HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

AlexelA · 2009-01-22 06:03:31

There is so much unused screen real estate when you first boot your computer. Sure you might have a detailed conky setup running, a taskbar, and a cute little clock in the bottom right-hand corner, but let's face it. 80% of your desktop isn't being used and you'll have to click on something or use some keyboard shortcut key for anything to happen. What if I told you that life needn't be this way? That, if you wanted to, you could have Terminator sitting at the bottom layer of whatever other applications you might be using, hungrily waiting for a "man touch" command, or perhaps a random series of ctrl+shift+e and ctrl+shift+o presses to see just how small of a terminal section you can squeeze out of it?

This Howto will help you transform your freshly booted Crunchbang system from this rather bland affair to this, which might inspire you to do this, which will lead you to do this, and will inevitably have your blood pressure on the rise as you type this.

Step 1

Open the file ~/.config/terminator/config and paste these lines over anything that might be living in there.

scrollbar_position=disabled
foreground_color=#ffffff
font=Mono 9
palette=#000000000000:#aaaa00000000:#0000aaaa0000:#aaaa55550000:#00000000aaaa:#aaaa0000aaaa:#0000aaaaaaaa:#aaaaaaaaaaaa:#555555555555:#ffff55555555:#5555ffff5555:#ffffffff5555:#55555555ffff:#ffff5555ffff:#5555ffffffff:#ffffffffffff
background_type=transparent
borderless=true
background_darkness=0.5
titlebars=false
handle_size=0

Like all good goaltenders around the world, save.

Step 2

You will be making two changes to this file, hence this Step has been broken down into relevant Subdivisions 1-stroke-49-slash-9 and 1-stroke-67-slash-5

-- Subdivision 1-stroke-49-slash-9

Add this code to the <applications> section of your ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml file:

    <application name="terminator" class="Terminator">
      <decor>no</decor>
      <focus>yes</focus>
      <position>
         <x>left</x>
         <y>0</y>
      </position>
      <layer>below</layer>
      <desktop>all</desktop>
      <skip_taskbar>no</skip_taskbar>
      <maximized>vertical</maximized>
    </application>

-- Subdivision 1-stroke-67-slash-5

Next, add this section to the <keyboard> section of the same file:

<keybind key="W-t">
      <action name="Execute">
        <startupnotify>
          <enabled>true</enabled>
          <name>Terminal</name>
        </startupnotify>
        <command>terminator --geometry=1200x0</command>
      </action>
    </keybind>

You might have to tweak the first value in the geometry option depending on your screen resolution and the space that your conky might be taking up. I set the second value to 0 because the changes we made back in Subdivision 1-stroke-49-slash-9 took care of everything (q.v., <maximized>vertical</maximized>).

*** OPTION *** -- Subdivision 34b-stroke-41-slash-12

You might want to add this to your <keyboard> section:

<keybind key="A-space">
      <action name="Iconify" />
    </keybind>

This will allow you to quickly minimize whatever applications you may have opened to get back to your now very useful wallpaper by pressing Alt-Space.

dannytatom · 2009-01-22 06:09:03

why thank ya, sir wink

papparonny · 2009-01-22 06:40:33

thanks alexela! ill sure look into this smile

NWAdawg · 2009-01-22 06:58:12

Looks interesting, I'm going to check into it.

Scrat · 2009-01-22 07:53:42

I'll make a howto out of this as soon as possible big_smile

Thanks AlexelA !

corenominal · 2009-01-22 10:08:44

I am sure I have seen this somewhere before. wink Nice work AlexelA and welcome back! smile

Cope57 · 2009-01-22 19:14:39

Screenshots, or it didn't happen... big_smile

Aughban · 2009-01-22 22:29:32

corenominal wrote:

I am sure I have seen this somewhere before. Nice work AlexelA and welcome back!

idd, great guide and welcome back.

Sami_Sdata · 2009-01-23 04:02:24

Very nice. I love my CLI and now it's always handy. Only problem I found was that terminator as configured blocks my conky display. I changed the geometry line to 800 and now I can see conky on my 900. Should conky show through terminator or is your display just larger?

