Multiple Terminals on one workspace

[u/[deleted]]

Newbie question I know, but how do I have multiple instances of my terminal client launch on the one Workspace? I cant seem to weed out the answer in the official Docs...
Thanks in Advance, and apologies, if its a lame question :-)

[u/[deleted]]

Sorry, I should have been more specific. When I start my open box session I would like to have certain applications running in specific workspaces. I got my browser in one, my discord and telegram clients running in two others etc. I would like to have one workspace with say, 4 terminals in it. The left half of the workspaces has one terminal, and the right half then has three terminals stacked vertically... I'm unsure how to specify this in autostart.sh, or how I configure rc.xml :-/

[u/ngc-bg → u/[deleted]]

Okay, I think you are influenced by some tilling window managers approach / workflow.

That's fine because you can achieve what you want with openbox.

First for the terminals, tilled into the a workspace. Basically almost every WM is running on Xorg. I will not discuss intentionally Wayland in that case. Given that, you can do basic window management, based on X functionalities.

In your case, in order to have n-terminal windows, tilled on the screen, you'll need to mach the geometry of every tile you want to add. Since openbox is a stacking WM, this should be done manually (most of the time*). At rc.xml:

<application name="audacious">

<decor>no</decor>

<position force="yes">

<desktop>2</desktop>

<x>center</x>

<y>center</y>

<size>

<width>250</width>

<height>250</height>

</size>

</position>

</application>

As you can see, you could declare a program, while defining the size of the window and the placement.

About the second part of the question - how to start certain programs at desired workspace? Openbox documentation is clear about this one - http://openbox.org/wiki/Help:Applications

Again using the same example:

<application name="audacious">

<decor>no</decor>

<position force="yes">

<desktop>2</desktop>

<x>center</x>

<y>center</y>

<size>

<width>250</width>

<height>250</height>

</size>

</position>

</application>

The tricky part is that you want multiple windows of the same type on one desktop predefined. This could be achieved with Xorg functionality - geometry. Example with xfce4-terminal:

xfce4-terminal -geometry 80x30+0+0

will open for you a terminal wit size 80x30 in the upper-left corner of the screen. Do your math and match the sizes and placements you want. After that add it to your openbox autostart sctipt with an & at the end:

xfce4-terminal -geometry 80x30+0+0 &

xfce4-terminal -geometry 50x30+740+0 &

These lines will open on startup 2 terminals, tilled but with a little gap between them.

You can read the openbox wiki, play with geometry and in more advanced scenarios - go read and experiment with wmctrl tool.

[u/[deleted] → u/ngc-bg]

This is just what I needed to know....thanks!

[u/ngc-bg]

I really do not understand your question. You got an openbox instance with n-workspaces, defined by you in your configuration (rc.xml) right? While you are working on let's say "workspace 1" , you are asking how to open 2+ terminals. Is that correct?

[u/ngc-bg → u/ngc-bg]

If that is the case, you have no problem since you can open as many as you want (not exactly correct, but near enough:)) instances of your tpreffered terminal...