Openbox

---

title: "Openbox" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["free-software-programmed-in-c", "free-x-window-managers", "lxde", "window-managers-that-use-gtk", "software-using-the-gnu-general-public-license"] description: "Stacking window manager for X11 displays" topic_path: "general/free-software-programmed-in-c" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openbox" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Stacking window manager for X11 displays ::

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

Field	Value
name	Openbox Window Manager
screenshot	2010-04-24-133031 1280x800 scrot.png
caption	Basic Openbox session
developer	Dana Jansens, Mikael Magnusson
released
latest release version
latest release date
latest preview version
latest preview date
programming language	C
operating system	Unix-like
genre	Stacking window manager
license	GPL 2.0 or later
::

| name = Openbox Window Manager | screenshot = 2010-04-24-133031 1280x800 scrot.png | caption = Basic Openbox session | developer = Dana Jansens, Mikael Magnusson | released = | latest release version = | latest release date = | latest preview version = | latest preview date = | programming language = C | operating system = Unix-like | genre = Stacking window manager | license = GPL 2.0 or later

Openbox is a free, stacking window manager for the X Window System, licensed under the GNU General Public License. Originally derived from Blackbox 0.65.0 (a C++ project), Openbox has been completely re-written in the C programming language and since version 3.0 is no longer based upon any code from Blackbox. Since at least 2010, it has been considered feature complete, bug free and a completed project. Occasional maintenance is done to keep it working, but only if needed.

Openbox is designed to be small, fast, and fully compliant with the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual (ICCCM) and Extended Window Manager Hints (EWMH). It supports many features such as menus by which the user can control applications or which display various dynamic information.

Openbox is the standard window manager in LXDE, and often set as the default for LXQt. It is used in Linux distributions such as BunsenLabs, GreenBANG, Lubuntu, Trisquel and Manjaro.

The creator and primary author of Openbox is Dana Jansens of Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Using Openbox

Openbox provides a right-click (or any other key-binding) "root menu" on the desktop, and allows users to configure the way windows are managed. When a window is minimized, it becomes invisible. To bring windows up again, most use or the Desktop menu, accessible by right-clicking. Or, sometimes, by middle-button-clicking. Extending Openbox with other small programs that add icons, taskbars, launchers, eyecandy and others is common.

Configuration

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Obconf-2.0.3-3.png" caption="ObConf, a GUI configuration editor for Openbox"] ::

There are only two configuration files, both located in . They are named and . These can either be edited manually or with the graphical configuration tools ObConf and obmenu.

All mouse and key-bindings can be configured. For example, a user can set:

• a window to go to desktop 3 when the close button is clicked with the middle mouse button
• when scrolling on an icon to move to the next/previous desktop
• raise or not raise when clicking/moving a window

Pipe menus

Openbox has a dynamic menu system that uses "pipe menus". A menu item in a piped menu system can accept the standard output of a shell script (or other executable) in order to generate a sub-menu. Because the script runs every time the pointer activates it, and as the script can assess environmental conditions, piped menus enable conditional branching to be built into the menu system. When the window manager is restarted, a static menu system as used on most window managers gets its layout once and will not have the ability to modify the menu layout depending on environmental factors.

References

References

1. Jansens, Dana. (November 2007). "User:DanaJansens".
2. Jansens, Dana. "Openbox Developer Dana Jansens".
3. "git.openbox.org Git - dana/openbox.git/summary". openbox.org.
4. Saunders, Mike. (March 2008). ["Lightweight window managers"](http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/archives?issue=103}}* {{cite journal). [[Future Publishing]].
5. GentooWiki. (March 2008). "HOWTO Openbox".
6. (June 2021). "is Openbox still being developed?".
7. "EWMH Compliance Document".
8. LXDEWiki. (September 2008). "LXDE Wiki".
9. BunsenLabs Linux. (December 2020). "BunsenLabs Linux".
10. "Rolling-release (Linux Wiki)".
11. Lavergne, Julian. (October 2010). "Lubuntu Applications".
12. DistroWatch. (August 2010). "Tiny Me".
13. "Trisquel Mini GNU/Linux". The Trisquel Project.
14. (11 July 2007). "Openbox window manager grows up". linux.com.
15. "Manjaro - Openbox - Stable". manjaro.org.
16. "Dana Jansens". medium.com.
17. Openbox project. (June 2007). "ObConf:About".
18. "obmenu:Index".
19. "Openbox Wiki:Pipe menus".

::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. ::