blackbox status
 

I've been wondering for some time if I've been using the right window manager. I have been using blackbox 0.70.1 for some time now. It works, it's simple it comes with slackware. However, I become more and more concerned that it doesn't have an active development cycle. Is it really that good? (being good in that there is no need to update it) The only thing I use the 'tool bar' for is an on screen clock... I should probably just remove that. And I like the simplicity of the right click menu and scroll wheel for switching desktops.

It seems to me I should probably just switch to openbox. Bob knows I can't use KDE because it makes me want to vomit (honestly! does everything have to start with 'K'! one would think they are racist or something) and gnome is irritating for various reasons (one being that it's so complex, Pat doesn't support it any more for slackware)... but then KDE & Gnome aren't window managers... They are desktop environments...

Anyway, has anybody else come to the conclusion that blackbox is good but not 'that' good that it can go so long without an official release? should I switch to openbox?

That's a question that only you can answer.

I'll answer with another question (or rather a couple):

• do you miss any functionality?
• do you have any problem with it? bugs that do not get fixed?

I have no numbers, but I think that box flux and openbox are heavier and richer window managers than blackbox. They are also very actively developed and maintained.

It all depends. If you feel that you need anything more, try telling us what you are looking for and we will try to give you some advice on what direction you should be looking. If you don't feel this way, and the answer to the two questions above is "no", then there's no reason to look for anything else, unless it's out of pure curiosity, which is such good reason (if not better) as any other.

I guess black box 'is' what I'm looking for aside from the 'tool bar' at the bottom which I find often gets screwed up if you start changing the font sizes and a few other things with the styles. But then my other complaint is the lack of 'good' keybindings. bbkeys could be better. I'll probably check out openbox soon

It really comes down to what exactly do you need.

If all you need is a good keybindings system most wm's will do, but it all depends on what degree of complexity and functionality do you really need.

Openbox and fluxbox can do that. FVWM is good as well, and since it's scriptable it can really define bindings that will act in one or another way depending on the focused applications or even more complex things. FvwmPanel can be used to make any kind of panel and doesn't have the limitation of a premade panel, however, FVWM is not for the lazy and is by no means something that works like blackbox out of the box.

If you want keybindings but don't want to worry about window placement then a tiling wm like xmonad or awesome will do.

Pekwm and sawfish are something intermediate that can be configured far better than blackbox but are not that complex as xmonad or fvwm to configure.