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# Openbox Themes and Apps

From ArchWiki
Note: This article is a supplement to the main Openbox article.

This wiki article deals with customizing the appearance of Openbox in Arch Linux. Helper programs such as panels and trays are also explained.

## Themes and appearance

With the exception of the Openbox Themes topic, the following section is intended for users who have configured Openbox to run as a standalone desktop, without the assistance of GNOME, KDE or Xfce.

### Openbox themes

Openbox themes control the appearance of window borders, including the titlebar and titlebar buttons. They also determine the appearance of the application menu and on-screen display (OSD).

Some themes are available for installation with the openbox-themes package in the official repositories.

This package is by no means definitive. You can download more themes at websites such as:

- www.box-look.org
- www.customize.org
- www.minuslab.net
- celo.wordpress.com
- vault.openmonkey.com

Downloaded themes should be extracted to `~/.themes` or `~/.local/share/themes` and selected from obconf or lxappearance-obconf. Theme selection can also be done manually by opening `rc.xml` and changing the <name> key in the <theme> section.

Creating new themes is fairly easy and well-documented. For those who prefer a GUI, obtheme is a very capable editor.

### X11 mouse cursors

See Cursor Themes.

### GTK themes

See GTK+#Themes.

### Desktop icons

Openbox does not provide a means to display icons on the desktop. To provide this function, one can use:

- Xfdesktop — The desktop manager for Xfce.

  http://docs.xfce.org/xfce/xfdesktop/start || xfdesktop

- PCManFM — An extremely fast and lightweight file manager used by the LXDE desktop.

  http://pcmanfm.sourceforge.net/ || pcmanfm

- ROX — A small and fast file manager which can optionally manage the desktop background and panels, part of the ROX Desktop.

  http://roscidus.com/desktop/ || rox

- IDesk — A simple tool that gives users of minimal wm's (Fluxbox, pekwm, Window Maker, Openbox, etc) icons on their desktop.

  http://idesk.sourceforge.net/html/index.html || idesk

- Nautilus — The file manager of the GNOME desktop.

  https://live.gnome.org/Nautilus || nautilus

- Spacefm — A GTK multi-panel tabbed file manager.

  http://ignorantguru.github.com/spacefm/ || spacefm

### Desktop wallpaper

Openbox itself does not include a way to change the wallpaper. This can be done easily with programs like Feh or Nitrogen. Other options include imagemagick, hsetroot, xsetbg and more advanced choices such as PCmanFM or Xfdesktop.

You can disable the wallpaper loading in gnome-settings-daemon like this:

    $ gconftool-2 --set /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/plugins/background/active --type bool False

In Gnome 3 use:

    $ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background draw-background false

One approach, using `hsetroot` is possible by placing the following command in `autostart`:

    hsetroot -fill /path/to/image.file

A similar command for `feh` is:

    feh --bg-scale /path/to/image.file

## Recommended programs

Note: The main Openbox article has information on installing Openbox, but this additional section details specific lightweight applications you may want to deploy after installing Openbox.

For a more complete choice of applications available on Arch, look at the List of Applications. You can also look at the list recommended on the Openbox wiki, although most overlap with the following suggestions.

### Display managers

See the main article: Display Manager.

- SLiM (Simple Login Manager) — A lightweight and elegant graphical login solution.

  http://slim.berlios.de/ || slim

- Qingy — An ultralight and very configurable graphical login independent on X Windows (uses DirectFB). It supports login to either a text console or an X session.

  http://qingy.sourceforge.net/ || qingy

### Desktop compositing

- Cairo Composite Manager — A versatile and extensible composite manager which uses Cairo for rendering.

  http://cairo-compmgr.tuxfamily.org/ || cairo-compmgr-git

- Compton — A fork of Xcompmgr containing many fixes.

  https://github.com/chjj/compton || compton-git

- Xcompmgr — A lightweight composite manager capable of rendering drop shadows, fading and simple window transparency within Openbox and other window managers.

  http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/app/xcompmgr/ || xcompmgr xcompmgr-dana xcompmgr_tint2-git

### Desktop utilities

A number of utilities provide panels / taskbars, system trays, or pagers to Openbox:

#### Panels

See the list of taskbars.

You may also find useful:

- Screenlets — A widget framework that consists of small owner-drawn applications (weather widget, clocks, system monitors, mail checkers, etc.).

