Force quitting

Linux Tip!

Problem: Windows instincts kick in and you want to Ctrl+Alt+Del your way out of a crashed program... or porn. or crashed porn.

Solution: Bring up the "Run Dialog"; with default shortcuts that's Alt+F2. Type in "xkill", then Enter. This will make your cursor an "X" or something - use it to click on the misbehaving window (you can Alt+Tab to get to the appropriate window).

Note: If you click on the taskbar icon, it will just shutdown tint2. Restore the taskbar by typing "tint2" in the Run Dialog (Alt+F2).

Shortcut: You can bind the xkill command to a handy shortcut. Edit your OpenBox:
Main Menu > Settings > Openbox > edit rc.xml
Scroll to <keyboard> - add your fancy new shortcut. This one will bring up the xkill with Ctrl+Alt+Q.

 <!-- Keybindings by Emily -->  
   <keybind key="A-C-q">  
    <action name="Execute">  
     <startupnotify>  
      <enabled>true</enabled>  
      <name>XKill</name>  
     </startupnotify>  
     <command>xkill</command>  
    </action>  
   </keybind>  

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'