OpenBox Config & Tools

Collection of Scripts / Configs to make openbox behave how I want it in 2017... I recently moved back to Linux from OSX on my main desktop (much faster hardware...) and am still not a fan of unity, and other heavy weight window managers. I tried several, and while a lot of the touches are nice they are either buggy or slow (or even worse a combination of the two). So I went back to my old tried and true favorite, openbox. Most of the resources I could find for configuration were quite dated or 404's. Just putting this here for quick reference.

Requirements

Currently requires the following packages (ubuntu):

• openbox
• tint2
• suckless-tools
• xcompmgr

Currently requires the following python modules:

• requests (for weather API service)
• xlib (for wall paper swapping)

Optional Stuff:

• devilspie

Configs

config/devilspie/*

Using devilspie to set transparency on windows that might not otherwise be transparent.

Scripts

ob-lock

Just locks the screen, and after a small sleep puts the monitor to sleep.

wp-switcher

Python script that is bound to all mouse/keyboard actions that swap virtual desktops. Allows a per virtual desktop background with openbox. Requires python xlib module. The script adds about two hundreths of a second to however long nitrogen (or whatever tool it's configured to use) takes to set the background. This makes for faster background swapping than any other method or tool I've tried

ob-weather (openbox pipe menu)

I know some people like weather widgets, but don't want that running all the time, so I just put it on a pipe menu, easy to get to this way and not using resources when not needed.

A python script that requires only requests python module. Metric units are not fully supported at the moment. It uses openweathermap.com for the source of data. You need to sign up and get an API key, only free functions are used. There's a cool python module for interacting with OWM, but for the operations I wanted it was a little heavy weight.

ob-cal (openbox pipe menu)

This was a text snipped I found somewhere via a google, fixed the cal output and saved it.

Key Bindings

There are several key bindings setup for managing windows/desktops with this configuration. I find it very handy to be able to manage window positions in a 4x4 grid with the Win + Arrow keys.

WIN + r  : run dmenu, a text based 'run' menu

WIN + 1  :  switch to virtual desktop 1
WIN + 2  :  switch to virtual desktop 2
WIN + 3  :  switch to virtual desktop 3

CTRL + ALT + RIGHT   :  Move to the next desktop
CTRL + ALT + LEFT    :  Move to the previous desktop
SHIFT + WIN + RIGHT  :  Move current window to the next desktop, follow + focus
SHIFT + WIN + LEFT   :  Move current window to the previous desktop, follow + focus

WIN + d          :  minimize all / show desktop
SHIFT + WIN + d  :  minimize / iconify window
CTRL + ALT + l   :  lock the desktop & sleep monitor (5 seconds before sleep)

ALT + TAB          :  switch next window
ALT + SHIFT + TAB  :  switch previous window
ALT + F4           :  close window
WIN + SPACE        :  show window menu

WIN + RIGHT  :  move current window to right half of screen, 100% height, 50% width
WIN + LEFT   :  move current window to left half of screen 100% height, 50% width
WIN + UP     :  move current window to top of screen, 50% height, width unchanged
WIN + DOWN   :  move current window to bottom half of screen, 50% height, width unchanged