[Solved] Hi! New to Fluxbox

[M_Mynaardt]

Hi, All!

I'm just giving Mint Fluxbox a go (on a 16GB USB stick). It looks interesting... Just two things I'd like to know to start off:

How do you do the virtual work space thing in Fluxbox? That's one of my favourite Linux features (even thought I'm well aware it's an optical illusion and all that). I didn't sit down and spend much time with Fluxbox, as yet. But I didn't see the work space switching thingamajig you usually see in the panel for Gnome, Xfce, and LXDE.

And another thing that I'd like (hopefully not a painful one in flux box); Keyboard Layouts!

The thing is, I'm studying Latin and (ancient) Greek. Therefore, it's useful to be able to type Polytonic Greek. Does anyone know how you can set up keyboard selection in Fluxbox? I'm looking to be able to type with keyboard configurations for Polytonic Greek, Spanish, and Esperanto.

Thanks in advance!

[Kendall]

Howdy.

Mint Fluxbox has four workspaces by default. You can either scroll the mouse cursor on the desktop to switch between them, or use ctrl+alt+left and ctrl+alt+right to achieve the same functionality.

They keyboard layout thing is something I want to put some more effort into for future releases. You may be able to install gucharmap and have some degree of success there, but the list of available layouts by default in the Fluxbox edition is rather slim.

[M_Mynaardt]

Howdy.

Mint Fluxbox has four workspaces by default. You can either scroll the mouse cursor on the desktop to switch between them, or use ctrl+alt+left and ctrl+alt+right to achieve the same functionality.

They keyboard layout thing is something I want to put some more effort into for future releases. You may be able to install gucharmap and have some degree of success there, but the list of available layouts by default in the Fluxbox edition is rather slim.

I didn't see a little graphic thingamajiggy to show the Workspaces as I'm used to seeing with Xfce, Gnome and LXDE. I'll look a little more carefully when I start up that persistent install.

I'll check out that gucharmap thing. Is that a utility of some sort for any Linux DE?

Oh dear! Silly of me; I also forgot to mention my other "must have" for Linux; Dropbox!! There's a package or script kicking around to allow you to put that on a Fluxbox install, isn't there? I did a search on Fluxbox and Dropbox and got a dizzying number of results, which is a bit of an overload for someone (like me) who works at night.

Thanks for the advice!

[Kendall]

There is a Dropbox package in the repo, it was broken for a while, but I believe it's working well now. Look for the package mint-dropbox and it "should" work as expected. I'm also a very big user of Dropbox. Honestly I find it very hard to live without it as I'm always moving between a number of installs on a number of different systems.

Also, there is no graphical pager for which desktop you're on. Simply use the keyboard shortcuts and know that there are four of them. The Fluxbox menu gives you the option of adding to or subtracting from that number.

[M_Mynaardt]

There is a Dropbox package in the repo, it was broken for a while, but I believe it's working well now. Look for the package mint-dropbox and it "should" work as expected. I'm also a very big user of Dropbox. Honestly I find it very hard to live without it as I'm always moving between a number of installs on a number of different systems.

Also, there is no graphical pager for which desktop you're on. Simply use the keyboard shortcuts and know that there are four of them. The Fluxbox menu gives you the option of adding to or subtracting from that number.

Hi Again!

Ummm... What do you mean by "repo"? I take it that's for 'repository'. Would that mean Synaptic and/or the software manager?

Anyway, I'll see if can figure out the mint-dropbox thing and see how that goes.

Well! The fact there's not a graphical pager for the virtual desktops would account for why I couldn't find one!

I'm sure I'll get something sorted out here!

Thanks for the information!

[Kendall]

Yes, "repo" is short for "repository".

[M_Mynaardt]

Yes, "repo" is short for "repository".

Thanks; it makes sense. Now I just have to mess about with making Fluxbox and Dropbox work in harmony, that's all!

Am I right in assuming Fluxbox has no main menu on the bar? You can only really access that from right clicking on the empty desktop, yes?

And just out of curiosity, for you, what are the way cool features of Fluxbox that one just can't do without? I'm asking that mostly to avoid stumbling in the dark (much)...

Thanks!

[Kendall]

Am I right in assuming Fluxbox has no main menu on the bar? You can only really access that from right clicking on the empty desktop, yes?

You are assuming correctly. All of the *box window managers work the same way.

[quote="M_Mynaardt"And just out of curiosity, for you, what are the way cool features of Fluxbox that one just can't do without? I'm asking that mostly to avoid stumbling in the dark (much)...[/quote]
I personally like the low resource usage and the ease of configurability without having to understand the syntax of a markup language. It's quick and usually painless to configure it however you see fit, or even to use it as the backbone for a full desktop environment. Personally I'm a huge fan of the right click menu versus using a traditional panel oriented menu system.

[M_Mynaardt]

Am I right in assuming Fluxbox has no main menu on the bar? You can only really access that from right clicking on the empty desktop, yes?

You are assuming correctly. All of the *box window managers work the same way.

And just out of curiosity, for you, what are the way cool features of Fluxbox that one just can't do without? I'm asking that mostly to avoid stumbling in the dark (much)...

I personally like the low resource usage and the ease of configurability without having to understand the syntax of a markup language. It's quick and usually painless to configure it however you see fit, or even to use it as the backbone for a full desktop environment. Personally I'm a huge fan of the right click menu versus using a traditional panel oriented menu system.

That sounds cool. I'll have to mess around with it a bit. I kind of like the right click menu thing too.

And I see that Fluxbox likes to promote the tabbing and 'slit' features. Are there posts around here to explain that for a rookie like moi?

Thanks again...