Navigate fluxbox menus with keyboard?


Forum: User Feedback
Topic: Navigate fluxbox menus with keyboard?
started by: teitoku

Posted by teitoku on Aug. 14 2006,06:27
How?   DSL 3.0.1.
Posted by mikshaw on Aug. 14 2006,10:51
Fluxbox 0.1.14 (stable) does not support keyboard navigation of menus.  You can get it with fluxbox_0.9.14 in the mydsl repository if desired.
Posted by _pathos on Aug. 16 2006,09:46
add a shortcut for fluxbox that brings up the run program dialog or aterm.
Posted by teitoku on Aug. 17 2006,03:33
Woah, how worthless.  Heck yeah I want it.   How do you even tell what version you're working with?  I didn't see anything that'd indicate the version.  And why are we using fluxbox from 2002?

And _pathos.......what the heck are you talking about?

Posted by cmanb on Aug. 17 2006,04:01
Quote (teitoku @ Aug. 16 2006,20:33)
Woah, how worthless.  Heck yeah I want it.   How do you even tell what version you're working with?  I didn't see anything that'd indicate the version.  And why are we using fluxbox from 2002?

And _pathos.......what the heck are you talking about?

_pathos is probably suggesting that you add a line to ~/.fluxbox/keys that looks something like
Code Sample
Control Shift z :ExecCommand aterm
so that you can execute the program you want from there instead of navigating through the menu.

And, a word to the wise, Kid.  Try adopting a bit of a more appreciative tone to those who are taking the time to answer your questions.

Posted by Del on Aug. 17 2006,04:10
And don't call me Shirley!
Posted by cmanb on Aug. 17 2006,04:29
Quote (Del @ Aug. 16 2006,21:10)
And don't call me Shirley!

Do we have clearance, Clarence?
Roger, Roger.
What's our vector, Victor?

Posted by mikshaw on Aug. 17 2006,04:31
Quote (teitoku @ Aug. 16 2006,23:33)
How do you even tell what version you're working with?

This command will tell you:
Code Sample
fluxbox -version


Quote
And why are we using fluxbox from 2002?

Because it's stable, it's useful, and it's much smaller than Fluxbox devel.  There are some features added to devel that i think are nearly essential to a window manager, but the stable version is still better than most other newer window managers.

The /home/dsl/.fluxbox/keys file is very useful, and simple. It sounds as though you prefer to use a keyboard, so the keys file should be of particular interest.

Posted by teitoku on Aug. 19 2006,06:37
Quote (cmanb @ Aug. 17 2006,00:01)
Quote (teitoku @ Aug. 16 2006,20:33)
Woah, how worthless.  Heck yeah I want it.   How do you even tell what version you're working with?  I didn't see anything that'd indicate the version.  And why are we using fluxbox from 2002?

And _pathos.......what the heck are you talking about?

_pathos is probably suggesting that you add a line to ~/.fluxbox/keys that looks something like
Code Sample
Control Shift z :ExecCommand aterm
so that you can execute the program you want from there instead of navigating through the menu.

And, a word to the wise, Kid.  Try adopting a bit of a more appreciative tone to those who are taking the time to answer your questions.

I'm very appreciative of those who answer my questions.   If I asked how to make a key shortcut to bring up aterm, I'd have known immediately what he was talking about and thanked him.

Mikshaw, thanks for your answers.   I still think it's odd that open source apps are being treated as closed-source and old versions being packed in instead of new ones being fitted.

I'm having a problem with the 0.9.11 version now though...in the icon bar or whatever it's called, it always shows an item called 'fluxter'.   Version 0.1.14 never did that and I'd rather 0.9.11 not do it either.   How can I do this?

Also, it maximizes over the slit and the iconbar even though I've set it not to.  I'd also like to correct that.

