Q. 1. What is xoblite bb2?

A. xoblite bb2 is a windows shell replacement based on blackbox, a popular *nix window manager. It is the creative vision of qwilk. It incorporates such things as an intergrated slit and toolbar, scripting support, font shadows, and portable themes.

Q. 2. Where can i get xoblite bb2?

A. xoblite bb2 is available at http://www.xoblite.net .

Q. 3. I dont have a three button mouse OR a wheel mouse and when i try to change styles through the menus it tells me that i need to middle click to do so.. HELP??

A. In your extensions.rc file you will find this line

xoblite.midclick.stylesMenu: true

If you wish to be able to get to your styles without mid click set it to false and make certain you have the following lines in your menu.rc

[submenu] (styles)

[submenu] (styles)
[stylesdir] ($Blackbox$\styles)
[end]

Otherwise you are out of luck.


Q. 4. Can i change the toolbar/systembar to only be one line.

A. The best answer to this is "kind of" . You CAN use the middle click on your mouse to toggle the visibility of the systembar, leaving only the toolbar visible. You can also undock the systembar from the toolbar by right clicking the systembar near its border and placing it independant of the toolbar and from there you are able to toggle the visibility of the toolbar leaving only the tasks/systembar visible. But if you are looking for a way to configure xoblite to use a fluxbox/bbleanbar style bar, the answer is no.


Q. 5. Can i use third party bars (eg. systembarEX , bbleanbar) by loading the respective plugin and changing the width of the existing toolbar to 0% like i do in bb4win?

A. No.


Q 6. Where are the tear off menus, and will they be implemented?

A. There are no tear off or pinnable menus in xoblite bb2. They were not forgotten and were in fact left out by choice. As for future implementation, im sure its POSSIBLE but i wouldn't believe anything you hear unless you hear it from qwilk himself.


Q. 7. Why is doesnt my xoblite bb2 logoff/shutdown properly when i do attempt to do so from the menus?

A. This is a problem that is documented and is being worked on. One thing u need to remember is that the developers of any software package are usually paid to do so and have set hours to work upon it. Well anyone developping a windows shell is generally doing so on their own time and has families and other real life responsibilities to deal with. xoblite is a great shell and if you can learn to accept a new taskbar and a slight shutdown bug and sit tight for the ride while things are completely ironed out it might be worth your while. Negative "your shell sucks" and "this is bullWHATEVER.." are just going to bum folks out and who likes doing anything when they dont feel appreciated.
As of right now it appears that the shutdown glitch is somehow related to blackbox skinning apps like bbleanskin.. still working on solution.

Q. 8. I know i can't use third party toolbars with xoblite but can i use a third party tray plugin?

A. Yes you can use a third party tray plugin with xoblite bb2. bbtray has been tested and works fine. If you would rather use a plugin such as bbtray you will find an option in your config menu to turn off the systembar tray.


Q. 9. I didnt like having systray icons without color so i changed it and suddenly my CPU usage seems to be more then it was before?

A. That is true. Without getting into too much technical details this is the reason. Each icon in the tray is 16 pixels by 16 pixels in size. This represends 256 pixels PER ICON in the tray. Setting the hue and color on these icons results in a situation where your computers processor has to rendor the SAT and HUE on EVERY ONE of those 256 pixels for EACH icon in the tray.. resulting in the extra load that will be experienced on your system.

Q. 10. I've noticed my cpu usage jumps up from 0% to 10% when showing the systembar...?

A. The most common cause for high(er) CPU usage is the use of saturation and hue in combination with animated systray icons, so try disabling saturation (set to 255) and hue (set to 0) and see if that makes a difference.

Q. 11. Why won't (insert plugin name here) load into my slit? It was always slittable in other branches?

A. While most slittable plugins will load without problem into the slit in bb2 after being loaded through the xoblite configuration menu there are still certain plugins that will require that you manually edit the plugins.rc and place the & in front of the loading string. BBICONS.dll is one such plugin, without :

&plugins/bbicons/bbicons.dll

there is no way that you can get it to load into the slit. One other reason you might be having trouble slitting a plugin is if you loaded it using the DRAG TO DESKTOP method. This method is intended primarily for ease of use for plugin devs and does NOT support slitting at this time. The only way a plugin can be loaded to allow it in the slit is by manually editting the plugins.rc or loading it through the xoblite configuration menus.


Q. 12. Is there a way i can set the margins for my desktop? As it is right now my maximized windows show BEHIND the toolbar. Can i just fix it so that my windows dont overlap the toolbar or the slit at all?

A. The answer is yes. This is done with the following setting in your extensions.rc

xoblite.desktop.area: 4 4 4 34

The numeric values in this line represent the number of pixels you wish in the margin. The order of these numbers as they pertain to your monitor is LEFT, TOP, RIGHT, BOTTOM.


Q. 13. Is there a way to determin the order in which plugins appear in the slit?

A. Yes. Plugins placed in the slit are arranged according to the order in which they are loaded in the plugins.rc. The first plugin loaded will be the first, the second will be the second, and so on.


Q. 14. I like to use transparency in my desktop and have been able to change the alpha on everything in my shell to be transparent using the menus provided on such things as the slit and the toolbar, but i cannot seem to get my menus transparent. Can this be done?

A. Yes. This can in fact be done, although, it is the only part of the shell that requires you to edit the extensions.rc file in order to change the alpha value for that string. This can be done by opening the extensions.rc and changing this line:

xoblite.menu.transparency.alpha: 255

The values range from 0-255 with 0 being invisible and 255 being solid.


Q. 15. Can i set xoblite so that it doesnt automatically change the wallpaper everytime i load a new style?

A. Yes this can be done easily if you right click on your desktop then choose xoblite then configuration then choose this setting:

Disable Rootcommands


Q. 16. I need real time help.. like now? where can i go?

A. You can get help on irc if u joing #bb4win found on server irc.freenode.net. Usually theres someone around willing to help.
Just ask your question and if you are patient it will be answered as soon as possible.





This FAQ is a work in progress and is being done by ME (thewayofzen) as a way to try and help give qwilk a break to code more or spend time with his family. If you have a question that isnt in this faq feel free to send me a private message and i will see what i can can do to help. As a beta tester i might have already come across your problem and know what is wrong. Any misinformation in this FAQ is a result of my doing..