firefox 89.0 fixes

This webpage has some tips for dealing with the newly released Firefox 89.0, for those who aren't happy with the changes: https://www.askvg.com/tip-restore-compact-mode-density-option-in-firefox-customize-window/

My favorite is to simply use the following about:config fix to set the Firefox window to "compact mode", getting rid of some wasted space at the top:

browser.uidensity = 0 -- change to 1 (for "compact mode")

 

 

For Fluxbox users, if the Firefox window doesn't render correctly in Fluxbox (happened to me in one of my Arch installations), the Restart Fluxbox tool fixes it for the current session only. For a more permanent fix, use the following about:config settings:

gfx.webrender.all = false -- this was the default

gfx.webrender.force-disabled = false -- toggle to true to fix window in Fluxbox

To completely disable the new "Proton" look, toggle the following from true to false:

browser.proton.enabled

browser.proton.modals.enabled

browser.proton.doorhangers.enabled

browser.proton.contextmenus.enabled

 

browser.proton.places-tooltip.enabled

Then restart Firefox.

 

looking more attractive

Visitors to the MX Linux website might be pleasantly surprised by some recent developments:

Yep, MX includes Fluxbox on their main isos along with the default Xfce, and now there's also a KDE iso! Kinda makes me a bit nostalgic for the old Mepis days, when I mainly used KDE.

For more info about available MX Linux downloads, see: https://mxlinux.org/download-links/

I took a look at MX's Fluxbox setup a few months back (https://monksblog-malspa.blogspot.com/2020/05/fluxbox-in-mx.html), but it seems that there's been a lot of work done on it since then. Check out the latest announcement about it, here.

I haven't look at the KDE spin yet. It might be a nice option for some users, if choices like KDE Neon, Kubuntu, and Debian w/ KDE Plasma aren't enough.

fluxbox iconbar trick

Fluxbox has no way for changing the order of the list of windows on the iconbar. The most recently opened window always shows up last on the list. I like to have the windows organized by workspace; if I have one app running on Workspace 1 and something else running on Workspace 2, for example, I want the window on Workspace 1 to show up first on the iconbar, even if that app wasn't the first one started.

Someone came up with the script below. The idea is that it hides and redraws the active window, and moves the window to the end of the list on the iconbar. The script requires the xdotool package.

#!/bin/sh
# designed to be used with a keyboard shortcut
# in ~/.fluxbox/keys that could be:
# Control Shift Mod4 X :Exec /home/username/bin/move-to-end-of-taskbar.sh
xdotool getactivewindow windowunmap windowmap

This is not an ideal solution, but it does allow for rearranging the windows, so it isn't a bad workaround.

Source: https://bgstack15.wordpress.com/2019/09/05/rearrange-windows-on-iconbar-in-fluxbox/

Many thanks to "bgstack15" for putting this out there!

distraction-free fluxbox

I installed Fluxbox to use in Kubuntu 20.04. I wanted to keep things clean and simple. Besides the fluxbox package and its dependencies, I added numlockx and dmenu. I've got a trimmed down root menu, with entries for only a few apps:

No cute icons on this desktop. Here's Konsole showing my neofetch, with a couple of windows shaded, and dmenu in action along the top of the screen:

For KDE Plasma apps to look right in Fluxbox, I added the following line to the ~/.fluxbox/startup file:

export XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=kde
 

A middle click on the desktop brings up the handy Workspaces menu:

I like the distraction-free feel of this setup. I'm not sure how long before I get tired of the plain background provided by the zimek_darkblue Style I've chosen, but it's nice for now. As usual, I relied heavily on man fluxbox, my saved config files from previous Fluxbox setups, and my notes. Here's the contents of my ~/.fluxbox/menu file, for those might want to make use of it:

# Revised fluxbox menu

[begin] (fluxbox)

   [exec] (firefox) {firefox}
   [exec] (konsole) {konsole}
   [exec] (double commander) {doublecmd}
   [exec] (dmenu [mod4+space]) {dmenu_run}

   [submenu] (fluxbox) {}
      [config] (Config)
      [workspaces] (Workspaces)
      [submenu] (styles)
         [stylesdir] (/usr/share/fluxbox/styles)
         [stylesdir] (~/.fluxbox/styles)
      [end]         
      [reconfig] (reconfigure)
      [restart] (restart)
   [end]

   [submenu] (exit) {exit}
      [exit] (logout)
      [exec] (reboot) {systemctl reboot}
      [exec] (poweroff) {systemctl poweroff}
   [end]

[end]

fluxbox in mx

The February 15 point release of MX includes a Fluxbox session along with the default Xfce. I took a quick look at Fluxbox in MX-19.1 in a live session, but I'll take another look in a few days because it looks like another point release is imminent. Some shots from the older point release:

I don't like that the default menu uses descriptions instead of the application names.

