FLUXBOX-STYLE(5) Fluxbox Manual FLUXBOX-STYLE(5)NAMEfluxbox-style - A comprehensive look at styles/themes for fluxbox(1).
SYNOPSIS
This document describes various options available for fluxbox styles.
DESCRIPTION
What is a Style?
Styles, sometimes referred to as Themes, are a graphical overlay for
the fluxbox(1) window manager. If you wanted to get to know fluxbox,
the styles would be the look of the look and feel.
Styles are simple ASCII text files that tell fluxbox(1) how to generate
the appearance of different components of the window manager. The
default installation of fluxbox(1) is shipped with many classic
examples that show a great deal of what one could do. To use one of the
standard styles navigate to the System Styles menu under your main
fluxbox(1) menu.
fluxbox(1) uses its own graphics class to render its images on the fly.
By using styles you can determine, at a great level of configurability,
what your desktop will look like. Since fluxbox(1) was derived from
blackbox many often wonder if old themes will work on the latest
releases of fluxbox(1). Well they basically do, but you will have to
tune them since the fluxbox(1) code has changed quite a bit since the
initial grab.
STRUCTURE
A style is made up of a few major components which then have their own
sub-directives. The major components are as follows:
The window.* directives control the appearance of the window frames,
window.tab.* controls the appearance of the window tabs, menu.*
controls the appearance of the popup menu that you see when you right
click on the desktop. toolbar.* is the bar you will see at the top or
bottom of your screen. Finally the slit.* has options you can use to
customize the appearance of the slit. However if you don’t set the slit
directives specifically, the slit’s appearance is controlled by the
toolbar directives instead.
To understand how the style mechanism works, it is nice to know a
little about how X11 resources work. X11 resources consist of a key and
a value. The key is constructed of several smaller keys (sometimes
referred to as children), delimited by a period (.). Keys may also
contain an asterisk (*) to serve as a wildcard, which means that one
line of text will match several keys. This is useful for styles that
are based on one or two colors.
A more complete reference to this can be found in X(7), section
RESOURCES.
LOCATION
There are many places to store your styles, the most common is in your
~/.fluxbox/styles directory. The initial installation will place the
default styles in /usr/share/fluxbox/styles providing a basic usable
configuration.
When creating your own style, create a directory (normally the name of
your style) in ~/.fluxbox/styles/ (If the styles directory doesn’t
exist, create that also). While there isn’t an official structure, it
is common to create a directory named after your style and place your
pixmaps directory (if required) in there along with a file called
theme.cfg (may also be named style.cfg). This file is where you will
construct your style using the components covered later in this manual
page. An example of steps taken when beginning a style project of your
own may look like:
$ cd
$ mkdir -p ~/.fluxbox/styles/YourStyle/pixmaps
$ cd ~/.fluxbox/styles/YourStyle
$ nano theme.cfg
Output of a packaged style should look like the following:
$ cd
$ tar -tjvf YourStyle.tar.bz2
.fluxbox/styles/YourStyle/theme.cfg
.fluxbox/styles/YourStyle/pixmaps
.fluxbox/styles/YourStyle/pixmaps/stick.xpm
...
Of course, all of these are just preferences, fluxbox(1) allows for the
customization of many things, including how you handle your styles.
Just remember, however, that if you plan to distribute your style you
may find some community bickering if you don’t follow practices. :)
CREATING YOUR STYLE
As discussed above, fluxbox(1) allows you to configure its four main
components: the toolbar, menus, slit and window decorations. Remember
that you can customize the slit with its own directives, otherwise the
slit will take the appearance of the toolbar.
Here are some quick examples to illustrate basic syntax:
toolbar.clock.color: green
This sets the color resource of the toolbar clock to green. Another
example:
menu*color: rgb:3/4/5
This sets the color resource of the menu and all of its children to
‘rgb:3/4/5’. (For a description of color names, see X(1).) So this one
also applies to menu.title.color and menu.frame.color. And with
*font: -b&h-lucida-medium-r-normal-*-*-140-*
you set the font resource for all keys to this font name all at once
(For information about the fonts installed on your system, you can use
a program like xfontsel(1), gtkfontsel, or xlsfonts(1).)
In the last example you will notice the wildcard (*) before font. In a
Fluxbox style you can set a value with a wildcard. The example means
that every font in the style will be what is specified. You can do this
with any component/value. For example if you wanted all of the text to
be one color you would do:
*textColor: rgb:3/4/5
This means that you can setup a very simple style with very few
properties. See the EXAMPLES below for an example of this in practice.
fluxbox(1) also allows you to override wildcards in your style. Lets
take our example above and add an override for the
toolbar.clock.textColor component:
*textColor: rgb:3/4/5
toolbar.clock.textColor: rgb:255/0/0
With that all of the text will be rgb:3/4/5 except the toolbar clock
text which will be rgb:255/0/0.
