tint2

tint2
is a simple, unobtrusive and light
panel
for
Xorg
. It can be configured to include a system tray, a task list, a battery monitor and more. Its look is configurable and it only has few dependencies, making it ideal for window managers like
Openbox
, that do not come with a panel.
Installation
Install
the
tint2
package.
Configuration
tint2
has a configuration file in
~/.config/tint2/tint2rc
. A skeleton configuration file with the default settings is created the first time you run
tint2
. You can then change this file to your liking. Full documentation on how to configure
tint2
is found
here
. You can configure the fonts, colors, looks, location and more in this file. The
tint2
package also contains a GUI configuration tool which can be launched with
tint2conf
.
Application launchers
With version 0.12, it has become possible to add application launchers to
tint2
. It is necessary to add the following configuration options to your
tint2
configuration file:
Under
#Panel
:
# Panel
panel_items = LTSBC
And under the new section
#Launchers
:
# Launchers
launcher_icon_theme = LinuxLex-8
launcher_padding = 5 0 10
launcher_background_id = 9
launcher_icon_size = 85
launcher_item_app = /some/where/application.desktop
launcher_item_app = /some/where/anotherapplication.desktop
panel_items
is a new configuration option which defines which items
tint2
shows and in what order:
L
shows the Launcher
T
shows the Taskbar
S
shows the Systray (also called notification area)
B
shows the Battery status
C
shows the Clock
F
adds an extensible spacer (freespace). You can specify more than one. Has no effect if `T` is also present.
(since 0.12)
E
adds an executor plugin. You can specify more than one.
(since 0.12.4)
P
adds a push button. You can specify more than one.
(since 0.14)
:
adds a separator. You can specify more than one.
(since 0.13.0)
Applications menu in Openbox
Since version 0.12, you have the ability to create launchers. Unfortunately,
tint2
does not support nested menus yet, so there is no native function to enable an applications menu. This section describes a way to create a launcher for Openbox.
Besides
tint2
and Openbox,
install
the
xdotool
package. Next, create a keybinding for opening the Openbox menu:
~/.config/openbox/rc.xml
<keyboard>
 <!-- Keybinding for opening OpenBox menu -->
 <keybind key="C-A-space">
   <action name="ShowMenu"><menu>root-menu</menu></action>
 </keybind>
</keyboard>
This will set
Ctrl+Alt+Space
to open the root-menu (this is the menu that opens when you right-click the desktop). You can change
root-menu
to any menu-id that you have defined in
~/.config/openbox/menu.xml
. Next we need to make that keybinding into a
.desktop
file with
xdotool
. First test that your keybind works with:
$ xdotool key ctrl+alt+space
If the menu you chose pops up under your mouse cursor, you have done it right! Now create a
open-openbox-menu.desktop
file inside the
~/.local/share/applications
directory. Add the line
Exec=xdotool key ctrl+alt+space
where
Ctrl+Alt+Space
are your chosen key combinations. Open your new
open-openbox-menu.desktop
file from your file manager and, once again, you should see the menu appear under your cursor. Now just add this to
tint2
as a launcher, and you have your Openbox Applications Menu as a launcher for
tint2
. If you need to place the menu at a fixed position, you can use
xdotool mousemove x y
. You can create a script and reference it in
open-openbox-menu.desktop
since it involves two commands.
See
Openbox Menus
for further help on creating your own menu to use here, and
menumaker
to generate a nice full
menu.xml
for most (possibly all) of your installed programs.
Since version 0.14, you have the ability to create buttons. Just add "xdotool key ctrl+alt+space" string from example above to button key action you want to be start menu action.
Volume control
tint2
does not come with a volume control applet. See
List of applications/Multimedia#Volume control
.
Running tint2
Openbox
You can run
tint2
by simply typing the command:
$ tint2
If you want to run
tint2
when starting
Openbox
, you will need to edit
~/.config/openbox/autostart
and add the following line:
tint2 &
GNOME
In
GNOME
, the Activities view has replaced the bottom panel and taskbar. To use
tint2
in its place, run
$ gnome-session-properties
and add
/usr/bin/tint2
as an application to run on start-up. The next time GNOME starts,
tint2
will run automatically.
i3
In
i3
, to use
tint2
as a replacement for
i3status
, append the following line to end of the i3 configuration file:
~/.config/i3/config
exec --no-startup-id tint2
and comment out or remove any section like
bar{status_command i3status
} from the same file.
Multiple panels
Multiple
tint2
panels can be simultaneously running by executing
tint2
with different configuration files:
tint2 -c
path/to/first/config/file
tint2 -c
path/to/second/config/file
Enabling transparency
tint2
supports both fake and real transparency. Which one is used is regulated by the
disable_transparency
option in the
tint2rc
configuration file.
If you want to completely disable transparency you need to use
disable_transparency = 1
and set the panel background opacity to 100. Eg:
background_color = #000000 100
Fake transparency
For fake transparency you need to set
disable_transparency = 1
.
Fake transparency captures a portion of the desktop background and uses that as the panel background. Because of that it is important to set the background image before
tint2
is activated. A startup script example for
Openbox
could be (using
Feh
for the background):
...
feh --randomize --no-fehbg --bg-fill ~/Pictures/wallpapers/
(sleep 1 && tint2) &
...
Real transparency
For real transparency you need to activate a compositor like
picom
first and set
disable_transparency = 0
.
The opacity is regulated by the second parameter of the
background_color
property in the
tint2
configuration file
.
If you are making changes on the fly, you may need to restart
tint2
for the transparency to take effect.
Fullscreen/Overlay
To force
tint2
to stay on top of the application (overlay), you need to set the panel_layer option appropriately. This can be helpful when you switch from a fullscreen window to a normal application using
Alt+Tab
. There is a discussion on this at
Crunchbang Forum
#Panel
 panel_layer = top
 strut_policy = follow_size
Third party extensions
It is also possible to extend
tint2
with other applications. To add third party extensions, check the
Applets
section of official Wiki.
See also
Tint2 upstream wiki