I chose a different desktop wallpaper from the selection that's provided (menu > Look > Background):

Very nice! Looking forward to the next release.

a new year, a new look

I recently added Fluxbox to my Arch setup, which I'd put in by using the Anarchy installer, as mentioned earlier. Xfce apps from the original installation are available in the Fluxbox menu, along with a collection of my favorites.

I'm using the tint2 panel (vertical, upper-left orientation, of course) instead of the Fluxbox toolbar. I got rid of the toolbar by de-selecting "Visible" in the "Toolbar" submenu of the configuration settings.

Also, I had to remove "systemtray" from the following line in the ~/.fluxbox/init file because tint2's system tray wasn't starting up with Fluxbox's systemtray running:

session.screen0.toolbar.tools:    prevworkspace, workspacename, nextworkspace, iconbar, systemtray, clock


And I added a nice, clean "exit" submenu section to the ~/.fluxbox/menu file.

    [submenu] (exit)
       [exit] (logout)
       [exec] (reboot) {systemctl reboot}
       [exec] (poweroff) {systemctl poweroff}
    [end]

I've been using Fluxbox for many years, usually as a second login session option to an already present desktop environment. That approach works nicely for slower, older computers; the DE's apps seem snappier when run under Fluxbox.

In my opinion, Fluxbox's manual page is the most important Fluxbox documentation, along with the related manpages listed at the end of man fluxbox:

SEE ALSO
       fluxbox-apps(5) fluxbox-keys(5) fluxbox-style(5) fluxbox-menu(5) fluxbox-remote(1)
       fbsetroot(1) fbsetbg(1) fbrun(1) startfluxbox(1)


Still, a web search can turn up lots of good info. The "official" Fluxbox website is at http://fluxbox.org/. Also see:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fluxbox
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fluxbox
https://wiki.debian.org/FluxBox

the latest from antiX

antiX-19 "Marielle Franco" was released a few days ago. Here's a shot of the default IceWM desktop:

antiX-19, based on Debian Buster, ships without systemd (for those who want to avoid that init system). This very lightweight distro packs lots of great tools, and it's a great option for installations on low-spec computers, or even simply for running live sessions from a flash drive. It's one of the speediest distros I've tried.

Four different window managers (IceWM, fluxbox, jwm, and herbstluftwm) are included. Users can switch between a few different variations of IceWM, fluxbox, and jwm from within the current session (Desktop > Other Desktops), which is convenient:

I didn't see an easy way to switch to herbstluftwm. Here's a link to a tutorial, for those who are interested: https://herbstluftwm.org/tutorial.html

Among the items I found in the menu were Firefox ESR, Galculator, Geany, MPV Media Player, GParted, Leafpad,  the LibreOffice suite, Mirage, muPDF, nano, qpdfview, rox-filer file manager, roxterm, SpaceFM, Synaptic, and XMMS. I also found a handful of antiX's own special tools (Applications > antiX), like the very useful Live USB Maker:

I thought it was an interesting choice to give antiX-19 the codename "Marielle Franco". She was a Brazilian politician, feminist, and human rights activist; check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marielle_Franco

For more info about antiX-19, see the release announcement: https://antixlinux.com/antix-19-isos-available/

excellent ob/fb info

For some very helpful info on setting up Openbox and Fluxbox, see Addy's Blog -- three articles to check out are "My Fluxbox Configurations", "My Openbox Configurations", and "Automatically Generate Openbox Applications Menu".

another arch setup

ArchLabs is very nice (see "ob-love!" and "...and, some fluxbox love"), but in the end I decided to replace it with "straight" Arch, adding Openbox and setting that up myself.

