Blackbox — read me first file. 2014-08-31
Package blackbox-0.71 was released under MIT license 2014-08-31.
This is a fork of the original Blackbox CVS that is on Sourceforge: (http://blackboxwm.sourceforge.net). This fork is hosted on GitHub at (http://github.com/bbidulock/blackboxwm). What it includes is all changes made on the official Blackbox CVS repository on branch `blackbox-0_70_2cvs', as well as patches collected from pdl-linux, Debian, the blackbox bug list, other GitHub forks. It also includes enhanced EWMH/ICCCM compliance.
This is the blackbox-0.71 package, released 2014-08-31. This release, and the latest version, can be obtained from the GitHub repository at (http://github.com/bbidulock/blackboxwm), using a command such as:
$> git clone http://github.com/bbidulock/blackboxwm.git
Please see the `NEWS' file for release notes and history of user visible changes for the current version, and the `ChangeLog' file for a more detailed history of implementation changes. The `TODO' file lists features not yet implemented and other outstanding items. The file `COMPLIANCE' lists the current state of EWMH/ICCCM compliance.
Please see the `INSTALL' file for installation instructions.
When working from `git(1)', please see the `README-git' file. An abbreviated installation procedure that works for most applications appears below.
This release is published under the MIT license that can be found in the file `COPYING'.
The quickest and easiest way to get Blackbox up and running is to run the following commands:
$> git clone http://github.com/bbidulock/blackboxwm.git $> cd blackboxwm $> ./autogen.sh $> ./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man $> make V=0 $> make DESTDIR="$pkgdir" install $> install -Dm644 COPYING "$pkgdir/usr/share/licenses/blackbox/COPYING"
This will configure, compile and install Blackbox the quickest. For those who like to spend the extra 15 seconds reading ./configure --help, some compile time options can be turned on and off before the build.
For general information on GNU’s ./configure, see the file `INSTALL'.
The next thing most users want to do after installing Blackbox is to configure the colors, fonts, menus, etc. to their liking. This is covered by the files data/README, data/README.menu and data/README.style. These files give detailed information on how to customize your new window manager.
Currently, the only included utilities are a program named bsetroot and a script called bsetbg. bsetroot is a replacement for xsetroot, minus a few options. The difference between xsetroot and bsetroot is that bsetroot has been coded for multiple screens (e.g. multi-headed displays), where as the stock xsetroot is not. The bsetbg script acts as a wrapper for most of the popular programs used to set background pixmaps, making it possible for styles to provide a machine-independent rootCommand.
With the start of the 0.60.x series Blackbox no longer handles any keyboard shortcuts; instead it supports a communication protocol which allows other programs to handle these and related tasks. If you’d like to be able to use keyboard shortcuts with Blackbox, bbkeys (available at http://bbkeys.sourceforge.net) can provide you with all the previous functionality and more.
If you’re looking for a GUI with which to configure your Blackbox menu and/or styles, check out http://bbconf.sourceforge.net. bbconf is a QT program that does just that, as well as providing a GUI for editing your key bindings for the above mentioned bbkeys.