Posted by mikshaw on Aug. 19 2006,14:30
Quote
I still think it's odd that open source apps are being treated as closed-source and old versions being packed in instead of new ones being fitted
I'm not sure what you mean about open source being treated as closed.  Any apps released under GPL or GPL-compatible license are, and always will be, open source.  The application can be distributed in binary form (as is done with practically every linux distro), but the source does not need to be included unless an additional license specifies that it does need to be included.  The distributor simply needs to provide the source, or make known a location of the source, if it is requested.
Older versions of some applications are used in DSL because of the basic fact that all software suffers from bloat over the course of its development.  At some point an application reaches a point where one must decide whether its useability balances or outweighs the increased size and memory use. In the case of Fluxbox, the stable version (0.1.14) provides a window manager that does what a window manager should do (manage windows), while giving the user a decent amount of easy-to-use features as an added bonus.  It does this while remaining small, fast, and stable.  The extensible nature of DSL allows to user to easily add a window manager of his choice, so there is really little reason to use the newer, bigger, slower version.  Doing so would require removing something else from the distro (50mb limit).

Quote
in the icon bar or whatever it's called, it always shows an item called 'fluxter'
The iconbar in 0.1.14 displays only the focused application (by default, anyway).  If you have any other apps opened you won't see it.  Fluxbox devel displays all windows in the iconbar.  You can modify this using the apps file (needs to be created).  The entry for fluxter would look something like this:
Code Sample
[app] (fluxter)
 [IconHidden]  {yes}
[end]


Quote
Also, it maximizes over the slit and the iconbar even though I've set it not to.
Not sure what you did to set this, but there are a few init settings that affect this.
session.screen0.toolbar.maxOver:        false
session.screen0.fullMaximization:       false
session.screen0.maxOverSlit:    false

Some changes to init might require you to force the config reload

If you speak of true fullscreen windows (through openGL, SDL, etc, such as games), I'm not sure if fluxbox can prevent this.

Posted by teitoku on Aug. 19 2006,18:04
What I meant is that since we've all got access to the source, there shouldn't be any need to compromise between features and size.  Firefox, for example.  People don't use firefox 0.8.6, they use a new version but tweak the source out so it's faster.   And how much of a size difference is there between the two fluxbox versions here anyways?  Oh well, I got that working so that's alright I guess.

Thanks for the iconbar tip, that's what I needed.

And the maximization...that's exactly what I meant.  I set those in the init file, and I don't have any 'true fullscreen' apps that'd use SDL or anything.  Just text editors, browsers, normal windowed apps.   I set those exact settings, I've rebooted (and that's worthy of a new topic in itself), and they still take the entire screen space when I maximize.

Posted by mikshaw on Aug. 19 2006,21:05
I might have one or both of those "maxover" resources wrong....i can't remember if "toolbar.maxOver" means that the toolbar will be over maximized windows, or that maximized windows will be over the toolbar.  I'm in a different window manager right now, so I don't want to bother testing it until I'm done here =o)

You might also try "session.screen0.toolbar.onTop: true" and "session.screen0.slit.onTop: true".  Reboot is not needed, by the way.  You don't even need to restart fluxbox or X.  Just reload the configuration (that option should be under the "Desktop" menu).

As far as firefox goes, I for one use the 1.0.6 version that comes with DSL.  I have no interest in installing *.dsl extensions, particularly gtk2.  Also, DSL has very little in the way of C/C++ development tools, so messing with sources isn't really something I want to bother with either.  I've got two other fatter distros in which I do that =o).  It's still open source, though, and if you want to do the work required to make DSL a flexible development system that option is available.

The devel version of Fluxbox is just a little under twice the size of fluxbox 0.1.14.  There are many sweet additions under the hood, but there is also a lot of what I'd consider useless bulk...pixmap themeing, additional "helper" apps (one of which is now a requirement), for example.  that's just one opinion, of course.

Posted by teitoku on Aug. 20 2006,03:18
You misunderstood what I wrote about firefox...
And I know I don't need to even restart X, but I was just saying that crappiness persists even across reboots, the big daddy of "use those new settings I gave you"s.

Posted by teitoku on Aug. 21 2006,18:14
Well, I've got fluxbox 0.9.11 from MyDSL and set it to run just as the info file said.   And it doesn't read my keys file at all.   How do I make fluxbox work?
Posted by mikshaw on Aug. 21 2006,22:07
The 0.9.11 extension uses its own config directory by default (/home/dsl/.fluxbox_0.9.11). This was done to ensure that the extension would not interfere with the included version of Fluxbox.
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