Blackbox

---

title: "Blackbox" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["articles-containing-video-clips", "free-software-programmed-in-c++", "free-x-window-managers", "software-using-the-mit-license"] description: "Free and open-source stacking window manager for the X Window System" topic_path: "general/articles-containing-video-clips" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbox" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Free and open-source stacking window manager for the X Window System ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]

Field	Value
name	Blackbox
screenshot	Blackbox on Debian.png
screenshot size	300px
caption	Screenshot of Blackbox
developer	Bradley T. Hughes up to version 0.70.1_SL7, onwards forked by Brian Bidulock
discontinued	no
latest release version
latest release date
latest preview version
latest preview date
programming language	C++
platform	Unix-like
genre	X window manager
license	MIT
website

| ::

::callout[type=note] the computer software ::

| name = Blackbox | logo = | screenshot = Blackbox on Debian.png | screenshot size = 300px | caption = Screenshot of Blackbox | author = | developer = Bradley T. Hughes up to version 0.70.1_SL7, onwards forked by Brian Bidulock | released = | discontinued = no | latest release version = | latest release date = | latest preview version = | latest preview date = | programming language = C++ | operating system = | platform = Unix-like | language = | genre = X window manager | license = MIT | website =

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Blackbox_0.7.ogv" caption="Blackbox 0.7 Xsession running on [[Debian]] 7 [[Linux"] ::

Blackbox is a free and open-source stacking window manager for the X Window System.

Blackbox has specific design goals, and some functionality is provided only through other applications. One example is the bbkeys hotkey application.

Blackbox is written in C++ and contains completely original code. It was created by Bradley T. Hughes and is available under the MIT License. Blackbox has compliance with the Extended Window Manager Hints specification.

The original author seems to have ceased updating the repository with the exception of a minor fix of compilation problems in 2015, leaving the last original version at 0.70.1. However an actively maintained fork by Brian Bidulock has been picked up by several Linux distributions in its place, and it is featured in pkgsrc. Despite that, some other Linux distributions still use the original source code, as does FreeBSD.

Features

Features of the Blackbox window manager include:

• A stacking window manager
• Written in C++
• Freely available under the MIT license
• Compliance with the Extended Window Manager Hints Specification
• Title bars have minimize, maximize, and close buttons
• Support for simple themes
• Support for color changes
• No support for desktop shortcuts
• Compatibility with both KDE and GNOME

Related projects

There are a number of other window manager forks of Blackbox:

• Fluxbox
• Hackedbox
• Openbox (until version 3.0)

Windows shell replacements

Although they do not share the same codebase, these projects are also inspired by Blackbox.

• BB4Win (the first and most prominent clone/port of Blackbox on Windows)
• bbLean
• xoblite (has releases from 2021)
• bbZero (a branch of bbLean)

References

References

1. (September 9, 2015). "ManPages/blackbox - Blackbox".
2. "Blackbox - Browse /Blackboxwm/Blackbox 0.70.1_SL7 at SourceForge.net".
3. "Blackbox - Window manager written in C++". FSF.org.
4. (2006). "Mastering UNIX". John Wiley & Sons.
5. (2005). "SUSE Linux 9 Bible". John Wiley & Sons.
6. (February 14, 2018). "Hacking Guide - Blackbox".
7. "About Blackbox". Sourceforge.net.
8. "ICCCM & EWMH Compliance".
9. "Compile with clang and libc++ · bradleythughes/Blackbox@107b761".
10. "The Slackware Linux Project: Packages".
11. "Package Blackbox".
12. "Arch Linux - blackbox 0.77-1 (x86_64)".
13. "pkgsrc.se | The NetBSD package collection".
14. "Ubuntu – Error".
15. "Debian -- Details of package blackbox in sid".
16. "[ports] Index of /head/x11-wm/blackbox".
17. "Window Managers for X: Blackbox".
18. (October 26, 2017). "Related Projects - Blackbox".
19. "BlackBox for Windows". Sourceforge.net.
20. "Customizing Your PC's Desktop - ExtremeTech".
21. (February 6, 2016). "GitHub - xzero450/bbclean-xzero450".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::