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The Ultimate Guide to Fluxbox Tabs

Welcome to the Fluxbox community. One of the biggest hurdles to first using fluxbox is the tabs. "What's the deal with Tabs?", you ask? Let's find out.

An introduction to tabs.
Fluxbox's tabs aren't in any way a new Idea. The implementation is much like that of the PWM Window Manager. The way it works: Multiple windows are grouped together, and they share the same geometry- they're the same size, exactly in the same position, and moving one window results in moving them all. Think of them as a stack of papers. The tabs are like those little little plastic tabs you can stick on papers to make flipping to a certain page very easy and fast.

That's exactly how tabs work in fluxbox. Simply by selecting the proper tab for the window you want, and that window pops up to the top of that window stack. Now, Let's try it.
Basics of Tabbing
The first thing to remember is that ALL tab manipulation actions use the third mouse button. So, to start, pick two windows that you'd like to group together. Third-click on the tab for the first one, and drag it onto the tab for the second. Congratulations, they're stuck together! You can use the tabs now to switch between the two windows.

To remove a tab, it's the same thing. Third-Click on a grouped tab and drag it away.
Sloppy Window Grouping
"But It feels awkward for me to drop the tab onto the small other tab.."
Good news, then. From the fluxbox 'configuration' menu, pick the 'Sloppy Window Grouping' Option. This allows you to drop your tab anywhere on the target window to perform the grouping.
That's great, but I only want to tab program ____.
There's two different ways you can accomplish this, depending on how many programs you want to have tabs. You can either switch tabs on/off by window. (Right click on titlebar, click 'tab' option), OR you can Turn them off globally with 'configuration'->'Use Tabs'. After turning them off, You can turn tabs on for individual windows as described above.
I don't think I like tabs. Can I turn them off?
Certainly. Select 'Use Tabs' from the fluxbox 'configuration' menu.
Tab Placement
There's a configuration menu option that's called 'Tab Placement'. These are places on the window where the tabs will be located. This is pretty straight-forward, so the only thing we really need to mention is the 'Relative' options. These options make it so that the total length of all tabs on the window is equal to the length of the window. As in, if there's one tab on a window, the tab is the length of the window. If there are two tabs, each tab's length is 50% of the window length. This option often makes the tabs look unobtrusive and is very popular.
Tabs Autogrouping
Sometimes you'd like some apps to be automatically grouped together when they start. It is possible and it's logically called "Autogrouping". This part explains how it works. First of all, you need Fluxbox v0.1.11 or higher. Autogrouping doesn't work with older versions. Then you need to create a ~/.fluxbox/groups file if it is not there already. Right after, edit your ~/.fluxbox/init file and put this line :
```
     session.groupFile:		~/.fluxbox/groups
     
```
Ok, everything is in place. Now you simply have to fill-in the groups file.

Groupfile format:

There is one group for each line in the file and you just type the instance name of the program to be grouped. Ex:
```
     Navigator nedit
     xterm
     
```
This will make two groups, one with netscape and nedit and one with xterm. The new window will only group itself to other windows on the same workspace and to the last window that was focused.
You get the name to put in the group file with:
```
 
     xprop|grep WM_CLASS|cut -d \" -f 2
     
```
and click on the window.
Autogrouping from Tabs
This will allow you to popup the root menu, if you right click on the tab, and select an application and it'll start grouped to the tab. note: this might interfere with the normal autogrouping in a bad way
Tabs in themes
We have an Entire document devoted to the way tabs look in themes. You can check it out if you're interested in changing the way the tabs look in your theme. (Tabs in themes will normally default to what the titlebars look like; Sometimes people would like to change that.)

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If you have general Fluxbox related questions ask them on our irc channel or mailing lists.

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