fluxbox
fluxbox is a lightweight window manager for *nix based systems. It's configurable, fast and doesn't use all your resources. Because it's not as featureful as Gnome or KDE you have to be prepared to get your hands dirty in text files in some places. (note this isn't necessarily a bad thing).
themes
These are the themes I've created for fluxbox. Click on the image to view a full-size screenshot. All of my themes use fbsetbg to set the background image. To install a theme locally do the following:
bash$ cd ~ bash$ tar zxvf /path/to/theme.tar.gz
Eddie Flag
This theme was created using the Eddie Flag image from the downloads section of the Iron Maiden official website.
[ Download ]
Cold As Ice
User menu
If you are using a recent version of fluxbox, there's an easy way to use a generic (fluxbox) menu, and customise it by adding your own user sections to the menu. The first thing you should do is make a copy of your current ~/.fluxbox/menu file, in case you don't have any luck, or decide not to continue using this method.
Now create ~/.fluxbox/usermenu which looks like:
[separator]
[exec] (gvim) {gvim}
[separator]
Save the file, and run the following command:
fluxbox-generate_menu -B -t aterm -b firefox
Reload your fluxbox config. If you bring up your fluxbox menu you should see a top section with system items at the top, followed by a separator and a menu item for gvim, and the fluxbox submenu right at the bottom.
You can put as much or as little into your usermenu file. Details about the menu stucture can be found in the MENU ITEMS section of the fluxbox man page.
If you choose to use this approach, it's useful to make sure the file is regenerated regularly. I achieve this by adding the following line to my ~/.xinitrc - before the command to start fluxbox.
# regenerate the fluxbox menu
if [ -d "${HOME}/.fluxbox" ]; then
fluxbox-generate_menu -B -t aterm -b firefox > /dev/null
fi
Regenerate
Our first useful customisation might be to regenerate the fluxbox menu. Just add the following line to ~/.fluxbox/usermenu
[exec] (Regenerate Menu) {fluxbox-generate_menu -B -t aterm -b firefox}
Screenshots
It's often useful to be able to create screenshots. You can install gkrellm plugins, and so forth, or you can use existing (assuming you've instaled ImageMagick or similar). Here are the screenshot menu options I use most often - all you need to do to use them is add them to your own ~/.fluxbox/usermenu file, and regenerate.
[submenu] (Screenshots)
[exec] (Desktop) {import -window root ~/media/shots/desktop_`date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S`.jpg}
[exec] (Area or Window) {import ~/media/shots/shot_`date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S`.jpg}
[exec] (Thumbnail) {import -resize 150 ~/media/shots/thumb_`date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S`.jpg}
[end]