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenlets || screenlets

#### Trays

- Stalonetray — A stand-alone system tray with minimal dependecies.

  http://stalonetray.sourceforge.net/ || stalonetray

- Trayer — A lightweight GTK2-based systray.

  https://gna.org/projects/fvwm-crystal/ || trayer

#### Pagers

- IPager — A configurable pager with transparency, originally developed for Fluxbox.

  http://useperl.ru/ipager/index.en.html || ipager

- Neap — An non-intrusive and light pager that runs in the notification area of your panel.

  http://code.google.com/p/neap/ || neap

- Netwmpager — A NetWM/EWMH compatible pager.

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/sf-xpaint/files/netwmpager/ || netwmpager

- Pager — A highly configurable pager compatible with Openbox Multihead.

  https://github.com/BurntSushi/pager-multihead || pager-multihead-git

If you wish to set desktop layout without using a pager, try the obsetlayout package from AUR.

### File managers

For more examples see: List of Applications#File managers.

Three popular lightweight file managers are:

- PCManFM — An extremely fast and lightweight file manager used by the LXDE desktop.

  http://pcmanfm.sourceforge.net/ || pcmanfm

- ROX — A small and fast file manager which can optionally manage the desktop background and panels, part of the ROX Desktop.

  http://roscidus.com/desktop/ || rox

- Thunar — The file manager of the Xfce Desktop with many plugins and features.

  http://thunar.xfce.org/ || thunar

For even lighter options, consider:

- Gentoo — A lightweight file manager for GTK.

  http://www.obsession.se/gentoo/ || gentoo

- emelFM2 — A file manager that implements the popular two-pane design.

  http://emelfm2.net/ || emelfm2

- Xfe — A Microsoft Explorer-like file manager for X (X File Explorer).

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/xfe/ || xfe

- muCommander — A lightweight, cross-platform file manager with a dual-pane interface written in Java.

  http://www.mucommander.com/ || mucommander

Alternatively, you may use GNOME's Nautilus as your file manager. It is heavier and slower than the previous solutions, but Nautilus has many helpful features such as virtual file systems, allowing folder access via SSH, FTP, or Samba.

### Application launchers

For more examples see: List of Applications#Application Launchers.

- gmrun — A lightweight GTK based application launcher, with ability to run programs inside a terminal and other handy features. To enable `Alt+F2` functionality add the following to the <keyboard> section:

    ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml

    <keybind key="A-F2">
        <action name="execute"><execute>gmrun</execute></action>
    </keybind>

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/gmrun/ || gmrun

- dmenu — A fast and lightweight dynamic menu for X, which is also useful as an application launcher. To enable `Alt+F2` functionality add the following to the <keyboard> section:

    ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml

    <keybind key="A-F2">
        <action name="execute"><execute>dmenu_run</execute></action>
    </keybind>

  http://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/ || dmenu

- Bashrun2 — Provides a different, barebones approach to a run dialog, using a specialized Bash session within a small xterm window. To enable `Alt+F2` functionality add the following to the <keyboard> section:

    ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml

    <keybind key="A-F2">
        <action name="execute"><execute>bashrun2</execute></action>
    </keybind>

To make Bashrun2 act more like a traditional run dialog add the following to the <applications> section:

    ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml

    <application name="bashrun2-run-dialog">
        <desktop>all</desktop>
        <decor>no</decor>  # switch to yes if you prefer a bordered window
        <focus>yes</focus>
        <skip_pager>yes</skip_pager>
        <layer>above</layer>
    </application>

  https://code.google.com/p/bashrun2/ || bashrun2

- Kupfer — A launcher inspired by Quicksilver, written in Python. To enable `Alt+F2` functionality add the following to the <keyboard> section:

    ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml

    <keybind key="A-F2">
        <action name="execute"><execute>kupfer</execute></action>
    </keybind>

  http://engla.github.com/kupfer/ || kupfer

- Launchy — A less minimalistic approach; it is skinnable and offers more functionality such as a calculator, checking the weather, etc. It is launched with the `Ctrl+Space` key combination.

  http://www.launchy.net/ || launchy

- LXPanel — A lightweight X11 desktop panel and part of the LXDE DE. The run dialog can be executed with:

    $ lxpanelctl run

  http://lxde.org/ || lxpanel

- GNOME Panel — The default Gnome panel. The run dialog of the GNOME Panel can be executed with:

    $ gnome-panel-control --run-dialog

  https://live.gnome.org/GnomePanel || gnome-panel

### Clipboard managers

For more examples see: List of Applications#Clipboard managers.