Later, I added Fluxbox. Here are a few shots of my Fluxbox setup in Arch:

...and, some fluxbox love

I added the fluxbox package to ArchLabs:

$ sudo pacman -S fluxbox

The default desktop looked like this:

I spent a good amount of time fixing things up; here are a few shots, from later:

another fluxbox trick

I don't know how to add a "Show Desktop" button to Fluxbox, but I found that it's possible to set up a keystroke that will do the same thing. I added the following line to my ~/.fluxbox/keys file:

Mod4 d :ToggleCmd {ShowDesktop}

After saving the changes to that file, it was necessary to select either "Reconfigure" or "Restart" from the Fluxbox menu. Now, the Mod4 + D keystroke ("Mod4" being the "Windows" key on my keyboard) toggles the "ShowDesktop" command.

grml live

You won't find Grml in the top 100 of DistroWatch's Page Hit Ranking, but this distro has been around since 2004. Based on Debian Testing, Grml can be run live from a flash drive and ships with loads of system administration tools. It comes with the Fluxbox window manager rather than a full-featured desktop environment, and you'll get mc and nano instead of a fancy GUI file manager and text editor, but Firefox ESR is included.

I downloaded the grml64-full_2017.05 iso (the download was only about 600 MB), used dd to put it on a flash drive, and booted up, with no problems. Not much to the default setup:

Here's a shot with the right-click desktop menu opened up:

Here, running Firefox, mc, and xterm:

For a list of included packages, see: http://grml.org/files/grml64-full_2017.05/dpkg.list

For more info, check out the Grml website: http://grml.org/
Grml at DistroWatch: http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=grml

fluxbox info

For those who want to learn to use Fluxbox, it's all about finding and reading the documentation -- the online documentation (a few web searches will turn up tons of info) and the installed documentation.


Documentation that comes with Fluxbox (in most distros):

As I wrote in "diggin' some fluxbox!":

For a little help and info, run:

$ fluxbox -h
$ fluxbox -info

man pages:
See man fluxbox as well as these other man pages: fluxbox-apps(5) fluxbox-keys(5) fluxbox-style(5) fluxbox-menu(5) fluxbox-remote(1) fbsetroot(1) fbsetbg(1) fbrun(1) startfluxbox(1)


Online documentation:

Fluxbox home page: http://www.fluxbox.org/
Fluxbox FAQ: http://fluxbox-wiki.org/FAQ_en.html
man fluxbox online: http://www.fluxbox.org/help/man-fluxbox.php

Some distro-specific Fluxbox pages:

Debian: https://wiki.debian.org/FluxBox
Ubuntu: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Fluxbox
Arch: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fluxbox

the latest gparted live

I wrote about GParted Live a few years back in "for partitioning" (January 25, 2015). That was version 0.20.2, and I used Unetbootin to put it on a flash drive. For the current version, I downloaded gparted-live-0.29.0-1-amd64.iso (released August 8, 2017) and used the following dd command to put it on my flash drive:

$ sudo dd if=/home/steve/Downloads/gparted-live-0.29.0-1-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M; sync

Partitioning hard drives is about the only thing I ever use GParted Live for, and that's its main purpose. The system boots up, and GParted is started automatically:

GParted uses the Fluxbox window manager. Here's a shot of the empty desktop:

GParted Live ships with other tools besides GParted, including:

PCManFM 1.2.5
NetSurf 3.6
LXTerminal 0.3.0
Leafpad 0.8.18.1
GSmartControl 1.0.1
Partition Image 0.6.9

NetSurf didn't work for me out of the box, so I didn't concern myself with it:

I don't know why the Calcoo calculator is included, but it's pretty cool:

The lower-level tool xcalc is also available, for those who want something simpler.

GSmartControl, as described here, "is a graphical user interface for
smartctl (from smartmontools package), which is a tool for querying and controlling SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) data on modern hard disk and solid-state drives. It allows you to inspect the drive's SMART data to determine its health, as well as run various tests on it."

Here's a shot:

Tools that don't appear in the Fluxbox menu can be found by examining the /usr/bin and /usr/share/applications directories. Some included command-line utilities:

fsarchiver      - File system archiver and restorer
partclone       - Backup partitions into a compressed image file (e.g., partclone.ext4)
partimage       - Backup partitions into a compressed image file
testdisk        - Data recovery tool that can help recover lost partitions
gpart   - (Older) data recovery tool that can help recover lost msdos partition tables
grub    - GRand Unified Bootloader for restoring GRUB 2 boot loader
mc      - Text based file manager known as Midnight Commander
nano    - Text editor
vim-tiny        - Enhanced vi text editor
parted  - Partition table editor
fdisk   - MSDOS partition table editor
sfdisk  - MSDOS partition table editor also useful to save/restore partition table to/from a file
gdisk   - GPT partition table editor
sgdisk  - GPT partition table editor also useful to save/restore partition table to/from a file
gptsync         - GPT and MSDOS partition tables synchronization tool useful for Mac OS X users
openssh         - Secure shell (ssh) connectivity tool suite
screen  - Screen manager with VT100/ANSI terminal emulation
ping    - Check network connectivity to another host on a network
rsync   - Fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool
telnet  - Communicate with another host using the TELNET protocol
traceroute      - Print the route packets trace to network host
bc      - Arbitrary precision calculator language