Now what makes fluxbox(1) so spectacular is its ability to render
textures on the fly. A texture is a fillpattern that you see on some
styles. Texture descriptions are specified directly to the key that
they should apply to, e.g.:
toolbar.clock: Raised Gradient Diagonal Bevel1
toolbar.clock.color: rgb:8/6/4
toolbar.clock.colorTo: rgb:4/3/2
Don’t worry, we will explain what these mean. A texture description
consists of up to five fields, which are as follows:
Flat | Raised | Sunken. gives the component either a flat, raised or
sunken appearance.
Gradient | Solid. tells fluxbox(1) to draw either a solid color or a
gradient texture.
Horizontal | Vertical | Diagonal | Crossdiagonal | Pipecross | Elliptic
| Rectangle | Pyramid. Select one of these texture types. They only
work when Gradient is specified.
Interlaced. tells fluxbox(1) to interlace the texture (darken every
other line). This option is most commonly used with gradiented
textures, but it also works in solid textures.
Bevel1 | Bevel2. tells fluxbox(1) which type of bevel to use. Bevel1 is
the default bevel. The shading is placed on the edge of the image.
Bevel2 is an alternative. The shading is placed one pixel in from the
edge of the image.
Instead of a texture description, also the option ParentRelative is
available, which makes the component appear as a part of its parent,
e.g. totally transparent.
Or for even more possibilities Pixmap. If pixmap texture is specified
(it might not be necessary on every occasion) the pixmap file is
specified in a separate pixmap resource.
toolbar.clock: pixmap
toolbar.clock.pixmap: clock_background.xpm
This feature might need some investigation, reports say that sometimes
the resources color and colorTo must be set and then they may not be
set.
All gradiented textures are composed of two color values: the color and
colorTo resources. When Interlaced is used in Solid mode, the colorTo
resource is used to find the interlacing color.
FONT EFFECTS
In addition to specifying the font-family and the font-weight via the
supported font-rendering-engine (eg, Xft), fluxbox(1) supports some
effects: halo and shadow. To set the shadow effect:
menu.title.font: sans-8:bold
menu.title.effect: shadow
menu.title.shadow.color: green
menu.title.shadow.x: 3
menu.title.shadow.y: 3
To set the halo effect:
menu.title.font: sans-8:bold
menu.title.effect: halo
menu.title.halo.color: green
FONT PROBLEMS
If you have problems installing fonts or getting them to work, you
should read the docs page at xfree.org. Here is a link to one of these:
http://xfree.org/4.3.0/fonts2.html#3
FULL COMPONENT LIST
Here is the exhaustive component list for fluxbox(1) styles. Each one
is listed with their type of value required. Comments in a style file
are preceded with an exclamation point (!) which we also use here so
that these can be pasted into a new theme.cfg to be customized
appropriately. Please note that in order to keep styles consistent it
is often the practice of stylists to provide all of the theme-items in
their style file even if they are not used. This allows the user the
ease of changing different components.
WINDOW OPTIONS
Many, many things you can do with window design in fluxbox(1), below
are your options. Have fun.
