Provided by: fluxbox_1.3.5-2_amd64 
NAME
fluxbox-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 ALSO
fluxbox(1) fbsetbg(1) fbsetroot(1)
AUTHOR
Henrik Kinnunen <fluxgen@fluxbox.org>
Author.