So, GParted Live can be used for a lot of things. While partitions on a hard drive or flash drive are not, by default, automatically mounted and accessible from GParted Live, I was able to access my hard drives, as well as another flash drive, by creating a mount point and then mounting the partition. I think I had to use sudo, but it didn't prompt me for a password. To get access to my drive's sda6 partition, for example, I used the following commands (after taking a look at the output from the lsblk command):

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/sda6
$ sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/sda6

I used a similar routine to mount and access a flash drive (at /dev/sdc).

GParted Live's repository files are at /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/drbl-repository.list. As you can see below, GParted Live is based on Debian Sid. The contents of the sources.list file:

deb http://free.nchc.org.tw/debian sid main non-free
deb-src http://free.nchc.org.tw/debian sid main non-free

And, the contents of the drbl-repository.list file:

deb http://free.nchc.org.tw/drbl-core drbl unstable live-unstable
deb-src http://free.nchc.org.tw/drbl-core drbl unstable live-unstable

For download links and (much) more information, visit: http://gparted.org/livecd.php

Also, see the GParted Live page at DistroWatch: https://www.distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=gparted

diggin' some fluxbox!

After installing Fluxbox in Debian Stretch, it might look like the default setup isn't much to work with, and the first impulse might be to go online to look for help. However, I found that apt-get install fluxbox brought in most of what I needed to get going, including great documentation.

If you can't find the app you're looking for in the default Fluxbox menu, commands can be run by opening up fbrun with the Alt+F2 keystroke.

Fluxbox comes with a bunch of fairly easy text files that can be used to modify just about anything. The key to Fluxbox, I think, is reading the documentation that Fluxbox comes with -- examine the default Fluxbox files, and definitely read the man pages.

I found the default Fluxbox files in the /etc/X11/fluxbox directory. Default Fluxbox styles are at /usr/share/fluxbox/styles. The idea is to copy default files into the ~/.fluxbox directory, then edit as desired.

For a little help and info, run:

$ fluxbox -h
$ fluxbox -info

man pages:
See man fluxbox as well as these other man pages: fluxbox-apps(5) fluxbox-keys(5) fluxbox-style(5) fluxbox-menu(5) fluxbox-remote(1) fbsetroot(1) fbsetbg(1) fbrun(1) startfluxbox(1)

Users should be sure to check out the ~/.fluxbox/keys file, to see what can be done on the Fluxbox desktop with the keyboard and mouse. This is important! See man fluxbox-keys for more info about using the keys file. My current ~/.fluxbox/keys file (Mod1 = Alt; Mod4 = Super):

# click on the desktop to get menus
OnDesktop Mouse1 :HideMenus
OnDesktop Mouse2 :WorkspaceMenu
OnDesktop Mouse3 :RootMenu

# scroll on the desktop to change workspaces
OnDesktop Mouse4 :PrevWorkspace
OnDesktop Mouse5 :NextWorkspace

# scroll on the toolbar to change current window
OnToolbar Mouse4 :PrevWindow {static groups} (iconhidden=no)
OnToolbar Mouse5 :NextWindow {static groups} (iconhidden=no)

#added by steve - middle click on the toolbar to open root menu
OnToolbar Mouse2 :RootMenu

# alt + left/right click to move/resize a window
OnWindow Mod1 Mouse1 :MacroCmd {Raise} {Focus} {StartMoving}
OnWindowBorder Move1 :StartMoving

OnWindow Mod1 Mouse3 :MacroCmd {Raise} {Focus} {StartResizing NearestCorner}
OnLeftGrip Move1 :StartResizing bottomleft
OnRightGrip Move1 :StartResizing bottomright

# alt + middle click to lower the window
OnWindow Mod1 Mouse2 :Lower

# control-click a window's titlebar and drag to attach windows
OnTitlebar Control Mouse1 :StartTabbing

# double click on the titlebar to shade
OnTitlebar Double Mouse1 :Shade

# left click on the titlebar to move the window
OnTitlebar Mouse1 :MacroCmd {Raise} {Focus} {ActivateTab}
OnTitlebar Move1  :StartMoving

