Fluxbox can't set background!

[humbletech99]

I've had this problem for quite and while and it's driving me nuts...

When I change to a style in Fluxbox the style doesn't set the background, even though the style is correct, this happens for every single style, including the default ones. The style will set the window decorations and the taskbar but not the background.

This problem is a configuration issue because when I start fluxbox in a fresh user account and select the same styles, they all set the background image correctly every time - there is noting wrong with the styles themselves. When logged in as my regular user I can set the backgound myself using fbsetbg. Fbsetbg -i tells me I am using Esetroot:

[savage]

[humbletech99]

you meant the init file?

I removed the line

[KillMinusNine]

[humbletech99]

I remember when I tried doing this in the ~/.fluxbox/startup file, the fbsetbg -l never applied the background because either it was executed before fluxbox started or it was executed after fluxbox finished.
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[KillMinusNine]

That seems strange. Have you tried it again recently? You should just put the fbsetbg -l line just before it executes Fluxbox.

fbsetbg functions independent of fluxbox itself, it just pastes a wallpaper onto the desktop root. Starting fluxbox after fbsetbg shouldn't do anything to the fbset wallpaper unless you have a style set up that changes the bg itself - and then the style should be setting the wallpaper, which isn't a problem, is it?

[humbletech99]

I have had that line commented out for a very long time.

Trying to add the fbsetbg -l to the startup file again, I've put it immediately before the exec fluxbox line. I then set the wallpaper using fbsetbg to something other than the background for my current style and the logged off and back on, only to be greeted by the error:

[savage]

If you check out their changelog, version 0.9.15.1 changed some background stuff. It also says that they removed background settings from themes if they aren't doing it the "new way"
Check it out:http://fluxbox.org/version-0.9.php I tried removing the "rootCommand" line from my ~/.fluxbox/init (just removed the line completely), as well as commenting out the "/usr/bin/fbsetroot -solid black" command in the startup file. Still, my backgrounds are not set by my current style.

[humbletech99]

I'm only using Fluxbox 0.9.14-gentoo-r1 so this shouldn't affect me, besides, I don't even know if this is a big deal, I assume that all styles which use fbsetbg via rootCommand will still work, which is most styles.
_________________
The Human Equation:

value(geeks) > value(mundanes)

[JC Denton]

[humbletech99]

I think we've solved the whole styles don't set the background thing, but now it's the question of how to get the last background re-applied after logging back in and for the last background set to override the default background of the theme if it was overridden manually last session
_________________
The Human Equation:

value(geeks) > value(mundanes)

[sean345]

I use the following line in .fluxbox/init to set the background each time I login to the last wallpaper used. This works for version 0.9.14.

[humbletech99]

that's what I used to do but it stops the styles from being able to set the background.

seems you can't have it both ways...
_________________
The Human Equation:

value(geeks) > value(mundanes)

[sean345]

[JC Denton]

[humbletech99]

Thanks for the advice Jim, I think the third one is the proper way to do it but unfortunately it stops styles setting the background when you select a different style, which is how this thread began.

I would like the style to set the background when it is changed, if I don't like the default then I can change it, but I just don't want the background to go back to the default one every time the session is restarted. If I choose a style and want another background with it, then I effectively have to edit the style which is not a very good hack.

Tricky.
_________________
The Human Equation:

value(geeks) > value(mundanes)

[KillMinusNine]

[humbletech99]

good idea, do you know if the styles will object to this? will they give xmessage errors?

if not then it's a cheap way to get the job done, which I could live with until fluxbox developers sort out a proper way of doing this...

thanks!

If I come up with another way, I'll post it back here.
_________________
The Human Equation:

value(geeks) > value(mundanes)

[KillMinusNine]

humbletech99

Sorry, when I first posted that I didn't realize that fbsetbg was aggressive enough to reset the permissions on a file so that it could write to it, even when I was explicitly trying to stop it. The replacement code (above) ought to fix my oversight by moving the lastwallpaper out of the way.

[humbletech99]

I doubt that, it'll probably just recreate the lastwallpaper file...

anyway, this is moot, I gotta upgrade to .15 which I think is still in testing but I'll accept the keywords and get it anyway.

there is a new way of doing it, you don't explicitly call fbsetbg any more. It's safer.

Gotta one-liner all my styles though...
_________________
The Human Equation:

value(geeks) > value(mundanes)

[breen]

As the new way was not posted here, I'm guess it's this, which I've been wrestling with for quite some time:

To have a background set by a style, the style file must contain two key lines:

background: aspect | tiled | centered
background.pixmap: /path/to/wallpaper

(i.e. Choose one of aspect, tiles or centered).

As it turns out, you need both lines or styles will not load backgrounds. You should not use rootCommand in styles any longer, as these two lines above pass the arguments to fbsetbg. You still need feh or the like, and you can still override the style backgrounds with a rootCommand in your init file.

Cheers,
David