bbLean

[[]V[]essenjah]

Just starting to use bbLean recently. Looks like a nice, clean-cut interface with a lot of workspace. The only thing there are a few things that are a bit bothersome.


One is that I am not sure how arrange things so that I can access my various programs quickly without icons on my desktop.


It also seems to be a tad buggy when you try to jump into my computer. At least on my machine the windows taskbar shows up and I have to restart blackbox.


The other thing is that in the traybar, I can't see any network icons which is pretty important to me, being that I run on a 56k with a bad line so I am always trying to fight my connection to keep it running decently enough to accomplish some of the tasks that I have to accomplish on a daily basis.

I am a bbLean newbie so anyone have any advice on these issues?

[fyrephlie]

Might I suggest that FlipTW slide this down to the tech forum....?

My 2 cents...

I have used BlackBox and FluxBox on linux for a long time... there are a few things that I have learned...

Most of what you want to do, whatever it is, is intentionally removed because the makers hate you!

Simple as that.

Really though, did you dig through the third party plugin page?

Plugins

I noticed a few there that might help... but I don't know if you want to dig through them all or not.

The idea behind the *Box things are thinness and configurability... they don't give you much to work with out of the box so that you can add what you want. A lot of people just code their own stuff in so that it does exactly what you want it to do, no more, no less.

[fliptw]

you need to restart your machine after you've installed bblean in order for explorer to go away, also try out a alternative file manager, like xplorer2. if you are running 9x, you might want to try xoblite instead, as thats geared towards those OSes.

I use the bbsystembarex in place of the system bar that comes with bblean by default. if you can dig up the last desktop thread, you'll see my desktop using bbsbx

this is my menu.rc:

Code: Select all

# -----------------------------------------------------------------
# bblean 1.16 - MENU FILE
# -----------------------------------------------------------------

# Available menu commands are listed in the documentation.

[begin] (bbLean)

    [path] (Start) {STARTMENU|COMMON_STARTMENU}
    [path] (Desktop) {DESKTOPDIRECTORY|COMMON_DESKTOPDIRECTORY}
    [path] (Quick) {APPDATA\\Microsoft\\Internet Explorer\\Quick Launch}

    [nop]
    [exec] (Explorer) {explorer.exe}
    [submenu] (System)
        [path] (My Computer) {DRIVES}
        [path] (Personal) {PERSONAL}
        [path] (Bitbucket) {BITBUCKET}
        [path] (Controls) {CONTROLS}
        [path] (Blackbox) {BLACKBOX}
        # Uncomment this line to check out all available system folders
        # [include] {shellfolders.rc}
       [run]  (Run)
    [end]

    [nop]
    [stylesmenu] (Styles) {styles}
    [submenu] (BlackBox)
        [config] (Configuration)
        [submenu] (About)
            [aboutstyle] (Style)
            [aboutplugins] (Plugins)
            [about] (bbLean)
        [end]
        [submenu] (Edit)
            [editstyle] (Current Style)
            [editmenu] (menu.rc)
            [editblackbox] (blackbox.rc)
            [editextensions] (extensions.rc)
            [editplugins] (plugins.rc)
            [nop]
            [edit] (BBKeys.rc) {plugins\\BBKeys\\BBKeys.rc}
            [edit] (bbLeanSkin.rc) {plugins\\bbLeanSkin\\bbLeanSkin.rc}
            [edit] (bbLeanBar.rc) {plugins\\bbLeanBar\\bbLeanBar.rc}
        [end]
        [submenu] (bbLeanSkin)
            [exec] (Toggle Log)         {@BBLeanSkin.ToggleLog}
            [exec] (Toggle Skin)        {@BBLeanSkin.ToggleSkin}
            [edit] (Edit Exclusions)    {plugins\\bbleanskin\\exclusions.rc}
            [edit] (Edit Settings)      {plugins\\bbleanskin\\bbleanskin.rc}
            [edit] (Readme)             {plugins\\bbleanskin\\readme.txt}
            [exec] (About)              {@BBLeanSkin.About}
        [end]
        [submenu] (Install)
            [exec] (Install) {blackbox.exe -install}
            [exec] (Uninstall) {blackbox.exe -uninstall}
        [end]
        [nop]
        [exec] (Documentation) {docs\\bblean.htm}
        [nop]
        [reconfig] (Reconfigure)
        [restart] (Restart)
        [exit]  (Quit)
    [end]

    [submenu] (Goodbye)
        [suspend] (Standby)
        [logoff] (Logoff)
        [reboot] (Reboot)
        [shutdown] (Shutdown)
    [end]
[end]

which basically is the default menu for bblean, I can't recall rightly, I been using BB4Win in various forms for the last 5 years.

make liberal use of your quick launch and desktop folders.

for anything more, go hit the *box forums here

that being said, Im waiting for someone to backport bb4win to linux, as its probably one of the better examples of OO code - there are things you can't do with blackbox that are done easily with the bb4win archetecture.

[[]V[]essenjah]

One little program that appears to help is Stardock.

It is nice to stick all of my most used desktop icons right on there.


The biggest trick is organization and avoiding using your windows desktop as a garbage dump. A habbit I want to break from. Looks like I will be moving a lot of stuff around for a while.

However, I still can't access my internet shortcut on the dock for some reason. :\\ This is the biggest problem and may cause me to just go back to exploder. :\\ I would really rather not though. It is nice to have space.

[fliptw]

are you still using bblean? use bbicon.

the folder where your IE stores its favourites is %USERPROFILE%\\favorites, which you can add to the menu.rc with little fuss.

Here's my desktop

[fyrephlie]

that being said, Im waiting for someone to backport bb4win to linux, as its probably one of the better examples of OO code - there are things you can't do with blackbox that are done easily with the bb4win archetecture.

have you checked out any of the other *boxes?

fluxbox is great... i use that frequently.