two windows which end with 'term' on workspace 1
[app] (name=.*[tT]erm) {2}
  [Workspace]   {1}
[end]

# Center kate with a specific size, and update these values when the window is
# closed.
[app] (name=kate)
  [Dimensions]  {1022 747}
  [Position]    (CENTER) {0 0}
  [Close]       {yes}
[end]

# When starting konqueror, jump to workspace 1 first and start it there.
[app] (name=konqueror)
  [Workspace]   {1}
  [Jump]        {yes}
[end]

# start all aterm without decorations
[app] (name=aterm)
  [Deco]        {NONE}
[end]

# a group with the gimp dock and toolbox
# appears on layer 4 (bottom)
[group]
  [app] (name=gimp) (role=gimp-dock)
  [app] (name=gimp) (role=gimp-toolbox)
  [Layer]       {4}
[end]

• 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)

fluxbox(1) xprop(1) regex(7)

Jim Ramsay <i.am@jimramsay.com>

fluxbox(1), fluxbox-keys(5), fluxbox-menu(5).