-----------------------------------------
window.bevelWidth: <integer>
window.borderColor: <color>
window.borderWidth: <integer>
window.button.focus: <texture type>
window.button.focus.color: <color>
window.button.focus.colorTo: <color>
window.button.focus.picColor: <color>
window.button.focus.pixmap: <filename>
window.button.pressed: <texture type>
window.button.pressed.color: <color>
window.button.pressed.colorTo: <color>
window.button.pressed.pixmap: <filename>
window.button.unfocus: <texture type>
window.button.unfocus.color: <color>
window.button.unfocus.colorTo: <color>
window.button.unfocus.picColor: <color>
window.button.unfocus.pixmap: <filename>
window.close.pixmap: <filename>
window.close.pressed.pixmap: <filename>
window.close.unfocus.pixmap: <filename>
window.font: <font>
window.frame.focusColor: <color>
window.frame.unfocusColor: <color>
window.grip.focus: <texture type>
window.grip.focus.color: <color>
window.grip.focus.colorTo: <color>
window.grip.focus.pixmap: <filename>
window.grip.unfocus: <texture type>
window.grip.unfocus.color: <color>
window.grip.unfocus.colorTo: <color>
window.grip.unfocus.pixmap: <filename>
window.handle.focus: <texture type>
window.handle.focus.color: <color>
window.handle.focus.colorTo: <color>
window.handle.focus.pixmap: <filename>
window.handle.unfocus: <texture type>
window.handle.unfocus.color: <color>
window.handle.unfocus.colorTo: <color>
window.handle.unfocus.pixmap: <filename>
window.handleWidth: <integer>
window.iconify.pixmap: <filename>
window.iconify.pressed.pixmap: <filename>
window.iconify.unfocus.pixmap: <filename>
window.justify: <{Left|Right|Center}>
window.label.active: <texture type>
window.label.active.textColor: <color>
window.label.focus: <texture type>
window.label.focus.color: <color>
window.label.focus.colorTo: <color>
window.label.focus.pixmap: <filename>
window.label.unfocus: <texture type>
window.label.unfocus.color: <color>
window.label.unfocus.colorTo: <color>
window.label.unfocus.pixmap: <filename>
window.label.focus.textColor: <color>
window.label.unfocus.textColor: <color>
window.maximize.pixmap: <filename>
window.maximize.pressed.pixmap: <filename>
window.maximize.unfocus.pixmap: <filename>
window.roundCorners: <{Top|Bottom}{Left|Right}>
window.shade.pixmap: <filename>
window.shade.pressed.pixmap: <filename>
window.shade.unfocus.pixmap: <filename>
window.stick.pixmap: <filename>
window.stick.pressed.pixmap: <filename>
window.stick.unfocus.pixmap: <filename>
window.stuck.pixmap: <filename>
window.stuck.unfocus.pixmap: <filename>
window.lhalf.pixmap: <filename>
window.lhalf.unfocus.pixmap: <filename>
window.rhalf.pixmap: <filename>
window.rhalf.unfocus.pixmap: <filename>
window.title.focus: <texture type>
window.title.focus.color: <color>
window.title.focus.colorTo: <color>
window.title.focus.pixmap: <filename>
window.title.height: <integer>
window.title.unfocus: <texture type>
window.title.unfocus.color: <color>
window.title.unfocus.colorTo: <color>
window.title.unfocus.pixmap: <filename>
-----------------------------------------
MENU OPTIONS
Everything you need to make your menu look pretty.
-----------------------------------------
menu.bevelWidth: <integer>
menu.borderColor: <color>
menu.borderWidth: <integer>
menu.bullet: <{empty|square|triangle|diamond}>
menu.bullet.position: <{left|right}>
menu.frame: <texture type>
menu.frame.color: <color>
menu.frame.colorTo: <color>
menu.frame.disableColor: <color>
menu.frame.font: <font>
menu.frame.justify: <{Left|Right|Center}>
menu.frame.pixmap: <filename>
menu.frame.textColor: <color>
menu.hilite: <texture type>
menu.hilite.color: <color>
menu.hilite.colorTo: <color>
menu.hilite.font: <font>
menu.hilite.justify: <{left|center|right}>
menu.hilite.pixmap: <filename>
menu.hilite.textColor: <color>
menu.itemHeight: <integer>
menu.title: <texture type>
menu.title.color: <color>
menu.title.colorTo: <color>
menu.title.font: <font>
menu.title.pixmap: <filename>
menu.title.textColor: <color>
menu.title.justify: <{Left|Right|Center}>
menu.titleHeight: <integer>
menu.roundCorners: <{Top|Bottom}{Left|Right}>
menu.selected.pixmap: <filename>
menu.submenu.pixmap: <filename>
menu.unselected.pixmap: <filename>
-----------------------------------------
BACKGROUND
Every style must specify the background option. If you don’t want your
style to change the user’s background, then use ‘background: none’. The
options ‘centered’, ‘aspect’, ‘tiled’, and ‘fullscreen’ require the
‘background.pixmap’ resource to contain a valid file name. The ‘random’
option requires ‘background.pixmap’ to contain a valid directory name.
For these options, fluxbox(1) will call fbsetbg(1) to set the
background. The options ‘gradient’, ‘solid’, and ‘mod’ all require
‘background.color’ to be set. ‘gradient’ and ‘mod’ both require
‘background.colorTo’. ‘mod’ requires ‘background.modX’ and
‘background.modY’ to be set as well. These options will be passed to
fbsetroot(1) to set the background. The special option ‘unset’ is for
use in user overlay files only. It specifies that fbsetbg should never
be run (by default, even when ‘none’ is set in the overlay, fluxbox
will try to run “fbsetbg -z” to restore the last wallpaper).
background: centered|aspect|tiled|fullscreen|random|solid|gradient <texture>|mod|none|unset
background.pixmap: <file or directory>
background.color: <color>
background.colorTo: <color>
background.modX: <integer>
background.modY: <integer>
SLIT
Here are all of the options for the slit.
