#! Crunchbang

I'm really in a mood to write right now - and when I figure something out I like to write it down in a logical manner. Years of science training has instilled the need to document every minor finding, I guess.
So I'm going to be posting all my latest solutions and tricks to do with crunchbang (#!) my new operating system. You can find out more about #! here.

If anyone other than me ever reads these posts, then Hello! and feel more than welcome to comment or contact me. But generally this is for my own needs. 

OpenBox shortcut

Problem: My screen is failing due to the abuse it has taken from the traveling lifestyle. I need to be able to invert the colors to see certain types of text, and revert to original to see pictures. I installed xcalib to give me that ability, but I wanted to hotkey the command.

Solution: With this guide, and this wiki, I succeeded.
Main Menu > Settings > Openbox > edit rc.xml
Scroll to <keyboard> - add your fancy new shortcut. Here's mine:

 <!-- Keybindings by Emily -->  
   <keybind key="W-s">  
    <action name="Execute">  
     <startupnotify>  
      <enabled>true</enabled>  
      <name>xcalib</name>  
     </startupnotify>  
     <command>xcalib -i -a</command>  
    </action>  
   </keybind>  

Adjusting window size

Linux Tip!

To adjust window sizes on the fly, use your Super key + any of the four arrow keys to adjust an un-maximized window with ease.

If you've never tried it before, just mess with it for 10 seconds.

You're welcome.

Desktop naming

Problem: In the upper left hand corner there is a little number "1" in my taskbar. It's very boring and I only have one desktop - I don't need it numbered.

Solution: Main Menu > Settings > Openbox > GUI Config Tool -- Desktops > Desktop names, double click the name to edit.

I named mine "#!"

tint2 Transparency

Problem: The taskbar, at the top for me, was only transparent on the right side (clockside) and the middle and left portions of the taskbar were not the same opacity. I wanted to make the entire taskbar uniform in transparency.

Solution: Main Menu > Settings > tint2 > Edit config file.
Under "# Taskbar", the line "taskbar_active_background_id = 6" to 1, and success!

(see this post and the wiki for why)... the tl;dr is that the first 8 things in the tint2 config file are little "profiles" which get referenced by the different parts later. So further down in the code, my "taskbar_active_background_id" was asking for profile 6, which had high opacity, instead of profile 1.

Date & Time in tint2

Problem: I wanted the date in the upper righthand corner, dang it. And I had no idea what this tint2 thing was.
Solution: The clock can be changed in a lot of ways.
Main Menu > Settings > tint2 > edit config file
I currently have:

 # Clock  
 time1_format = %a %b %d @ %H:%M  

Touchpad - tap-to-click

Problem: Touchpad
The touchpad worked upon install, even two fingered scrolling! But the tap-to-click function was not working. Unfortunately, forum diving teaches me that no one else likes tap-to-click on their touchpads and I'm a heathen. =p

Solution: With some reverse engineering of this post's discussion, I did the following in terminal:

 synclient  

In the list I find "TapButton1 = 0" (tap-to-click is off), so I type the following to turn it on:

 synclient TapButton1=1  

Sound notification

Problem: Sound worked at the beginning of install, but after testing out my function keys (Fn+3, for example) to adjust the volume, the sound stopped working and the function keys still didn't do anything other than display the notification that they should be working.

Solution: Somehow I had been adjusting an imaginary sound output device or something. I click the speaker icon in the upper right-hand corner > Volume Control > then tinkered around until I picked the appropriate device (there was more than one at the time, now there's only one... don't ask me how). Then after some forum searching I found that the Fn keys were adjusting that *imaginary* speaker. On the #! forums, pashman supplied the ultra useful code that makes my Fn keys only adjust my active speaker, instead of the imaginary one:

 xfconf-query -c xfce4-mixer -p /active-card -s 'PlaybackBuiltinAudioAnalogStereoPulseAudioMixer'