Just annotations of little "how to's", so I know I can find how to do something I've already done when I need to do it again, in case I don't remember anymore, which is not unlikely. Hopefully they can be useful to others, but I can't guarantee that it will work, or that it won't even make things worse.
Commanding openbox through scripts or command line
Is it possible? If it is, it's not obvious in any way, nor documented in the manual.
I think that would be an interesting feature if it currently lacks it. I don't really know, but I think it wouldn't be so much of a huge thing to implement the possibility of running commands such as "openbox-command menu-id-whatever" to make a given menu pop-up; or "openbox-command nexdesktop" so a script could move the view to a different desktop (but perhaps it can be done with wmctrl or something else). Then openbox could be used also as something like gxmessage/zenity/kdialog, or interact with things such as "brightside", among other possibilities that didn't occur to me yet.
Originally thought as a question on the actual forum, but I'm pretty sure the answer is no, so I'll just post it here anyway. Someone may read and think it's a good idea and make a feature request*. Or just comment saying it is possible already, and explaining how to do it.
* - if you would do it, request "window grouping/tabbing" too. Their rationale for not having it does not make sense -- because it's not just a matter of compensating for bad GUI design in one application, since as a DM/WM feature, it is not restricted to grouping windows of a single application in a single window. In fact, in a way it's not that different from "cascading" windows in a more convenient way. Also, by having that, it's halfway into eliminating the "need" for taskbars like tint2 or fb/spanel, as the title bar can be in effect turned into a taskbar. Perhaps even automatically if it wouldn't be to messy to have an option like "group with next window", which could be set concurrently with "lower" for the minimize button. The only difference is that it would be so almost identical only when the window is maximized. When it's not, it's somewhat as if you had tiny virtual desktops, each one with its own taskbar.
And "keychains" for mousebinds would be neat too.
I think that would be an interesting feature if it currently lacks it. I don't really know, but I think it wouldn't be so much of a huge thing to implement the possibility of running commands such as "openbox-command menu-id-whatever" to make a given menu pop-up; or "openbox-command nexdesktop" so a script could move the view to a different desktop (but perhaps it can be done with wmctrl or something else). Then openbox could be used also as something like gxmessage/zenity/kdialog, or interact with things such as "brightside", among other possibilities that didn't occur to me yet.
Originally thought as a question on the actual forum, but I'm pretty sure the answer is no, so I'll just post it here anyway. Someone may read and think it's a good idea and make a feature request*. Or just comment saying it is possible already, and explaining how to do it.
* - if you would do it, request "window grouping/tabbing" too. Their rationale for not having it does not make sense -- because it's not just a matter of compensating for bad GUI design in one application, since as a DM/WM feature, it is not restricted to grouping windows of a single application in a single window. In fact, in a way it's not that different from "cascading" windows in a more convenient way. Also, by having that, it's halfway into eliminating the "need" for taskbars like tint2 or fb/spanel, as the title bar can be in effect turned into a taskbar. Perhaps even automatically if it wouldn't be to messy to have an option like "group with next window", which could be set concurrently with "lower" for the minimize button. The only difference is that it would be so almost identical only when the window is maximized. When it's not, it's somewhat as if you had tiny virtual desktops, each one with its own taskbar.
And "keychains" for mousebinds would be neat too.
Total Comments 2
Comments
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I've figured that it can be faked via acpi_fakekey. Instead of using something like the hypothetical "openbox-command menu whatever", one can use in some script "<sudo> acpi_fakekey <number of some of those special keys that may not even exist in one's keyboard>". And this key, something like "Xf86Whatever" is set on openbox' rc.xml as a keybinding to the desired menu or openbox action.
It's a shame we can't fake key combinations with acpi_fakekey. Or at least I don't know how to.Posted 10-21-2011 at 04:04 PM by the dsc 
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I think "xdotool" would probably be better than acpi_fakekey for this. Doesn't require su/sudo.
I'm not sure both do exactly the same thing and I don't remember anymore what prompted this "need", and if I'm still using acpi_fakekey for something.Posted 03-14-2014 at 06:44 PM by the dsc