AlexelA · 2009-01-23 06:01:45

Sami_Sdata wrote:

Very nice. I love my CLI and now it's always handy. Only problem I found was that terminator as configured blocks my conky display. I changed the geometry line to 800 and now I can see conky on my 900. Should conky show through terminator or is your display just larger?

The display on my desktop is 1400x1050 which is why I set the geometry so high. On my laptop, it is set differently to accommodate the lack of screen real estate compared to my desktop's wonderful 21" LCD monitor.

---

Thanks to all for the many "welcome back"'s.

Anyhow, I've been looking into extending the functionality of this howto by integrating the seemingly unending possibilities of xdotool. If my tests work out, it would answer something Xoros was asking about earlier where Terminator could start up, the screen already split with preloaded apps.

I'll diligently report my findings here.

Last edited by AlexelA (2009-01-23 06:02:09)

crazybilly · 2009-01-23 06:40:26

oh dear. this crap is TEMPTING. But. must. go. to. bed. Have to try this out later--looks awesome

wmdiem · 2009-01-23 11:10:32

Does anyone know whether there is a way to direct the stdout of all programs/daemons/the kernel to an xterm. That would be neat to be able to follow all the system's messages and whatnot in a background like that.
Also, I assume the rightclick ob menu doesn't work over the terminal.

iggykoopa · 2009-01-23 14:32:29

you can output the kernel messages to your conky, just add something similar to

${execi 1 dmesg}

you may have to format the output a little to get it to display how you want, but thats the basic command. If you want all the program and daemon output you'll want to look in /var/log , but if you try to do all of them it'll scroll by so fast you won't be able to see it. If there is a specific log you want to see try:

${execi 1 tail /var/log/whatever.log}

Last edited by iggykoopa (2009-01-23 14:33:13)

Daedalus · 2009-01-24 02:18:02

Hey, is there any way to do this such that you can still right-click on the desktop and get the root menu?

I really like having the root menu available, but the desktop terminal is cool too.

Sami_Sdata · 2009-01-24 04:29:35

Daedalus wrote:

Hey, is there any way to do this such that you can still right-click on the desktop and get the root menu?
I really like having the root menu available, but the desktop terminal is cool too.

You can always click in the section under Conky. That will still work. Or, alt-space the terminator and you have an open desktop again.

crazybilly · 2009-01-24 04:56:23

AlexelA wrote:

If my tests work out, it would answer something Xoros was asking about earlier where Terminator could start up, the screen already split with preloaded apps..

Any word on this--that'd be pretty freakin' awesome. Also, is there a way to keep that terminator session from showing up in my lxpanel taskbar?

or just as important, a way to launch a terminal in just a window as well?

Overall, very cool.

Hanna · 2009-01-24 08:26:20

Also, is there a way to keep that terminator session from showing up in my lxpanel taskbar?
or just as important, a way to launch a terminal in just a window as well?

Add this code to the <applications> section of your ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml file:

    <application name="terminator" class="Terminator">
      <decor>no</decor>
      <focus>yes</focus>
      <position>
         <x>left</x>
         <y>0</y>
      </position>
      <layer>below</layer>
      <desktop>all</desktop>
      <skip_taskbar>no</skip_taskbar>
      <maximized>vertical</maximized>
    </application>

To remove terminator from taskbar you have to change <skip_taskbar>no</skip_taskbar> to <skip_taskbar>yes</skip_taskbar>.

AlexelA · 2009-01-25 00:57:35

crazybilly wrote:

AlexelA wrote:
If my tests work out, it would answer something Xoros was asking about earlier where Terminator could start up, the screen already split with preloaded apps..
Any word on this--that'd be pretty freakin' awesome.

I spent all night last night trial-and-erroring entries in various config files to get this to work and so far, no luck. xdotool seems very useful for simulating a key combo or a mouse click to launch an app from a menu or taskbar, but I have a feeling that one has to wrap one's head around the timing pecadillos involved with an Openbox startup and the apps it cares to summon via the autostart.sh file.

crazybilly · 2009-01-25 04:11:30

late last night, I saw a comment on a post about Terminator somewhere that said that kind of feature's planned for v1.0.

