Blackbox Needs To Step Into the 21st Century - PLEASE!

[0pLuS0]

Hello,

I personally think Blackbox aka BB is the best WM for Linux when it first started by ‎Bradley.

Then Openbox and I'm sure life for ‎Bradley came along, and BB died out.

1. Blackbox use to have a list of themes on box-look.org as if the people who are running this site removed everyone of them, I mean WTF! PLEASE contact them and see about getting BB themes put back on.

2. Yes tint2 doesn't play nice with BB, but can you PLEASE contact o9000, the developer and ask him to please better support BB, that you are maintaining.

3. Styles/Menus of BB are way to Dated, like 1990 Linux, and for all the old died hards, ok, I said I used BB in the beginning and I loved it, but, it would be nice to modernize the style and menu.

I'm not a developer or coder, if I was, I'd do all these things, I also don't have the time, I look to those like you to do these things, if you have the time, it would be greatly appreciated.

Openbox development is dead, and people think because everything works perfect, sorry software has bugs and there's no such thing as perfect, and for other personal reasons, I'd rather not use Openbox, but BB is still to outdated and not with the times.

I know using the small window managers of Linux is not the popular choice, most use KDE, or Gnome, Cinnamon, XFce, etc...

BUT I do know there are still alot of people out there like me that do like the small window managers, because those of us that run Linux and know how to run Linux don't need bloated desktops, and soon come to realize with all that bloat comes issues and bugs.

I'm a Slackware Geek, and I say, if you need to use KDE or Gnome, then stick to Windows!

Openbox and Blackbox is all a Geek needs! LOL... Or for the Tilling Geeks, i3...

THANKS

[bbidulock]

Thank you for your comments. I first started maintaining this carry-on fork of Blackbox because fixes to issues were backed up by a number of years and I was using it cause IceWM no longer had quite the right "feel" anymore and I needed a light-weight window manager while developing adwm. Well, my wife needed it cause the Gnome guys destroyed Gnome2 and Metacity that she had been using for about 15 years. Well, in fact, the demise of the Gnome2 is the only reason I embarked on light-weight window managers at all.

Yes, I started with Fluxbox, and it was good. Worked well. Then got destroyed by its own developers lack of understanding of display managers. And yes, I used Openbox, but never really liked it. Good execution, extremely compliant window manager, but lack of simple things (like an integrated panel and system tray) made it not so fun. Also, it's involvement with LXDE at the time was at cross-purposes with what I wanted. I used pekwm for a while and it was good, but too involved with EDE at the time.

Since then, I developed adwm and a bunch of stand-alone light-weight utilities (such as xde-menu and the like) that complement the light-weight window manager and provide a complete environment. But still, Blackbox survives. It is a good fall-back window manager on any system. I use xde-panel with it and a full suite of dock-apps, system tray utilities and xde-menu menu generation.

Sorry about the themes. I would have saved some if I saw that coming. I did for icewm when debian discontinued a large group of them. I you have any that I can wrap into a blackbox-themes release, send them to me and I will include them.

Tint2? Sorry, I hate it. Don't use it. Can't stand it. Still, anyone here is welcome to report bugs around it, suggest workarounds, submit pull requests. I'll gladly include them and won't stand in the way of others that like it using it with Blackbox. I just won't go out of my way myself to try and get it to work all on my own.

Other comments?

[0pLuS0]

Hi,

Well as you mentioned tint2 being the issue, maybe you can take the time to respond to the issue report I made;

https://gitlab.com/o9000/tint2/-/issues/773

All I can tell you is that I've used tint2 since with the original developers before o9000 took it and it's never been a problem for me in all these years in Openbox, otherwise I wouldn't use it, I have my Geek Pride... LOL

It really sucks that box-look.org took away the BB themes, I mean HELLO, if you guys over there would of been paying attention, they'd of seen you here, that was just uncalled for removing the themes.

There's also another issue with BB, which I don't get, none of the windows you open center on the desktop, and if memory serves me, that is something that has to be done on the end-users part in a file for each app, to make sure they open center screen, I'm not sure, but this is a big bother.

As I mentioned, the look of the Styles of BB, those have been around since it's beginnings and that is just to old, those Styles I'm sorry to say need to go into the History Archive of BB Themes past, and we need people to hop on board and start getting a newer more modern UI look to BB, bringining it into the 21st, otherwise I really don't see people getting onboard with using it.

So why keep it up, if things aren't going to work to a more modern WM approach, modern UI, windows center, better compliance with various apps like tint2, etc...

In regards to adwm, is there really anything to look at, in the way of a screen shot? If so it would be nice on the repo for it, to post some.

I'd love to move away from Openbox, but there's really nothing I see, that can replace it at the moment, that is at the same level of ease, tint2 compliance, windows center, also Obconf for ease of some options...

Thanks for your time!

[LoganDark]

Styles/Menus of BB are way to Dated, like 1990 Linux, and for all the old died hards, ok, I said I used BB in the beginning and I loved it, but, it would be nice to modernize the style and menu.

Personally, the reason I use blackbox is because of its simplicity and style. If you tried to convert this to Windows 8 Metro or Bad macOS Knockoff then I would get mad.

This just feels like what Linux should feel like to me. None of that overly goofy garbage that KDE Plasma has been turning into, none of the normal bloat or anything. This just feels good.

[0pLuS0]

Well...