-----------------------------------------
slit: <texture type>
slit.bevelWidth: <integer>
slit.borderColor: <color>
slit.borderWidth: <integer>
slit.color: <color>
slit.colorTo: <color>
slit.pixmap: <filename>
-----------------------------------------
TOOLBAR OPTIONS
Below you will find all of the configuration possibilities for the
toolbar. The list is pretty extensive and offers you many options to
make your toolbar look just the way you want it.
-----------------------------------------
toolbar: <texture type>
toolbar.bevelWidth: <integer (0-255)>
toolbar.borderColor: <color>
toolbar.borderWidth: <integer>
toolbar.button.scale: <integer>
toolbar.color: <color>
toolbar.colorTo: <color>
toolbar.clock: <texture type>
toolbar.clock.borderColor: <color>
toolbar.clock.borderWidth: <integer>
toolbar.clock.font: <font>
toolbar.clock.justify: <{Left|Right|Center}>
toolbar.clock.pixmap: <filename>
toolbar.clock.color: <color>
toolbar.clock.colorTo: <color>
toolbar.clock.textColor: <color>
toolbar.height: <integer>
toolbar.iconbar.focused: <texture type>
toolbar.iconbar.focused.color: <color>
toolbar.iconbar.focused.colorTo:<color>
toolbar.iconbar.focused.pixmap: <filename>
toolbar.iconbar.unfocused: <texture type>
toolbar.iconbar.unfocused.color: <color>
toolbar.iconbar.unfocused.colorTo: <color>
toolbar.iconbar.unfocused.pixmap: <filename>
toolbar.iconbar.empty: <texture type>
toolbar.iconbar.empty.color: <color>
toolbar.iconbar.empty.colorTo: <color>
toolbar.iconbar.empty.pixmap: <filename>
toolbar.iconbar.focused.borderColor: <color>
toolbar.iconbar.focused.borderWidth: <integer>
toolbar.iconbar.unfocused.borderColor: <color>
toolbar.iconbar.unfocused.borderWidth: <integer>
toolbar.iconbar.borderColor: <color>
toolbar.iconbar.borderWidth: <integer>
toolbar.iconbar.focused.font: <font>
toolbar.iconbar.focused.justify: <{Left|Right|Center}>
toolbar.iconbar.focused.textColor: <color>
toolbar.iconbar.unfocused.font: <font>
toolbar.iconbar.unfocused.justify: <{Left|Right|Center}>
toolbar.iconbar.unfocused.textColor: <color>
toolbar.pixmap: <filename>
toolbar.shaped: <boolean>
toolbar.workspace.font: <font>
toolbar.workspace.justify: <{Left|Right|Center}>
toolbar.workspace.textColor: <color>
toolbar.workspace: <texture type>
toolbar.workspace.borderColor: <color>
toolbar.workspace.borderWidth: <integer>
toolbar.workspace.color: <color>
toolbar.workspace.colorTo: <color>
toolbar.workspace.pixmap: <filename>
-----------------------------------------
EXAMPLES
This list may seem intimidating, but remember, when you create your own
style you can easily set a majority of these keys with a single
component. For an example of this:
-----------------------------------------
*color: slategrey
*colorTo: darkslategrey
*unfocus.color: darkslategrey
*unfocus.colorTo: black
*textColor: white
*unfocus.textColor: lightgrey
*font: lucidasans-10
-----------------------------------------
This sets nice defaults for many components.
COLOR FORMATS
These are the color formats for styles:
#000000 (Hexadecimal)
rgb:<0-255>/<0-255>/<0-255>
See /usr/share/X11/rgb.txt for an explanation.
AUTHORS
Blackbox was written and maintained by Brad Hughes <blackbox at
alug.org> and Jeff Raven <jraven at psu.edu>.
fluxbox(1) is written and maintained by Henrik Kinnunen <fluxgen at
fluxbox.org> with contributions and patches merged from many
individuals around the world.
The Official fluxbox(1) website: http://www.fluxbox.org You can find a
lot of styles here: http://tenr.de/
This manpage was composed from various resources including the official
documentation, fluxbox(1) man page and numerous other resources by Curt
"Asenchi" Micol. If you notice any errors or problems with this page,
please contact him here: <asenchi at asenchi.com> and using the great
contributions of <grubert at users.sourceforge.net>. Numerous other
languages could be available if someone jumps in.
SEE ALSOfluxbox(1)fbsetbg(1)fbsetroot(1)AUTHOR
Henrik Kinnunen <fluxgen@fluxbox.org>
Author.
fluxbox-style.txt 13 February 2013 FLUXBOX-STYLE(5)
