I'm not sure the subject states the problem correctly. I have 6 virtual desktops. I have sylpheed running on desktop 3 and firefox on desktop 2. When I click on a link in an email in sylpheed, it opens the correct url in firefox but the focus does not change to desktop 2. I have to manually change to that desktop. Is there a way of manipulating rc.xml to get it to automatically switch to that desktop when I click on a link? That's how gnome, xfce, and pekwm work automatically (mate doesn't). It's my preferred configuration, if I only knew how to do it with openbox.
Thank you in advance.

if you can find something suitable on this page:
http://openbox.org/wiki/Help:Actions
then it is doable with rc.xml.

i suspect that openbox 3.5.x can NOT do it, but openbox >= 3.6 has a few new and nifty actions (which i haven't fully explored yet) that might be able to do it.

if not, i guess you'd need to write yourself a daemon, probably using wmctrl, that switches desktops when it catches an urgency hint.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for your reply. I'm running Debian stable so openbox is version 3.5.2. If I were a programmer, I'd look into creating a daemon, but unfortunately my programming abilities are meager. But again, thank you for your response.

what about scripting then?
i was thinking of a bash script utilizing various utilities... it can run as a "daemon" when you start it in an endless while loop...

anyhow, have you even looked at the wiki?

i did not say it was impossible on 3.5.x.