Configuring Rofi

NOTE: This page does not describe all of ROFI's configuration options, just the most common usecase.

Upgrade from old configuration format to new

In release after '2 Jan 2020' you can convert to the new configuration format by using the following command:

rofi -upgrade-config

This will create ~/.config/rofi/config.rasi (or the default location for your system) with the previously configured options.

Where does the configuration live

Rofi's configurations, custom themes live in ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/rofi/, on most systems this is ~/.config/rofi/.

The name of the main configuration file is config.rasi. (~/.config/rofi/config.rasi).

Create an empty configuration file

Open ~/.config/rofi/config.rasi in your favorite text editor and add the following block:

configuration {

}

You can now set the options in the configuration block.

Create a configuration file from current setup

If you do not want to start from scratch, or want to migrate from older configuration format, you can get tell rofi to dumps it configuration:

rofi -dump-config > ~/.config/rofi/config.rasi

This will have all the possible settings and their current value. If a value is the default value, the entry will be commented.

For example:

configuration {               
/*  modi: "window,run,ssh";*/ 
/*  width: 50;*/              
/*  lines: 15;*/              
/*  columns: 1;*/             
/*  font: "mono 12";*/        
/*  bw: 1;*/                  
/*  location: 0;*/            
/*  padding: 5;*/             
/*  yoffset: 0;*/             
/*  xoffset: 0;*/             
/*  fixed-num-lines: true;*/  
    show-icons: true;         
... cut ...
/*  ml-row-down: "ScrollDown";*/                                                                                        /*  me-select-entry: "MousePrimary";*/                                                                                  
/*  me-accept-entry: "MouseDPrimary";*/                                                                                 
/*  me-accept-custom: "Control+MouseDPrimary";*/ 
}

Configuration file format

Encoding

The encoding of the file is utf-8. Both Unix (\n) and windows (\r\n) newlines format are supported. But Unix is preferred.

Comments

C and C++ file comments are supported.

• Anything after // and before a newline is considered a comment.
• Everything between /* and */ is a comment.

Comments can be nested and the C comments can be inline.

The following is valid:

// Magic comment.
property: /* comment */ value;

However, this is not:

prop/*comment*/erty: value;

White space

White space and newlines, like comments, are ignored by the parser.

This:

property: name;

Is identical to:

     property             :
name

;

Data types

ROFI's configuration supports several data formats:

String

A string is always surrounded by double quotes ("). Between the quotes there can be any printable character.

For example:

 ml-row-down: "ScrollDown";

Number

An integer may contain any full number.

For example:

lines: 12;                        

Boolean

Boolean value is either true or false. This is case-sensitive.

For example:

show-icons: true;

This is equal to the -show-icons option on the commandline, and show-icons: false; is equal to -no-show-icons.

Character

Character value is always surrounded by single quotes (') and should contain a single character. It supports escaping.

matching-negate-char: '-';

List

This is not supported by the old configuration system, but can be used in the rasi format.

A list starts with a '[' and ends with a ']'. The entries in the list are comma-separated. The entry in the list single ASCII words.

 combi-modi: [window,drun];

Get a list of all possible options

There are 2 ways to get a list of all options:

1. Dump the configuration file explained above. (rofi -dump-config)
2. Look at output of rofi -h.

To see what values an option support check the manpage, it describes most of them.

NOTE: not all options might be in the manpage, as options can be added at run-time. (f.e. by plugins).

Splitting configuration over multiple files

It is possible to split configuration over multiple files using imports. For example in ~/.config/rofi/config.rasi

configuration {
}
@import "myConfig"
@theme "MyTheme"

Rofi will first parse the config block in ~/.config/rofi/config.rasi, then parse ~/.config/rofi/myConfig.rasi and then load the theme myTheme.

Imports can be nested.