The version in #! is something like .4 or some such, isn't it?

Too bad, though--that would be 8 kinds of awesome.

crazybilly · 2009-01-25 04:14:38

Ooo..I just had an idea. What if, instead of trying to split it w/in one terminator window, you just created 2-4, undecorated terminator windows? That'd have teh same effect, but you'd be able to start programs with 'terminator -x htop' or some such.

You'd just have to plan your 2-4 windows and get the geometry right.

Sjur · 2009-01-25 13:13:26

This is quite useful on my eee... the wifi I use is very unstable and quite slow as well... so with elinks on terminator in the background (and it gets quite a lot of space as well after I removed LXDE-panel and replaced it with docker, changed the font-size ect) and elinks browsing actually gets quite speedy now.

The web is actually quite small when you remove the pictures, and a lot more usefull... Been playing a bit with finch as well, and it sits quite well in the background... and there's always a terminal ready for me to nerd the man pages... Thumbs up AlexelA!

nintennuendo · 2009-02-01 01:12:13

Alright, I don't know what I am doing wrong, but I can't get it to happen. I just get a window without titlebar or scrollbar. I followed instructions to the T. Any advice?

woCrunchN0bang15 · 2009-02-01 02:10:34

This doesn't work for me either. It doesn't show up on the wallpaper originally. When I enter terminal through right click is only when it shows up on the left side of screen; full screen. Is this how its suppose to work or is the terminal suppose to be open all the time on the screen?

nintennuendo · 2009-02-01 03:53:40

As is my usual thing, I post before I really try to do anything.

I followed the instructions, logged off, then logged back in, the Super+T did it. Now I just need to resize it to not overlap conky, but it's being a turd. The elinks browser embedded on the desktop sure is nice, though! I've never seen gmail load faster. TOTALLY worth it.

Donat · 2009-02-08 18:06:22

This looks like the shiZZnit's bollocks, and I really want it. However it looks to me like you wouldn't be able to have windowed terminators anymore, and I don't really want to lose that functionality.

I'm thinking of making 2 different "profiles" for terminator, so that one would be my bland black-bg'ed, windowed, taskbar'ed vanilla flavour terminator. And then have the awesome chocolate flavoured, desktop-humping terminator that I could run on startup...

The problem is, I don't know how to do this. Should I duplicate my terminator executable and rename it to terminator-awesome or some other appropriate moniker, and try to set that one up in the rc.xml? My problem with this is I'm pretty sure it will load the same terminator_config file as the other, and not be all transparenty.

gonna see what I can manage, and update when I can. Till then I'd appreciate any input (and also I'd like to try and do this without installing more packages... )

CrunchBang Linux

SEARCH

#1 2009-01-22 06:03:31

HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#2 2009-01-22 06:09:03

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#3 2009-01-22 06:40:33

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#4 2009-01-22 06:58:12

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#5 2009-01-22 07:53:42

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#6 2009-01-22 10:08:44

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#7 2009-01-22 19:14:39

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#8 2009-01-22 22:29:32

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#9 2009-01-23 04:02:24

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#10 2009-01-23 06:01:45

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#11 2009-01-23 06:40:26

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#12 2009-01-23 11:10:32

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#13 2009-01-23 14:32:29

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#14 2009-01-24 02:18:02

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#15 2009-01-24 04:29:35

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#16 2009-01-24 04:56:23

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#17 2009-01-24 08:26:20

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#18 2009-01-25 00:57:35

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#19 2009-01-25 04:11:30

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#20 2009-01-25 04:14:38

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#21 2009-01-25 13:13:26

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#22 2009-02-01 01:12:13

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#23 2009-02-01 02:10:34

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#24 2009-02-01 03:53:40

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

#25 2009-02-08 18:06:22

Re: HOWTO: Have Terminator Become Your Wallpaper

Board footer