# middle click on the titlebar to lower
OnTitlebar Mouse2 :Lower

# right click on the titlebar for a menu of options
OnTitlebar Mouse3 :WindowMenu

# alt-tab
Mod1 Tab :NextWindow {groups} (workspace=[current])
Mod1 Shift Tab :PrevWindow {groups} (workspace=[current])

# cycle through tabs in the current window
Mod4 Tab :NextTab
Mod4 Shift Tab :PrevTab

# go to a specific tab in the current window
Mod4 1 :Tab 1
Mod4 2 :Tab 2
Mod4 3 :Tab 3
Mod4 4 :Tab 4
Mod4 5 :Tab 5
Mod4 6 :Tab 6
Mod4 7 :Tab 7
Mod4 8 :Tab 8
Mod4 9 :Tab 9

# open a terminal
Mod1 F1 :Exec x-terminal-emulator

# open a dialog to run programs
Mod1 F2 :Exec fbrun

# volume settings, using common keycodes
# if these don't work, use xev to find out your real keycodes
176 :Exec amixer sset Master,0 1+
174 :Exec amixer sset Master,0 1-
160 :Exec amixer sset Master,0 toggle

# current window commands
Mod1 F4 :Close
Mod1 F5 :Kill
Mod1 F9 :Minimize
Mod1 F10 :Maximize
Mod1 F11 :Fullscreen

# open the window menu
Mod1 space :WindowMenu

# exit fluxbox
Control Mod1 Delete :Exit

# change to previous/next workspace
Control Mod1 Left :PrevWorkspace
Control Mod1 Right :NextWorkspace

# send the current window to previous/next workspace
Mod4 Left :SendToPrevWorkspace
Mod4 Right :SendToNextWorkspace

# send the current window and follow it to previous/next workspace
Control Mod4 Left :TakeToPrevWorkspace
Control Mod4 Right :TakeToNextWorkspace

# change to a specific workspace
Control F1 :Workspace 1
Control F2 :Workspace 2
Control F3 :Workspace 3
Control F4 :Workspace 4
Control F5 :Workspace 5
Control F6 :Workspace 6
Control F7 :Workspace 7
Control F8 :Workspace 8
Control F9 :Workspace 9
Control F10 :Workspace 10
Control F11 :Workspace 11
Control F12 :Workspace 12

# send the current window to a specific workspace
Mod4 F1 :SendToWorkspace 1
Mod4 F2 :SendToWorkspace 2
Mod4 F3 :SendToWorkspace 3
Mod4 F4 :SendToWorkspace 4
Mod4 F5 :SendToWorkspace 5
Mod4 F6 :SendToWorkspace 6
Mod4 F7 :SendToWorkspace 7
Mod4 F8 :SendToWorkspace 8
Mod4 F9 :SendToWorkspace 9
Mod4 F10 :SendToWorkspace 10
Mod4 F11 :SendToWorkspace 11
Mod4 F12 :SendToWorkspace 12

# send the current window and change to a specific workspace
Control Mod4 F1 :TakeToWorkspace 1
Control Mod4 F2 :TakeToWorkspace 2
Control Mod4 F3 :TakeToWorkspace 3
Control Mod4 F4 :TakeToWorkspace 4
Control Mod4 F5 :TakeToWorkspace 5
Control Mod4 F6 :TakeToWorkspace 6
Control Mod4 F7 :TakeToWorkspace 7
Control Mod4 F8 :TakeToWorkspace 8
Control Mod4 F9 :TakeToWorkspace 9
Control Mod4 F10 :TakeToWorkspace 10
Control Mod4 F11 :TakeToWorkspace 11
Control Mod4 F12 :TakeToWorkspace 12


Lately, I've been much more interested in Openbox than in Fluxbox, but I've gained a new appreciation for Fluxbox after installing it in Stretch and getting it set up to suit my tastes. It's super-customizable, it includes lots of great features for navigating and manipulating the desktop, and it's a pleasure to use for just plain getting work done.

Fluxbox is at version 1.3.5 in Debian 9 ("Stretch"), but the latest version (currently 1.3.7) can be found at http://fluxbox.org/download/ or at https://sourceforge.net/projects/fluxbox/files/fluxbox/.

