Icons in Openbox

[jgratero]

I'm having a bit of an issue with changing icons on Openbox. I've set the icons for my desktop to Tela, but on checking the results, I'm seeing that the change is not complete. Thunderbird is showing two different types of icons, so is Transmission.



I am assuming this is handled by Openbox, being Openbox the windows manager. I've read the documentation available on Openbox, but that documentation is not very detailed on the subject, here, in the wiki for Arch, it says:

Openbox does not natively support the use of desktop icons or wallpapers.

See PCManFM, SpaceFM and Idesk.
Note: You may have to edit ~/.conkyrc and set own_window_type to normal.

So, what does this mean? Is Openbox actually handling the icons of the minimized windows or not?

The documentation and the FAQ section from Openbox does not offer any info regarding icons handling, beyond the mention of iconify (this does not help me to solve my issue)

I've checked every reference to Openbox in this forum (found some interesting information from this now deceased web page, who someone referenced back in 2016) but nothing close to what I am looking for. Chat GPT suggested two possible solutions:

You can configure a general rule for all applications to use icons from a single theme in the `rc.xml` file. Here's how you can do it:

1. Open the `rc.xml` file in a text editor.

2. Scroll to the bottom of the file and add a new `theme` element with the `name` attribute set to the name of the icon theme you want to use, like this:

   

Code Select Expand

   <theme>
     <name>name-of-icon-theme</name>
   </theme>   

   Replace `name-of-icon-theme` with the actual name of the icon theme that you want to use.

3. Save the `rc.xml` file.

4. Restart Openbox by running the following command in a terminal:

   

Code Select Expand

   openbox --restart   

After completing these steps, Openbox should use icons from the specified icon theme for all applications that do not have a specific `application` element defined in the `rc.xml` file.

If you want to override the general rule for a specific application, you can still define an `application` element for that application in the `rc.xml` file, as we discussed earlier. The `application` element will take precedence over the general `theme` element.

And this one, involving Menulibre:

Menulibre is a graphical menu editor for LXQT that allows you to add, remove, and modify applications in the LXQT menu. While it does not directly control the appearance of the Openbox window manager or its icons, it can indirectly affect the appearance of Openbox by modifying the menu entries that are displayed in the LXQT panel.

Specifically, Menulibre allows you to set the icon for a menu entry, which is used by the LXQT panel to display the icon for the corresponding application. When you launch the application and it appears in the Openbox window manager, the icon used by Openbox will be based on the icon set by the LXQT panel.

To change the icon for an application in Menulibre, follow these steps:

1. Launch Menulibre by clicking on the "Menu Editor" icon in the LXQT panel.

2. Find the application for which you want to change the icon and click on it to select it.

3. Click on the "Properties" button in the lower-right corner of the Menulibre window.

4. In the "Properties" window, click on the "Icon" field to select a new icon.

5. Choose a new icon from the available options or click the "Browse" button to search for an icon file on your system.

6. Click "OK" to save the changes to the application's icon.

After changing the icon in Menulibre, you may need to log out and log back in or restart Openbox for the changes to take effect.

MenuLibre shows indeed the Thunderbird icon with the same flat icon that came by default with SparkyLinux LXQT 5.16.



Does anybody have any idea how to tackle this?

[jgratero]

So, the solution turned out to be really simple. Looking through several pages, and searching for, "linux, taskbar is displaying different icon than menu bar, openbox", I found this:




So it was basically preferences, LXQT settings, Appearance, Widget Style, tick the "Set GTK themes (GTK configuration files will be overwritten!) and select your theme of choice to GTK 2 (mine was Numix)

Done.