I use Openbox because BB is so outdated, I don't consider Openbox to be any goofy garbage... hmm

[LoganDark]

I don't consider Openbox to be any goofy garbage

Sorry, I did not mean to insult Openbox. I just don't like the direction in which most DEs are going, and respect a simple WM like Blackbox. I would not like to see it change significantly in the pursuit of "modernization" that you beg for in this post.

[0pLuS0]

I really loved Blackbox, back when it was the lightweight WM, before Flux and Open.

Openbox has no development, I don't see that it's complete, it would really be great if BB could be modernized, but I'm not sure this is going to happen, since tint2 doesn't work with it, and that seems to be on the end of tint2, or maybe something needs to be changed in BB to work properly.

The look of BB is also to outdated, the themes are like 1995, it really needs a modern look in themes too...

Anyhow, I still keep watching and waiting to see...

THANKS

[LoganDark]

The look of BB is also to outdated

That's why I like it. Because it's not modern flat design crap.

I'm sure there's a theme out there that gives you what you want, if not, it's possible to make your own.

[0pLuS0]

Well I don't do anything crazy in Openbox, I use Arc theme and Newaita icons.

The problem is, I used BB back when it started and then used it for probably 7-10 years afterwards, so I'd already seen everything it had to offer.

Yes we all might like 1950s & 1960s cars, I won't argue there, but having the same look to BB for 10 years, it was starting to get old, and that's the thing about Linux for me, I love to customize and when it starts to get old, I want to create something new and fresh...

I'm not necessarily a 23rd Century looking computer user, but I'm also not 1999 either, I do like something somewhat modern... :)

[LoganDark]

Look, I'm fine if the fork offers a few less "old" looking designs, but if it had looked flat/modern when I installed it, I would have immediately uninstalled it and looked for something else. That said, if it had looked like Windows 95 I also would have uninstalled it. Right now it looks fine. It doesn't even look old to me.

I use Blackbox because of its style. I don't use it because I want it to look modern, I use it because I want it to get out of my way and act as pure utility. The style as-is is quite utilitarian and I like it. And that's not because I've been using it forever or something, I've only been using blackbox for about a month.

Please @bbidulock, do not replace the default styles or change the defaults, if this feature request is implemented in any way.

[0pLuS0]

Of course I agree with what you are saying and yes don't replace the themes/styles, maybe in time there can be more modern looking ones added..

Sorry for any confusion, I'm not suggesting to remove anything, just add some new styles is all.

Openbox does get out of the way and act as a pure utility too, that's why I use it, but I also wanted a bit more modern flare and look, even utility purpose too, like being able to use tint2, so I would never call any of this bloat, it's just slight modernized, to make working a bit easier/faster is all...

I'm a Purist Slackware Geek, that is why I started out using BB when it came out then went over to Openbox when it started and I've never looked back since then... 👍

PEACE :)

[dhillon-balminder-singh]

Hello,

I personally think Blackbox aka BB is the best WM for Linux when it first started by ‎Bradley.

Then Openbox and I'm sure life for ‎Bradley came along, and BB died out.

1. Blackbox use to have a list of themes on box-look.org as if the people who are running this site removed everyone of them, I mean WTF! PLEASE contact them and see about getting BB themes put back on.
2. Yes tint2 doesn't play nice with BB, but can you PLEASE contact o9000, the developer and ask him to please better support BB, that you are maintaining.
3. Styles/Menus of BB are way to Dated, like 1990 Linux, and for all the old died hards, ok, I said I used BB in the beginning and I loved it, but, it would be nice to modernize the style and menu.

I'm not a developer or coder, if I was, I'd do all these things, I also don't have the time, I look to those like you to do these things, if you have the time, it would be greatly appreciated.

Openbox development is dead, and people think because everything works perfect, sorry software has bugs and there's no such thing as perfect, and for other personal reasons, I'd rather not use Openbox, but BB is still to outdated and not with the times.

I know using the small window managers of Linux is not the popular choice, most use KDE, or Gnome, Cinnamon, XFce, etc...

BUT I do know there are still alot of people out there like me that do like the small window managers, because those of us that run Linux and know how to run Linux don't need bloated desktops, and soon come to realize with all that bloat comes issues and bugs.

I'm a Slackware Geek, and I say, if you need to use KDE or Gnome, then stick to Windows!

Openbox and Blackbox is all a Geek needs! LOL... Or for the Tilling Geeks, i3...

THANKS

Hello,I'm using Blackbox and Window Maker on Puppy Linux because it looksand works better than the default JWM. I also managed to find a zipped archive of Blackbox themes. I think it's somewhere in my flash drives or my cloud storage. It might be an archive from freshmeat.net (not sure by now). If I can find it, I'll share it.
By the way, sometime last year I was making quite a few styles (mostly Blackbox and Window Maker). Then I started studying so I don't have much time to do it. Maybe I'll put it up here, people can contribute and fix some of them, since some are completed, some earlier themes were messy, and some are experimental themes.
Let me know what you all think. Thank you.

[dhillon-balminder-singh]

Samples of my themes. Not sure how to attach to my previous message.

[0pLuS0]

I wasn't only talking about Cosmetics, but Windows Standards, and anything else that might change along the way over the years, to keep things updated.

There is nothing wrong with the latest releases of Tint2, not sure why anyone would hate it. it can be customized in many ways to suit just about everyone's tastes.

I used Blackbox when it came out, and I really loved it then, everyone certainly has different tastes, to each his own, for me BB is just to dated, not that I need anything really flashy, just that it looks like a Window Manager from 30 years ago, and if that's the look people enjoy, fine, I personally need a change from time to time, I don't want the 90s feel and look anymore.

THANKS