[SOLVED] Vertical titlebar in fluxbox

Question

Hi all,
After the death of compiz, which provided a minimalistic composite WM (https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=84617), I have come back to fluxbox with skippy-xd (and compton for transparency ). Things have been virtually perfect, and I'm so happy the power skippy and compton gives to good old window managers.
Then I realized, we can make things even better with vertical titlebars to maximize the screen use for widescreens. With the tabs in fluxbox, we can disable the titlebar and set tabs to be placed vertically (left/right of window), and configure the tabs to behave like a regular titlebar. The only potential downside is the absence of minimize/maximize/close buttons, which I don't use anyway.
The picture here http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/features/titlebar.php shows a possible outcome, if we get rid of the titlebar.
The problem is, although the fluxbox setting should work, I can't get (1) the tab font to rotate horizontally (2) the tab to stretch over the height of the window. Here are the relevant files:
~/.fluxbox/init (relevant entries only):
session.screen0.tabs: true
session.screen0.tabs.usePixmap: true
session.screen0.tabs.intitlebar: false
session.screen0.tabs.maxOver: false
session.screen0.tab.placement: LeftTop
session.screen0.tab.alignment: relative ! this line should stretch the tab to the window height, DOESN'T WORK
session.screen0.tab.rotatevertical: true ! this line should rotate the font, DOESN'T WORK
session.screen0.tab.height: 22
session.screen0.tab.width: 220
session.tabPadding: 0
session.tabsAttachArea: Window
session.screen0.defaultDeco: tab ! turns off the titlebar
~/.fluxbox/keys (relevant entries only), to make the tab behave like ordinary titlebars, all working:
OnTab Mouse1 :MacroCmd {Raise} {Focus} {ActivateTab}
OnTab Double Mouse1 :Maximize
OnTab Mouse3 :WindowMenu
OnTab Move1 :StartMoving
OnTab Mouse4 :NextTab
OnTab Mouse5 :PrevTab
So, just two lines to stop this from working! I'm guessing there are other archers who would like vertical titlebars? Any thoughts?
Last edited by dumas (2014-09-02 15:02:48)

Answer 1

I think I found the solution! I think some fonts lack the ability to rotate, so after selecting a working font I now have a "vertical toolbar" in fluxbox.
The only imperfect thing is the lack of transparency in the tab, but then nothing is perfect...