Window Manager Panels Aligned with Openbox

Reference: Openbox Tint2, with a Pepvoid text button, #1a1a1a background, #242424 / #2e2e2e surfaces, #e01b24 accent, Cantarell 10 pt, and an approximate height of 38 px at 96 DPI. Native panels and each window manager’s own controls remain in place.

Window manager

Adjustments

Openbox

Reference retained; Tint2 was already aligned in the previous step.

Qtile

Native bar remains close to Tint2: 38 px, Cantarell, text menu, tasks with red outline, and tray before the clock.

Awesome

38 px Wibar, Pepvoid launcher in white/red text, 4 px margins, dark rounded tasks capped at 210 px with a red outline for the active task, and clock on a dark surface. Tags and layout selector remain.

bspwm / Herbstluftwm

38 px Polybar with Cantarell and no repeated vertical separators. Text menu, dark workspace indicators with carmine underline, subtle active-title highlight. Tray before clock and battery at the end. Tint2 fallback uses the shared theme.

Sway

38 px Waybar, Cantarell, Pepvoid button with Tint2 margins, dark task backgrounds and red underline instead of a solid red fill. Clock and tray use dark surfaces; tray precedes the clock.

Fluxbox

38 px toolbar, regular fonts, dark tasks, and common clock format. Red menu arrow and workspace name; redundant navigation arrows removed while workspace switching by clicking the name remains.

IceWM

Panel, tasks, and clock theme use the shared palette. Cantarell in tasks, icons capped at 20 px, and native start button with Pepvoid text through start.xpm. Removed duplicate graphs and launchers.

i3

38 px i3bar, Cantarell, and more spacing in the tray. i3status blocks use dark surfaces without repeated separators; normal state stays neutral while alerts remain. Blocks for absent devices are hidden.

Remaining Differences

  • i3bar has no conventional task list or independent launcher on the left; the Pepvoid button is in the status area. It was not replaced with an external bar.

  • Fluxbox 1.3.7 represents toolbar actions with arrows and does not support the arbitrary text button available in later versions. Its menu remains native.

  • IceWM sizes its bar around its controls and start icon. The 74×33 px XPM with Cantarell text approximates the reference height; DPI and personal themes may differ. Reproducible generator: tools/render_icewm_start_button.py; Pillow is needed only at build time.

  • Enlightenment retains its native shelf. The binary EET configuration was not changed and no complete Edje theme was created; the shelf is not claimed to be aligned with Tint2.

  • i3, Qtile, Awesome, and the other tiling window managers retain useful workspace and layout controls that do not exist in the Tint2 reference. Useful indicators and statistics remain where applicable.

Validation

Configurations were read by native implementations and captured in private Awesome, Qtile, Waybar/Sway, Fluxbox, IceWM, i3, and both Polybar environments. Tests included sample windows. Resources absent in the test environment (battery, sound server in some cases) were not treated as hardware validation.

Still to test in an ISO: HiDPI, real multi-monitor setups, applets, and interaction details. Existing personal configurations continue to take precedence. No graphical session on the development host was reconfigured.

Final result: 418 pytest tests passed. The IceWM text start button was confirmed during real startup with Void’s Imlib2 modules; the earlier test without those loaders could not read images. Waybar reported a real height of 38 px. Visual comparison used native bars with open tasks without changing the host desktop.