rofi/README.md

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<h1 align="center">
  Rofi
</h1>
<p align="center"><i>A window switcher, Application launcher and dmenu replacement</i>.</p>

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/84911063/139428874-fe182dd6-82c6-49b8-8da1-920ddda3d1ed.mp4


**Rofi** started as a clone of simpleswitcher, written by [Sean Pringle](http://github.com/seanpringle/simpleswitcher) - a
popup window switcher roughly based on [superswitcher](http://code.google.com/p/superswitcher/).
Simpleswitcher laid the foundations, and therefore Sean Pringle deserves most of the credit for this tool. **Rofi**
(renamed, as it lost the *simple* property) has been extended with extra features, like an application launcher and
ssh-launcher, and can act as a drop-in dmenu replacement, making it a very versatile tool.

**Rofi**, like dmenu, will provide the user with a textual list of options where one or more can be selected.
This can either be running an application, selecting a window, or options provided by an external script.


## What is rofi not?

Rofi is not:

*   A UI toolkit.
*   A library to be used in other applications.
*   An application that can support every possible use-case. It tries to be generic enough to be usable by everybody.
    * Specific functionality can be added using scripts or plugins, many exists.
*   Just a dmenu replacement. The dmenu functionality is a nice 'extra' to **rofi**, not its main purpose.


# Table of Contents

- [Features](#features)
- [Modi](#modi)
- [Manpages](#manpage)
- [Installation](#installation)
- [Quickstart](#quickstart) 
   - [Usage](#usage)
   - [Configuration](#configuration)
   - [Themes](#themes)
- [Screenshots](#screenshots)
- [Wiki](#wiki)
- [Discussion places](#discussion-places)

# Features

Its main features are:

*   Fully configurable keyboard navigation
*   Type to filter
    *   Tokenized: type any word in any order to filter
    *   Case insensitive (togglable)
    *   Support for fuzzy-, regex-, and glob matching
*   UTF-8 enabled
    *   UTF-8-aware string collating
    *   International keyboard support (\`e -> è)
*   RTL language support
*   Cairo drawing and Pango font rendering
*   Built-in modes:
    *   Window switcher mode
        *   EWMH compatible WM
    *   Application launcher
    *   Desktop file application launcher
    *   SSH launcher mode
    *   Combi mode, allowing several modes to be merged into one list
*   History-based ordering — last 25 choices are ordered on top based on use (optional)
*   Levenshtein distance or fzf like sorting of matches (optional)
*   Drop-in dmenu replacement
    *   Many added improvements
*   Easily extensible using scripts and plugins
*   Advanced Theming

# Modi

**Rofi** has several built-in modi implementing common use cases and can be extended by scripts (either called from
**Rofi** or calling **Rofi**) or plugins.

Below is a list of the different modi:

* **run**: launch applications from $PATH, with option to launch in terminal.
* **drun**: launch applications based on desktop files. It tries to be compliant to the XDG standard.
* **window**: Switch between windows on an EWMH compatible window manager.
* **ssh**: Connect to a remote host via ssh.
* **file-browser**: A basic file-browser for opening files.
* **keys**: list internal keybindings.
* **script**: Write (limited) custom mode using simple scripts.
* **combi**: Combine multiple modi into one.

**Rofi** is known to work on Linux and BSD.

# Manpage

For more up to date information, please see the manpages. The other sections and links might have outdated information as they have relatively less maintainance than the manpages. So, if you come across any issues please consult manpages, [discussion](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/discussions) and [issue traker](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/issues?q=) before filing new issue.

 * Manpages:
     * [rofi](doc/rofi.1.markdown)
     * [rofi-theme](doc/rofi-theme.5.markdown)
     * [rofi-script](doc/rofi-script.5.markdown)
     * [rofi-theme-selector](doc/rofi-theme-selector.1.markdown)

# Installation

Please see the [installation guide](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/blob/next/INSTALL.md) for instructions on how to
install **Rofi**.

# Quickstart

## Usage

> **This section just gives a brief overview of the various options. To get the full set of options see the _manpages_ section above**

#### Running rofi

To launch **rofi** directly in a certain mode, specify a mode with `rofi -show <mode>`.
To show the `run` dialog:

    rofi -show run

Or get the options from a script:

    ~/my_script.sh | rofi -dmenu

Specify an ordered, comma-separated list of modes to enable.
Enabled modes can be changed at runtime. Default key is `Ctrl+Tab`.
If no modes are specified, all configured modes will be enabled.
To only show the `run` and `ssh` launcher:

    rofi -modi "run,ssh" -show run


The modi to combine in combi mode.
For syntax to `-combi-modi`, see `-modi`.
To get one merge view, of `window`,`run`, and `ssh`:

    rofi -show combi -combi-modi "window,run,ssh" -modi combi

## Configuration

Generate a default configuration file
```
mkdir -p ~/.config/rofi
rofi -dump-config > ~/.config/rofi/config.rasi
```

This creates a file called `config.rasi` in the `~/.config/rofi/` folder. You can modify this file to set configuration settings and modify themes. `config.rasi` is the file rofi looks to by default.

Please see the [configuration guide](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/blob/next/CONFIG.md) for a summary of configuration options. More detailed options are provided in the manpages.

## Themes

Please see the [themes](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/wiki/themes) section from the [wiki](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/wiki) for brief reference. More detailed options are provided in the [themes manpages](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/blob/next/doc/rofi-theme.5.markdown).

# Screenshots

![screenshot](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/davatorium/rofi/next/releasenotes/1.6.0/icons.png)
![screenshot2](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/davatorium/rofi/next/releasenotes/1.6.0/icons2.png)
![default](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/davatorium/rofi/next/releasenotes/1.4.0/rofi-no-fzf.png)

# Wiki 

| ❗ **The Wiki is Community maintained and are not thoroughly tested**   |
| --- |

[Go to wiki](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/wiki) .

#### Contents

* [User scripts](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/wiki/User-scripts)
* [Examples](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/wiki#examples)
* [dmenu Specs](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/wiki/dmenu_specs)
* [mode Specs](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/wiki/mode-Specs)
* [F.A.Q.](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/wiki/Frequently-Asked-Questions).
* [Script mode](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/wiki/rfc-script-mode)
* [Debugging](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/wiki/Debugging-Rofi)
* [Creating an issue](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/blob/master/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md)
* [FORUM](https://reddit.com/r/qtools/)
* [Creating a Pull request](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/wiki/Creating-a-pull-request)

# Discussion places:

  * [Reddit](https://reddit.com/r/qtools/)
  * [GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/discussions)
  * IRC (#rofi on irc.libera.chat)