#1 2019-06-21 22:09:29

stevecook172001

New Member

Registered: 2019-06-21

Posts: 4

Mate-like menu using only openbox menu system

I really like Openbox. But, my other favourite distro is Mate. Largely only for the main menu system and that stems form my days with gnome 2

Over the last couple of days, I have been messing with VMs and, in particular, an xfce distro (Ubuntu Studio) and have managed to use Openbox to implement a gnome-like menu system. But, once I did it, I realized this could just be done with vanilla Openbox and thought you guys might like the idea if you have not already thought about it yourself. I know that some Openbox OS's use the xdotool app to pin the standard Openbox menu to the tint2 panel. But, this is a bit of an extension on that trick

So, given this was an XFCE installation, I additionally installed the following:

openbox
obconf
lxappearance
obmenu
pcmanfm
compton
xdotool

I then logged out and back in on an Openbox session. Then, in the Openbox autostart file, I set it to run xfce4 panel, pcmanfm to run the desktop and compton compositor to run the compositing.

Then, I figured out a way to set up three different openbox menus that would swap with one another when I pressed a different launcher on the top (xfce4) panel. This way, I was able to have three openbox menus: "applications, "places" and "system". Each of them is independently editable with Obmenu.

I'll not go into any more technical details for now (though, I have put enough in the video that the more technically able of you will see what I have done). But will just show a video of it in action. If anyone shows any interest, I will do another video explaining precisely how to implement it.

Obviously, you don't need the XFCE4 panel to implement this. You could just as easily do it with the tint2 panel. Though, if I remember correctly, you would just have icons for the menus on the Tint2 panel instead of being able to have full word menu headers like I have with the XFCE panel. And finally, of course, you don't need to have pcmanfm running the desktop.

In fact, thinking about it, you don't even need panels to implement this. You could just use different key bindings to bring up different Openbox menus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PkHmU4 … e=youtu.be

Last edited by stevecook172001 (2019-06-21 22:22:40)

johnraff

nullglob

From: Nagoya, Japan

Registered: 2015-09-09

Posts: 12,652

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Re: Mate-like menu using only openbox menu system

Hi stevecook172001 thanks for this. It's great to see people finding new ways to configure openbox.
And welcome to the community!

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malm

jgmenu developer

Registered: 2016-10-13

Posts: 735

Website

Re: Mate-like menu using only openbox menu system

Hi and welcome

This one is close to my area of interest

tint2 can use text or icons for button/exec items

tint2 also provides the co-ordinates to align menus.

@nwg at ArchLabs has created something similar that you might want to have a look at.

stevecook172001

New Member

Registered: 2019-06-21

Posts: 4

Re: Mate-like menu using only openbox menu system

Please could you explain how I can have a launcher on tint2 panel show text instead of an icon. I didn't know it could do that and I have just been looking at the conf and can't figure out how it is done

damo

....moderator....

Registered: 2015-08-20

Posts: 6,734

Re: Mate-like menu using only openbox menu system

Please could you explain how I can have a launcher on tint2 panel show text instead of an icon. I didn't know it could do that and I have just been looking at the conf and can't figure out how it is done

You can use an executor instead of a launcher, and set it to a keybind to launch a script

execp_command = echo "your text here"
execp_lclick_command = <your keybind>

EDIT--- or create an icon with text and set that in the .desktop file

Last edited by damo (2019-06-22 18:57:56)

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malm

jgmenu developer

Registered: 2016-10-13

Posts: 735

Website

Re: Mate-like menu using only openbox menu system

@stevecook172001

I would use the tint2 button plugin if I were you (near bottom of man page). It was designed for this very purpose.

In your tint2rc

• add P to panel_items

• add a new button section

Example to launch terminal:

button = new
button_text = terminal
...
button_lclick_command = terminator

Restart tint2 with

killall -SIGUSR2 tint2

If you then start a terminal from your new button, and run

set | grep TINT

you'll get something like

TINT2_BUTTON_ALIGNED_X=0
TINT2_BUTTON_ALIGNED_X1=0
TINT2_BUTTON_ALIGNED_X2=31
TINT2_BUTTON_ALIGNED_Y=566
TINT2_BUTTON_ALIGNED_Y1=566
TINT2_BUTTON_ALIGNED_Y2=566
TINT2_BUTTON_H=33
TINT2_BUTTON_PANEL_X1=0
TINT2_BUTTON_PANEL_X2=1024
TINT2_BUTTON_PANEL_Y1=566
TINT2_BUTTON_PANEL_Y2=566
TINT2_BUTTON_W=29
TINT2_BUTTON_X=19
TINT2_BUTTON_Y=14

This is a good starting point for launching a menu.

ohnonot

...again

Registered: 2015-09-29

Posts: 5,592

Re: Mate-like menu using only openbox menu system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PkHmU4 … e=youtu.be

Looking at your scripts, I would like to point out that copying over teh main menu.xml and reconfiguring openbox is a very clunky hack; esp. since openbox already has an inbuilt capacity to serve several different menus.

stevecook172001

New Member

Registered: 2019-06-21

Posts: 4

Re: Mate-like menu using only openbox menu system

Hi there.

I am sure it is clunky hack. haha. I am no expert. But, I do have an active imagination which usually allows me to messily hack my way to solutions one way or another...:). On the other hand, at least form the user end, it runs smoothly enough with no discernible delay or glitches

In the end, I followed someone else's advice on here and used executors and they have worked out well with regards to having the menus display as text as opposed to merely icons.

Having said all of the above, if you know the formal Openbox method of serving up multiple menus, I would be very grateful if you could explain how to implement that to me.

(Ah.. no.. scratch that, I see you have provided a link. Thanks for that.)

In any event, here is a video of my newer version, based on vanilla Debian

https://youtu.be/hrrUgGMMk2A

Last edited by stevecook172001 (2019-06-24 21:23:10)