You may wish to install a clipboard manager for a richer copy/paste experience. The following are the more lightweight options:

- Clipman — A clipboard manager for Xfce. It keeps the clipboard contents around while it is usually lost when you close an application. It is able to handle text and images, and has a feature to execute actions on specific text selections by matching them against regular expressions.

  http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/panel-plugins/xfce4-clipman-plugin || xfce4-clipman-plugin

- Glipper — A clipboard manager for GNOME with more features and plugin support.

  https://launchpad.net/glipper || glipper

- Parcellite — A lightweight yet feature-rich clipboard manager.

  http://parcellite.sourceforge.net/ || parcellite

- ClipIt — A fork of Parcellite with additional features and bugfixes.

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/gtkclipit/ || clipit

Make sure you add your chosen clipboard manager to `~/.config/openbox/autostart`.

### Volume managers

- GVolWheel — An audio mixer which lets you control the volume through a tray icon.

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/gvolwheel/ || gvolwheel

- GVTray — A master volume mixer for the system tray.

  http://code.google.com/p/gtk-tray-utils/ || gvtray

- PNMixer — A fork of Obmixer. It has many new features such as ALSA channel selection, connect/disconnect detection, shortcuts, etc.

  https://github.com/nicklan/pnmixer/wiki || pnmixer

- Volti — A GTK application for controlling audio volume from system tray with an internal mixer and support for multimedia keys that uses only ALSA.

  http://code.google.com/p/volti/ || volti

- VolumeIcon — Another volume control for your system tray with channel selection, themes and an external mixer.

  http://softwarebakery.com/maato/volumeicon.html || volumeicon

- VolWheel — A little application which lets you control the sound volume easily through a tray icon you can scroll on.

  http://oliwer.net/b/volwheel.html || volwheel

### Battery and CPU

For more examples see: List of Applications#System Monitoring.

- Trayfreq — A light battery monitor and a CPU frequency scaler.

  http://trayfreq.sourceforge.net || trayfreq

### Keyboard layout switchers

- fbxkb — A NETWM compliant keyboard indicator and switcher. It shows a flag of current keyboard in a systray area and allows you to switch to another one.

  http://fbxkb.sourceforge.net/ || fbxkb

- xxkb — A lightweight keyboard layout indicator and switcher.

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/xxkb/ || xxkb

- qxkb — A keyboard switcher written in Qt.

  http://code.google.com/p/qxkb/ || qxkb

- X Neural Switcher — A text analyser, it detects the language of the input and corrects the keyboard layout if needed.

  http://www.xneur.ru/ || xneur, gxneur (GUI)

### Logout dialog

A few simple shutdown managers are available:

- exitx — A logout dialog for Openbox that uses Sudo.

  http://www.linuxsir.com/bbs/lastpostinthread350740.html || exitx

- exitx-polkit — A GTK logout dialog for Openbox with PolicyKit support.

  https://github.com/z0id/exitx-polkit || exitx-polkit-git

- exitx-systemd — A GTK logout dialog for Openbox with systemd support.

  https://github.com/z0id/exitx-systemd || exitx-systemd-git

- obshutdown — A great GTK/Cairo based shutdown manager for Openbox and other window managers.

  https://github.com/panjandrum/obshutdown || obshutdown

Alternatively, you can also use Openbox's menus to create a simple dialog. Which can also be binded to a key for easy access.

An example with `exit-menu` as the id and `Exit` as the label in a local `systemd-logind` user session:

    <menu id="exit-menu" label="Exit">
    	<item label="Log Out">
    		<action name="Execute">
    			<command>openbox --exit</command>
    		</action>
    	</item>
    	<item label="Shutdown">
    		<action name="Execute">
    			<command>systemctl poweroff</command>
    		</action>
    	</item>
    	<item label="Restart">
    		<action name="Execute">
    		        <command>systemctl reboot</command>
    		</action>
    	</item>
    	<item label="Suspend">
    		<action name="Execute">
    		        <command>systemctl suspend</command>
    		</action>
    	</item>
    	<item label="Hibernate">
    		<action name="Execute">
    		        <command>systemctl hibernate</command>
    		</action>
    	</item>
    </menu>

Add this to your `~/.config/openbox/menu.xml`, then later in your menu or pipemenu of choice add:

    <menu id="exit-menu"/>

If you would like to bind this to a key, simply add this example keybind to the <keyboard> section:

    ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml

    <keybind key="XF86PowerOff">
      <action name="ShowMenu">
          <menu>exit-menu</menu>
      </action>
    </keybind>

This will bind it to your power button, if you prefer otherwise change XF86PowerOff to your preferred key.

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