See:

https://wiki.debian.org/FluxBox
http://fluxbox.org/

a tweak here, a tweak there

Another look at my Fluxbox setup in Debian Stretch, this time with a top panel -- "toolbar" in Fluxbox-speak -- set to 100% width, and a revised menu:

In the ~/.fluxbox/init file, I'm using the following line for the toolbar:

session.screen0.toolbar.tools:    RootMenu, workspacename, prevworkspace, nextworkspace, iconbar, systemtray, clock

The "RootMenu" part puts a right-arrow button on the toolbar; clicking on that opens the Fluxbox menu (which can also, of course, be opened with a right-click on the empty desktop).

adding fluxbox in stretch

I installed Debian Stretch on an old notebook a few months ago; for this installation, I went with the Openbox window manager, but no desktop environment.

Later, I decided to add Fluxbox.

The default Fluxbox desktop in Stretch:

The default menu wasn't all that great, but it included an entry for gmrun, which was enough for me to get to work.

Here's how my Fluxbox desktop is looking right now:

Not too bad.

By the way, there's a project (still under development) called DebianFluxbox, which is "a Debian Pure Blend which aims to provide a fully configured installation of Fluxbox, a light weight windows manager, out of the box." Interesting; I'd like to check it out sometime.

fluxbox, simple and clean

Finally got Fluxbox installed and set up in openSUSE "Leap" 42.2. Here's what the default Fluxbox desktop looked like:

I basically used notes and copies of files from my Fluxbox installation in openSUSE 42.1 (see "fluxbox in leap") for reference. Here's my current Fluxbox desktop in Leap 42.2:

fluxbox in leap

Added Fluxbox to openSUSE Leap 42.1 via the 1-Click Install (see https://software.opensuse.org/package/fluxbox) (this added the X11:windowmanagers repo).

When I logged into Fluxbox, here's the desktop that I was presented with at first:

Not bad, actually. The desktop right-click menu didn't have much in it, but it did have a "Run Command" entry, which is enough to get to work. I'd saved my notes and files from my Fluxbox installation in openSUSE 13.2, so I used those to quickly set things up in 42.1.

I'm using the command fbsetbg -r /home/steve/wallpapers to pull random images from my ~/wallpapers directory. I added feh, then turned on transparency by changing the value of the following line in ~/.fluxbox/init from "false" to "true":

session.forcePseudoTransparency:    true

To get a black cursor for Fluxbox, I went to /etc/sysconfig/windowmanager and changed X_MOUSE_CURSOR="DMZ" to X_MOUSE_CURSOR="DMZ-Black", then rebooted for that to take effect.

Here's my ~/.fluxbox/menu file (I think all of these entries work):

# Version 0.1    08.04.2003 - hvogel@hennevogel.de
# Version 0.2   07.12.2004 - hvogel@hennevogel.de

[begin] (Fluxbox Menu)
    [exec] (firefox) {firefox}
    [exec] (spacefm) {spacefm}
    [exec] (konsole) {konsole}
    [exec] (geany) {geany}
    [include] (~/.fluxbox/menu.xdg)
    [submenu] (Tools)
       [exec] (chromium) {chromium}      
       [exec] (dolphin) {dolphin}
       [exec] (mirage) {mirage}
       [exec] (geeqie) {geeqie}
       [exec] (spectacle) {spectacle}
       [exec] (gwenview) {gwenview}
       [exec] (kcalc) {kcalc}
       [exec] (konqueror) {kfmclient openProfile filemanagement}
       [exec] (YaST) {/usr/bin/xdg-su -c /sbin/yast2}
    [end]
        [submenu] (Fluxbox Configuration) {}
                [config] (Config)
                [workspaces] (Workspace)
                [submenu] (System-Styles) {Choose a style...}
                        [stylesdir] (/usr/share/fluxbox/styles)
                [end]
        [submenu] (User-Styles) {Choose a style...}
                        [stylesdir] (~/.fluxbox/styles)
                [end]
        [end]
    [exec] (Run Command) {fbrun}
    [exec] (Random Wallpaper) {fbsetbg -r /home/steve/wallpapers}
    [exec] (Lock Screen) {xlock}
    [restart] (Restart) {}
    [exit] (Logout)
[end]

Tinkered some more with the settings, came up with this:

Very nice set-up.

make things a little bit nicer

To get transparency working in Fluxbox in openSUSE 13.2, I had to turn on "Pseudo-Transparency" (Fluxbox Configuration > Config > Transparency > Force Pseudo-Transparency):

From that same Transparency menu, you can then adjust the alpha for focused windows, unfocused windows, and the menu (alpha value: opacity increases to a max of 255).

You can also adjust the alphas for the slit and for the toolbar:

Then get yourself some coffee and get some real work done.