How can I use my Archcraft Premium Openbox themes on MaBox?

Basic Help & Support
1

I have the Archcraft openbox premium themes and I was just wondering if it were possible to use them on Mabox.

2

Hello @gr4y and welcome to the forum :slight_smile:

This sounds very interesting :slight_smile:
Where can I buy or see these themes?

I don’t think it’s possible to use Archcraft themes in Mabox in a simple way…

I tried Archcraft quite a while ago, and if I remember correctly it’s not very similar to Mabox in terms of the components used.
They don’t use the tint2 panel, nor jgmenu if I remember correctly.

3

Before using Mabox, I was happily running Archcraft with i3

(Back when there was no “premium” version)

Switching to Mabox meant learning a few new things, mainly because Mabox uses different tools than Archcraft.

:puzzle_piece: Key differences:

  • Archcraft uses:

    • Rofi for menus, launchers, and applets
    • Pywal to auto-generate colors based on wallpapers
    • Lightweight shell scripts in ~/.config/openbox/scripts to handle dynamic theming and launchers

  • Mabox uses:

    • jgmenu as its main menu/launcher system
    • Its own Colorizer, Mabox Control Center, and Tweak Tools
    • A more integrated theming system with dynamically switching panels, conkys, and menus

Technically, you could try to manually copy over GTK/Openbox themes, icons, or wallpapers from Archcraft to Mabox. But:

  • The menus, panels, launchers, and config structure are too different.
  • Pywal integration in Archcraft would not automatically apply to Mabox tools (like jgmenu or the panel).
  • Mabox uses a different theme engine and toolchain to apply changes across components.

As @napcok said:

“I don’t think it’s possible to use Archcraft themes in Mabox in a simple way…”

And I agree.

:white_check_mark: What can you do?

  • You can copy GTK and icon themes into ~/.themes and ~/.icons — both distros support this.
  • You could manually set Pywal-generated colors as base for Mabox Colorizer, but it requires editing configs and scripts.

If you really like the Archcraft style, you might consider manually recreating a similar look in Mabox using:

  • Mabox’s built-in Look and Feel switcher
  • jgmenu theming
  • Custom backgrounds and conky setups

But it won’t be plug-and-play.

:bird:

4

Found old post about DWALL. When switching from Archcraft to Mabox.

I was working with rofi (Archcraft style) on Mabox for dwall wallpaper manager.
But got more interested the jgmenu Mabox way.

I found out. To leave Archcraft scripts and tools and go totaly the Mabox way :wink:

:bird: