MX-21 MX-Fluxbox

[Jerry3904]

OK, thanks.

[mowest]

I'm starting to work on MXFB-21 this week, so if people have other suggestions let me know.

(@mowest and @Nite Coder, are you still out there?)

BTW: one menu change is that I'm going to make for sure: bring the 3 submenus up to ~/.fluxbox/submenus b/c it's too much of a hassle to have to go to /usr/share/mxflux/menu etc.

@Jerry3904 Yes, we are still here. @Nite Coder just finished a bug fix in the last couple of weeks concerning the Keyboard chooser. Perhaps, I missed it, but have you laid out a roadmap for MXFB-21 that you would like comment on. I'm using MXFB everyday on a work computer and on a home laptop, and kind of feel like with the addition of ROFI it is about perfect. The input I have as a daily user follows:

1. One improvement I was hoping for is that we could some how move the MXFB defaults out of "home" that way when there is an update to the MXFB system we don't have to run the MXFB updater that overwrites whatever people have in their home directory for settings. I thought you were moving in that direction when you started putting the menus into /usr/share/mxflux/menu, but from your post above apparently that has created other issues for development. I find myself running into the following. When I notice during an "apt upgrade" that there are MXFB files that are updated, I wonder what are the updates doing. There isn't always a forum post highlighting every time MXFB files are updated, and @dolphin_oracle explained once when I posted a question that it was back-end things that did not change any configurations. After some time has passed and I have noticed that a lot of updates have occurred I run the MXFB Update tool which gives me the new menus but it also overwrites my keys file and all my other configuration files so I have to use Meld to view the changes and bring over the changes from my old configuration files that I need, like the reference to a script that I use to set up dual monitors on one of my MXFB systems but not the others. As I mentioned perhaps this is not possible with a WM like Fluxbox. I know that other desktops can have updates that give you all of the functionality, but don't overwrite your personal machine specific configurations, but that might be a difference between a full desktop and a window manager.

2. I'm not sure if Tint2 is becoming the default for MXFB-21, but personally, I'm kind of hoping it remains an option but not the default. I like using the Fluxbox default tools with the special addons that you have pulled mostly from MX-XFCE, @Jerry3904.

3. I would like to see more exposure of the MX-Goodies those little tools have been nice additions to the project. They aren't needed for everyone, but for the tweaker or power user to get some added goodness, they are nice ideas. I'm not sure how this could be done if just an edit to the MXFB-FAQ would do it or if there was a way to add them to the menu or toolbar or separate app. It is possible that I have missed something that was done to give these scripts more exposure too.

I would be interested in helping with the MXFB-FAQ if there are specific sections that need to be rewritten or newly minted. I was hoping to show off another version of the MXFB-FAQ for community input that would move our MXFB-FAQ into a "documentation as code" model that some projects have moved to with their documentation, but I haven't had the bandwidth to work on that project and won't until after Easter and tax season.

Like I said, I'm loving MXFB everyday and sing its praises every chance I get. It brought me over to using MX and now I find myself on it more and more each day.

[Jerry3904]

Thanks, Steve, for your very thoughtful comments. I've only just begun the process, so am looking forward to good interaction as we move forward.

BTW: I have just uploaded the 4-part rootMenu for MX-21. It has profited from the work for the Pi version and lots of feedback from the leepsvideo. Will post in a clean thread.

[kevjonesin]

I just discovered today that "asmon" (a super light little system stats GUI) automatically places itself in MXFB's left-side dock on launch. It had come up windowed when I used it previously under Bodhi Linux's Enlightenment/Moksha desktop.

Screenshot in MXFB dock : https://imgur.com/XIqLcBc.png

Package info : https://imgur.com/Hhafahi.png

"asmon -h": https://imgur.com/nwZ8Jsc.png

If one launches asmon with its "-e" option it'll run an appended command when clicked on in the GUI.
I've been playing with stuff like:

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asmon -e xfce4-taskmanager

… and …

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asmon -e "xfce4-terminal -e htop"

Ooh, I suppose one could even point it at the conky toggle script,

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asmon -e conkytoggle.sh

Yep, that works a charm. Near endless possibilities I suppose.

Speaking of "conkytoggle.sh" … Something similar would likely be needed to toggle asmon as well before offering it to a general audience. At present I've been either using CLI "kill <PID>" or achieving similar ends through htop's ncurses interface.

Anyway, I thought it was a cool find and like how it kinda' fills the niche of the CPU Graph and System Monitors panel plugins I was using under Xfce. Perhaps with a little script and some menu entries tweaking it might fill that niche for others as well.

[Jerry3904]

Sounds intriguing, thanks.

[kevjonesin]

You're welcome. Thank you for spearheading the MX Fluxbox efforts. I was pleased when an MX integrated fluxbox became an option. Linux Mint once had an official fluxbox version (it was pretty) that I used back before they thinned out their desktop environment offerings—presumably to focus more on Cinnamon and MATE development (around the time of Ubuntu's switch from GNOME 2 to Unity).

Anyway, I was scrolling through posts and noticed thought being given to menus. I wandered into some fluxbox docs recently that suggested that their default right-click menu contained a "Reload Config" option that passes the "reconfig" command to reread configuration scripts on-the-fly after changes.

I'm wondering if a "Refresh config" / "Apply changes" / "Refresh" / "Reload" / "Apply" option or some such might fit in well under MXFB's "Root Menu > Settings > Configuration" text file links. Perhaps just below them after a separator line.

At present I've been passing

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fluxbox-remote reconfig

through a CLI to achieve the same ends.
TBH, I was using "fluxbox-remote restart" until just recently as I'd stumbled into that option in another MX forum post while searching for an MXFB way to implement "~/.fluxbox/init" changes without logging out and back in. Then I went snooping about the web a bit and found the much gentler "reconfig" option. Perhaps there is something already implemented that I've missed?

[Jerry3904]

You mean this?

Menu > Leave > Refresh

[ceeslans]

<snip>
Anyway, I was scrolling through posts and noticed thought being given to menus. I wandered into some fluxbox docs recently that suggested that their default right-click menu contained a "Reload Config" option that passes the "reconfig" command to reread configuration scripts on-the-fly after changes.
I'm wondering if a "Refresh config" / "Apply changes" / "Refresh" / "Reload" / "Apply" option or some such might fit in well under MXFB's "Root Menu > Settings > Configuration" text file links. Perhaps just below them after a separator line.

At present I've been passing

Code: Select all

fluxbox-remote reconfig

through a CLI to achieve the same ends.

TBH, I was using "fluxbox-remote restart" until just recently as I'd stumbled into that option in another MX forum post while searching for an MXFB way to implement "~/.fluxbox/init" changes without logging out and back in. Then I went snooping about the web a bit and found the much gentler "reconfig" option. Perhaps there is something already implemented that I've missed?

Jerry already mentioned that a 'Refresh' item is in the 'Leave' section of rootmenu. This executes the 'restart' command (and refresh idesk at the same time).
You can easily add the 'reconfigure' item there too. Just open ~/.fluxbox/menumx in a text editor and amend that submenu to:

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    [submenu] (Leave)
        [exec] (Refresh)        {fluxbox-remote restart; idesktoggle idesk refresh }
        [reconfig] (Reconfigure)
        [exec] (Suspend)        {sudo 'pm-suspend'}
        [exit] (Logout) 
        [exec] (Reboot)         {sudo /sbin/reboot} 
        [exec] (Shutdown)       {sudo /sbin/halt}
    [end]

For a good understanding: the 'Reconfigure' command only reloads fluxbox config files like 'apps', 'init' and 'keys'.
The 'Restart' command does the same - whilst also correctly reloading any freshly selected style.

Neither 'Restart' nor 'Reconfigure' will reload the 'startup' script --> this requires a Logout action

ps: you could of course also bind 'fluxbox-remote reconfigure' to a key. That makes executing the command even quicker...
.

[Huckleberry Finn]

Just by the way: Would you consider i3lock? Lighter, simple, fast, never freezes or causes issues and not ugly.

The only thing is that there's nothing that says: "type your password" etc. and new users may not know :)

I commented out xfce4-screensaver in my startup , and after installing i3lock, changed suspend to:

[exec] (Suspend ) {i3lock -c 000000 ; sudo 'pm-suspend'}

Meanwhile, light-locker also works perfectly (after installing and adding to startup). Just, will conflict with the default xfce4-screensaver on the xfce side when installed. (No problem on mine since I'd purged that screensaver).

Consequently, you're able to leave the screen locked when suspended (with almost no load on resources).

[dolphin_oracle]

we are currently considerring using light-locker instead of xfce4-screensaver.