[openbox] n00b questions

[Mikael Magnusson]

On Wed, 20 Apr 2005, Neil Bird wrote:

>
>  Hello all;  the sheer awful fascism that is metacity finally broke me. 
> Sawfish seems to be stagnating quite nicely, and I struggled in vain to 
> rewind myself to fvwm2.  Several abortive WM installs later, and I find 
> myself here.

Hi,

>  Very nice.
>
>  A few questions, then, from an OpenBox newbie.  I'm running 3.3rc1 on FC3.
>
>
> - I have a multi-button mouse, but mouse bindings seem to limit themselves to 
> 'Button7'.  I've happily mapped Button8 (root menu) [and can in sawfish, 
> e.g., so it's not an X issue] but nothing happens when I click it.
>
>  I've spewed debug into my OB build, and the best that I can get is that at 
> one point the button8 event tries to XGrabPointer & fails with 'already 
> grabbed'.  I've not seen this before, and it only happens with button 8 (the 
> max. I have set up).  I can't see /anything/ in the source that's 
> specifically limiting the no. of mouse buttons I can use;  any thoughts or 
> pointers?

This should work, and as ob says, something has already grabbed button 8. 
Have you tried binding it somewhere else, like on titlebars or something?

>
> - I've a no. of 'multimedia' keys on my keyboard;  everything's set up fine 
> so that they report  OK in xev, but my bindings don't seem to do anything:
>
> <keybind key="XF86HomePage">
>    <action name="Execute"><execute>firefox</execute></action>
> </keybind>
>
>  Should that work as it is?

Again, yes. Try putting the keycode in hex like this, key="0xfa" or such. 
Be sure to put the keycode, not the keysym. Xev also lists the keycode in 
decimal so you need to convert yourself.

> - I've been having minor issues with the menu-jumping feature.  It seems to 
> often leave my mouse in the wrong place, and occasionally I have to resort to 
> keyboard nav. to hit a selection (although admittedly this is usually when 
> using the ob_dirlist script I found to give dir. structure hierarchies as 
> pipe-menus).  Maybe a fvwm-like animated movement would help,

You can turn off the menu jumping and/or the mouse cursor autowarping
<menu>
   <warpPointer>no</warpPointer>
   <xorStyle>no</xorStyle>
(better name for the second one wanted)

>  On a related note, would a minor (configurable) popup delay be 
> feasible/appreciated?  I.e., sub-menus only appear 0.1/0.2 s. after the menu 
> option is highlighted, to prevent unwanted huge sub-menus appearing (again, 
> pipe-menus) when the pointer moves over them to get to the actual required 
> option?

I've actually thought about this recently, so it has a good chance of 
happening I think.

>  And more philosophical questions.  I see some recent discussion about 
> enhancing the theming abilities of OB.  Would allowing left/right borders to 
> exist break any philosophy?  Although it has to be said, I don't think I'm 
> missing them as such, except for the next thing:
>
>  I do miss the ability to limit my window resizes to just horiz/vert (as 
> usually implemented by grabbing the window edge), usually to keep text 
> windows with a fixed width.  I was wondering whether that warranted a new set 
> of actions, or might more cleanly be implemented by doing a sort of 'snapped' 
> resize if Ctrl (say) is held while resizing (snapped as in: limits window 
> resize to 90/45 degree movements from the original size).

You can bind a key+mouse to drag anywhere on the window and set 9 corner 
mode instead of four corner, and you will get what you want.
<resize>
   <fourCorner>no</fourCorner>

>  Has there been any definitive settlement as to the addition of theme 
> features (e.g., png, svg or even non-rectangular windows);  or am I going to 
> get shouted own for even mentioning them?  ;)

Most likely.

>  All in all, I'm happy to be here;  a nice piece of software!

--
Mikael Magnusson