TINT2 PANEL

tint2 is a simple panel/taskbar made for modern X window managers. It was specifically made for Openbox but it should also work with other window managers (GNOME, KDE, XFCE etc.). It is based on ttm https://code.google.com/p/ttm/.

FEATURES:

Panel with taskbar, system tray, clock and launcher icons;
Easy to customize: color/transparency on fonts, icons, borders and backgrounds;
Pager like capability: move tasks between workspaces (virtual desktops), switch between workspaces;
Multi-monitor capability: create one panel per monitor, showing only the tasks from the current monitor;
Customizable mouse events.

GOALS:

Be unintrusive and light (in terms of memory, CPU and aesthetic);
Follow the freedesktop.org specifications;
Make certain workflows, such as multi-desktop and multi-monitor, easy to use.

KNOWN ISSUES:

Graphic glitches on Intel graphics cards can be avoided by changing the acceleration method to UXA (issue 595)
Window managers that do not follow exactly the EWMH specification might not interact well with tint2 (known issues for awesome, bspwm. openbox-multihead)
Full transparency requires a compositor such as Compton (if not provided already by the window manager, as in Compiz/Unity, KDE or XFCE)

CONFIGURATION:

tint2 has a configuration file in ~/.config/tint2/tint2rc. A skeleton configuration file with the default settings is created the first time you run tint2. You can then change this file to your liking. Full documentation on how to configure tint2 is found here.

You can configure the fonts, colors, looks, location and more in this file. The tint2 package also contains a GUI configuration tool that can be launched by running tint2conf from Rofi or your favourite launcher.

APPLICATION LAUNCHERS:

With version 0.12, it has become possible to add application launchers to tint2. It is necessary to add the following configuration options to your tint2 config file:

Under #Panel:

# Panel
panel_items = LTSBC

And under the new section #Launchers:

# Launchers
launcher_icon_theme = LinuxLex-8
launcher_padding = 5 0 10
launcher_background_id = 9
launcher_icon_size = 85
launcher_item_app = /some/where/application.desktop
launcher_item_app = /some/where/anotherapplication.desktop

panel_items is a new configuration option which defines which items tint2 shows and in what order:

Show Launcher

Show Taskbar

Show Systray

Show Battery status

Show Clock

Expanded Spacer (only works without T)

Since version 0.12, you have the ability to create launchers. Unfortunately, tint2 does not support nested menus yet, so there is no native function to enable an applications menu. This section describes a way to create a launcher for Openbox.

Besides tint2 and Openbox, install the xdotool package. Next, create a keybinding for opening the Openbox menu. For Openbox, this would require the following entry between the <keyboard> and </keyboard> tags in ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml:

 <keybind key="C-A-space">
   <action name="ShowMenu"><menu>root-menu</menu></action>
 </keybind>

This will set Ctrl+Alt+Space to open the root-menu (this is the menu that opens when you right-click the desktop). You can change root-menu to any menu-id that you have defined in ~/.config/openbox/menu.xml. Next we need to make that keybinding into a .desktop file with xdotool. First test that your keybind works with:

$ xdotool key ctrl+alt+space

If the menu you chose pops up under your mouse cursor, you have done it right! Now create a open-openbox-menu.desktop file inside the ~/.local/share/applications directory. Add the line Exec=xdotool key ctrl+alt+space where Ctrl+Alt+Space are your chosen key combinations. Open your new open-openbox-menu.desktop file from your file manager and, once again, you should see the menu appear under your cursor. Now just add this to tint2 as a launcher, and you have your Openbox Applications Menu as a launcher for tint2.

VOLUME ICON:

Tint2 does not come with a volume control applet. We recommend volumeicon.

RUNNING TINT2 IN ARCHLABS:

You can run tint2 by simply typing the command:

$ tint2

If you want to run tint2 when starting Openbox, you will need to edit ~/.config/openbox/autostart and add the following line:

tint2 &

MULTIPLE PANELS:

Multiple tint2 panels can be simultaneously running by using executing tint2 with different configuration files:

tint2 -c <path_to_first_config_file>
tint2 -c <path_to_second_config_file>

ENABLING TRANSPARENCY:

To make tint2 look its best, some form of compositing is required. If your tint2 has a large black rectangular box behind it you are either using a window manager without native compositing (like Openbox) or it is not enabled.

To enable compositing under Openbox you can install Xcompmgr or Cairo Compmgr, the packages are xcompmgr, respectively cairo-compmgrAUR.

Xcompmgr can be started like this:

$ xcompmgr

You will have to kill and restart tint2 to enable transparency.

If Xcompmgr is used solely to provide tint2 with transparency effects it can be run at boot by changing the autostart section in ~/.config/openbox/autostart to this:

# Launch Xcomppmgr and tint2 with openbox
if which tint2 >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  (sleep 2 && xcompmgr) &
  (sleep 2 && tint2) &
fi

Other (better) ways to make Xcompmgr run at startup are discussed in the Openbox article.

FULLSCREEN/OVERLAY:

To force tint2 to stay on top of the application (overlay), you need to set the panel_layer option appropriately. This can be helpful when you switch from a fullscreen window to a normal application using Alt-Tab. There is a discussion on this at Crunchbang Forum

 #Panel
 panel_layer = top
 strut_policy = follow_size

THIRD PARTY EXTENSIONS:

It is also possible to extend tint2 with other applications. To add third party extensions, check the "Pages" section in the Official Tint2 Wiki link below.

Tint2