Introduction

Rofi is an X11 pop-up window switcher, run dialog, script launcher and more. It focuses on being fast to use and causing minimal distraction. This Help file describes it as installed in MX-Fluxbox 2.2 and later to function as the run app instead of the native fbrun.

Usage

The app can be launched in various ways:

• Press F2
• Click Menu > Run
• In terminal: rofi -show run

As set up in MX-Fluxbox, the bottom row (set up by the line in the config file: sidebar-mode: true;) shows the available modes (“modi”) that can be used. Switching mode is accomplished with a mouse click or Ctrl+Tab on the keyboard.

• run
  • shows all installed applications
  • preserves history
  • displays command, not name (e.g., “calc” brings up “localc” not “LibreOffice Calc”)
• calc
  • the powerful qalc runs in the background
  • standard operators: +, -, *, /, ^, sqrt, etc. (e.g., “22^2 * pi”)
  • conversions (e.g., “64km to miles”)
  • currency (e.g., “100 dollars to euros”). The updating of currency information within rofi-calc is currently broken so that currency conversion fails. As a workaround, open qalculate and enter a currency conversion formula such as the one above. That will trigger a successful update of currency information and then rofi-calc will function correctly.
• window
  • displays open windows for rapid switching
• drun
  • applications menu with names and icons in desktop files
  • icons enabled in config file (show/hide, icon set)
  • creates Favorites list by sorting frequently used programs on top
  • no history
• ssh
  • run ssh via ~/.ssh/config

Custom modi can be added using the internal ´script´ mode. Each mode has two parameters “name” and “script.” This is begin used in the default config, for instance, where the calc function is invoked with calc:qalc.

Configuration

Default: ~/.config/rofi/config.rasi

configuration {

	modi: "run,calc:qalc,window,drun,ssh";
	width: 25;
	show-icons: true;
	icon-theme: "papirus";
	lines: 10;
	fake-transparency: true;
	sidebar-mode: true;
	
}

@import "/usr/share/rofi/themes/glue_pro_blue.rasi"

Resources for config file: ~/.config/rofi/xresources

Many themes are available for rofi. To see and select them, open a terminal and enter: rofi-theme-selector

Links

• man page: rofi
• man page: rofi-theme
• GitHub rofi
• GitHub rofi-calc
• Wizardsoftheweb blog posts

v. 20200801