How is Kickbox different from Fluxbox?

To put it simply:


Here's a default fluxbox menu, with most of the submenus opened up. (Click for full size) All of the menu items are applications. Not that there's anything wrong with that.



Here's my Kickbox menu. Click on the image to see the full screen version, and you'll see that the menu contains functions, in addition to applications. The menu doesn't just open things. It does things. It navigates the file system. It opens web pages, and media files, and it opens the configuration files with kwrite, for handy editing. Toward this end, it uses KDE applications, especially Konqueror.

There's nothing wrong with fluxbox being so simple and straightforward by default. The whole point of fluxbox is that it's programmable. You're supposed to make it your own. The geeks who love fluxbox know that what I've done with their window manager does not make me a progamming genius, or any kind of programmer at all. It makes me another fluxbox user. I've added nothing to its capabilities. I've just tried to use those capabilities to make a more user-oriented interface

In doing so, I've sought to make Fluxbox's capabilities more apparent, and more accessible to all. Kickbox is really intended as an educational tool, a way of showing ordinary users what can be done, and how to do it. Not everyone is going to look at fluxbox's default menu and see the possibilities. For that reason, I intend that this webpage will be more important to this project than the software itself. Please come back. (Incidentally, what these pictures don't show you are the built in templates, which added to make editing simple and fast.)

Kickbox is Fluxbox, and for me, Fluxbox of what GNU/Linux is all about. Fluxbox light, powerful, flexible, and it invites the user to be creative. It's also the best interface I know for getting work done. Between the infinitely customizable menus and the practically infinite keyboard shortcuts, you can have instant access to just about anything you want.

Once you've made this interface (call it what you like) your own, you may find as I have, that fast access to files and applications, organized according to your own preferences, is a better approach than the usual sprawling Desktop Environment approach, which seeks to provide fast access by laying everything out at once. It's distracting. It's confusing. It's... well, okay, maybe it's not that bad. But it's not the ultimate.