cleverhandle
Diamond Member
For all the Window Manager nuts around here...
The (hopefully final) Release Candidate 2 of Openbox 3 was released a couple of days ago at openbox.org. For those that haven't followed it, the original Openbox was a Blackbox clone (like Fluxbox and others) with added features. The new version, however, is built from a totally fresh codebase though it retains the Blackbox feel. The authors' primary goal for Openbox 3 is standards-compliance - it was built and tested for compliance with standards from freedesktop.org and others before any visual features were added to it. This means, for example, that it understands session-management and can be used with GNOME simply by running openbox --replace. It also handles full-screen OpenGL programs like MAME and WineX properly, which some older WM's like Sawfish had problems with. Featurewise, it includes all the old Openbox stuff and then some, like a built-in hotkey handler and a nice configuration tool (obconf, which also plugs in correctly to GNOME preferences).
If you haven't guessed already, I use GNOME and really like Openbox as a GNOME-compliant window manager. Metacity pretty much sucks for anybody looking for customization, Sawfish is old, not well-maintained, and broken in some places, and other WM's are not completely GNOME-compliant. Openbox should fill the gap for those looking for a quality, tweakable WM to use with GNOME. Probably nice on it's own, too, but I like my panel.
Have fun...
edit: fixed link
The (hopefully final) Release Candidate 2 of Openbox 3 was released a couple of days ago at openbox.org. For those that haven't followed it, the original Openbox was a Blackbox clone (like Fluxbox and others) with added features. The new version, however, is built from a totally fresh codebase though it retains the Blackbox feel. The authors' primary goal for Openbox 3 is standards-compliance - it was built and tested for compliance with standards from freedesktop.org and others before any visual features were added to it. This means, for example, that it understands session-management and can be used with GNOME simply by running openbox --replace. It also handles full-screen OpenGL programs like MAME and WineX properly, which some older WM's like Sawfish had problems with. Featurewise, it includes all the old Openbox stuff and then some, like a built-in hotkey handler and a nice configuration tool (obconf, which also plugs in correctly to GNOME preferences).
If you haven't guessed already, I use GNOME and really like Openbox as a GNOME-compliant window manager. Metacity pretty much sucks for anybody looking for customization, Sawfish is old, not well-maintained, and broken in some places, and other WM's are not completely GNOME-compliant. Openbox should fill the gap for those looking for a quality, tweakable WM to use with GNOME. Probably nice on it's own, too, but I like my panel.
Have fun...
edit: fixed link
