Help with lost displays on small screen

[sdjf]

I am running lxde with openbox 3.50 on a headless installation of archlinuxarm on my raspberrypi. My screensize is small, 220x290 for viewing via VNC from a Zaurus PDA. And I have not been able to figure out how to find my lxde version number.

I have a problem with some application displays totally moving off the edge of my screen and need to know how to get them back. I try dragging on the edges of the lxde display and that rarely brings anything back.

This does not happen all the time, but does happen frequently with xdialog and xmessage popups, and also apvlv.

I do not really understand what the different things are that create the taskbar at the bottom, but with my narrow display, there are no icons I can click on except for the main lxde one, some desktop ones, sometimes a cpu usage graph, and pcmanfm.

I do not use pcmanfm or the cpu usage thing or the time/calendar, can I eliminate those at the bottom to give me icons for things that are in use that would enable bringing them forward?

Or is there some command I can type in my ssh session console that would bring these applications back into view? In qtopia on my PDA, I can use qcop to raise applications that have been backgrounded, but have not been able to find anything about this type of function with lxde or openbox.

Thanks!

[sdjf]

Hmm, my query seems to be too broad for anyone to be able to answer. Let me try to ask some specific questions that seem to be lxde rather than openbox, if I understand the differences in what they do.

First, let me also comment that I have to use an onscreen (i.e., virtual) keyboard, so when the virtual keyboard disappears, the only way I know I have for entering directives to lxde on the screen are by tapping on my screen to emulate a mouse.

I realize that there are probably answers to all my questions somewhere, whether it is in man pages or webpages, but nothing I have found is anything other than a totally confusing foreign language for me, I really need specific help. English is my native language, but despite my other Linux experience, I am a total newbie with regards to dealing with desktop environments and it all confuses the heck out of me, the more I read, the more general information I read, the more confused I get.

I would like to know how to remove unneeded items from the bottom taskbar, and add the things I use so that I can tap on them to bring them forward. I tried doing this myself, and all I ended up was a broken LXDE, so that is why I am asking for help.

Here are some specific questions that I hope someone will be able to answer.

1. does the taskbar shown in my above post look right? I know the first icon brings up a menu from LXDE, and the second brings up PCManFM. But what are the third, fourth and fifth icons?

2. Is it normal for the third icon to be grayed out? What is it supposed to represent? Should clicking on it bring up Desktop 1? It does not, I think I messed it up, how do I fix it?

3. When I click on the time, it brings up a calendar. How can I get rid of that calendar? Nothing I have tried makes it go away during a session.

4. Can I remove the time from the taskbar (or tray, if that is what it is called)? How??

5. Can I remove the CPU usage graph from the taskbar or tray? How do I do that?

6. Is there a way to remove the icon for PCManFM? I tried removing it myself by uninstalling it, and it broke some of LXDE. What would be the correct way to simply remove the icon from my taskbar?

7. How do I know which desktop I am on?

8. How do I change the number of desktops to 1 from the default of 2 desktops, so there is not second desktop to accidentally send applications to?

Again, thanks for any help you can give me.

[Rex Bouwense]

1. Yes. The first icon on the lxpanel is indeed the menu. The second appears to be PCManFM. The third looks like the the browser icon. The fouth one will minimize all windows. The fifth appears to be your first desktop. You can check what I have said by left chicking on any open space on the panel and choose Add/Remove Panel Items. That will give you a list of which icons that are on your panel.
2. If that is your browser, add the browser icon (whichever one you have) and delete that icon. See 1. above.
3, If you click the time a second time, it will disappear.
4. Yes. You can remove it if you want to do that. See 1. above.
5. Yes if you really want to. See 1. above.
6. Yes if you want to. See 1. above.
8. If you want only one desk top. Menu->Preferences->Openbox Configuation Manager->Desktops. Change the number 2 to 1.

Any other information can be found at
http://lxlinux.com/#index
Hope this helps.