String

•

Format: (["'])[:print:]+\1

Strings are always surrounded by double (") or single (', apostrophe) quotes. Between the quotes there can be any printable character.

For example:

font: "Awasome 12";
    

The string must be valid UTF-8, special characters can be escaped:

text { content: "Line one\n\tIndented line two 'Quoted text'"; }
text { content: 'Line one\n\tIndented line two "Quoted text"'; }
text { content: "Line one\n\tIndented line two \"Quoted text\""; }
    

The following special characters can be escaped: \b, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v, \, " and ' (double quotes inside single-quotes or in reverse don’t need escape).

Integer

•

Format: [-+]?[:digit:]+

An integer may contain any number.

For examples:

lines: 12;
    

Real

•

Format: [-+]?[:digit:]+(\.[:digit:]+)?

A real is an integer with an optional fraction.

For example:

real: 3.4;
    

The following is not valid: .3, 3. or scientific notation: 3.4e-3.

Boolean

•

Format: (true|false)

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

For example:

dynamic: false;
    

Image

rofi support a limited set of background-image formats.

• Format: url(“path to image”);
• Format: url(“path to image”, scale); where scale is: none, both, width, height
• Format: linear-gradient(stop color,stop1, color, stop2 color, ...);
• Format: linear-gradient(to direction, stop color,stop1, color, stop2 color, ...); where direction is: top,left,right,bottom.
• Format: linear-gradient(angle, stop color,stop1, color, stop2 color, ...); Angle in deg,rad,grad (as used in color).

Where the path is a string, and stop color is of type color.

Color

rofi supports the color formats as specified in the CSS standard (1,2,3 and some of CSS 4)

• Format: #{HEX}{3} (rgb)
• Format: #{HEX}{4} (rgba)
• Format: #{HEX}{6} (rrggbb)
• Format: #{HEX}{8} (rrggbbaa)
• Format: rgb[a]({INTEGER},{INTEGER},{INTEGER}[, {PERCENTAGE}])
• Format: rgb[a]({INTEGER}%,{INTEGER}%,{INTEGER}%[, {PERCENTAGE}])
• Format: hsl[a]( {ANGLE}, {PERCENTAGE}, {PERCENTAGE} [, {PERCENTAGE}])
• Format: hwb[a]( {ANGLE}, {PERCENTAGE}, {PERCENTAGE} [, {PERCENTAGE}])
• Format: cmyk( {PERCENTAGE}, {PERCENTAGE}, {PERCENTAGE}, {PERCENTAGE} [, {PERCENTAGE} ])
• Format: {named-color} [ / {PERCENTAGE} ]

The white-space format proposed in CSS4 is also supported.

The different values are:

• {HEX} is a hexadecimal number (`0-9a-f' case insensitive).
• {INTEGER} value can be between 0 and 255 or 0-100 when representing percentage.
• {ANGLE} is the angle on the color wheel, can be in deg, rad, grad or turn. When no unit is specified, degrees is assumed.
• {PERCENTAGE} can be between 0-1.0, or 0%-100%
• {named-color} is one of the following colors:

For example:

background-color: #FF0000;
border-color: rgba(0,0,1, 0.5);
text-color: SeaGreen;
    

or

background-color: transparent;
text-color: Black;
    

Text style

•

Format: (bold|italic|underline|strikethrough|none)

Text style indicates how the highlighted text is emphasized. None indicates that no emphasis should be applied.

• bold: make the text thicker then the surrounding text.
• italic: put the highlighted text in script type (slanted).
• underline: put a line under the text.
• strikethrough: put a line through the text.

The following options are available on pango 1.50.0 and up:

• uppercase: Uppercase the text.
• lowercase: Lowercase the text.

The following option is disabled as pango crashes on this if there is eel upsizing or wrapping. This will be re-enabled once fixed:

•

capitalize: Capitalize the text.

Line style

•

Format: (dash|solid)

Indicates how a line should be drawn. It currently supports:

• dash: a dashed line, where the gap is the same width as the dash
• solid: a solid line

Distance

• Format: {Integer}px
• Format: {Real}em
• Format: {Real}ch
• Format: {Real}%
• Format: {Real}mm

A distance can be specified in 3 different units:

• px: Screen pixels.
• em: Relative to text height.
• ch: Relative to width of a single number.
• mm: Actual size in millimeters (based on dpi).
• %: Percentage of the monitor size.

Distances used in the horizontal direction use the monitor width. Distances in the vertical direction use the monitor height. For example:

   padding: 10%;
    

On a full-HD (1920x1080) monitor, it defines a padding of 192 pixels on the left and right side and 108 pixels on the top and bottom.

Calculating sizes

Rofi supports some maths in calculating sizes. For this it uses the CSS syntax:

width: calc( 100% - 37px );
    

width: calc( 20% min 512 );
    

It supports the following operations:

• + : Add
• - : Subtract
• / : Divide
• - : Multiply
• modulo : Modulo
• min : Minimum of lvalue or rvalue;
• max : Maximum of lvalue or rvalue;
• floor : Round down lvalue to the next multiple of rvalue
• ceil : Round up lvalue to the next multiple of rvalue
• round : Round lvalue to the next multiple of rvalue

It uses the C precedence ordering.

Padding

• Format: {Integer}
• Format: {Distance}
• Format: {Distance} {Distance}
• Format: {Distance} {Distance} {Distance}
• Format: {Distance} {Distance} {Distance} {Distance}

If no unit is specified, pixels are assumed.

The different number of fields in the formats are parsed like:

• 1 field: all
• 2 fields: top&bottom left&right
• 3 fields: top, left&right, bottom
• 4 fields: top, right, bottom, left

Border

• Format: {Integer}
• Format: {Distance}
• Format: {Distance} {Distance}
• Format: {Distance} {Distance} {Distance}
• Format: {Distance} {Distance} {Distance} {Distance}
• Format: {Distance} {Line style}
• Format: {Distance} {Line style} {Distance} {Line style}
• Format: {Distance} {Line style} {Distance} {Line style} {Distance} {Line style}
• Format: {Distance} {Line style} {Distance} {Line style} {Distance} {Line style} {Distance} {Line style}

Borders are identical to padding, except that each distance field has a line style property.

Position

Indicate a place on the window/monitor.

┌─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐
│ north west  │    north    │  north east │
├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤
│   west      │   center    │     east    │
├─────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────┤
│ south west  │    south    │  south east │
└─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┘
    

•

Format: (center|east|north|west|south|north east|north west|south west|south east)

Visibility

It is possible to hide widgets:

inputbar {


    enabled: false;
}
    

Reference

•

Format: @{PROPERTY NAME}

A reference can point to another reference. Currently, the maximum number of redirects is 20. A property always refers to another property. It cannot be used for a subpart of the property. For example, this is not valid:

highlight: bold @pink;
    

But this is:

* {


    myhigh: bold #FAA;
}
window {


    highlight: @myhigh;
}
    

•

Format: var(PROPERTY NAME, DEFAULT)

A reference can point to another reference. Currently, the maximum number of redirects is 20. A property always refers to another property. It cannot be used for a subpart of the property.

Example:

window {


    width: var( width, 30%);
}
    

If the property width is set globally (*{}) that value is used, if the property width is not set, the default value is used.

Orientation

•

Format: (horizontal|vertical)

Specify the orientation of the widget.

Cursor

•

Format: (default|pointer|text)

Specify the type of mouse cursor that is set when the mouse pointer is over the widget.

List of keywords

•

Format: [ keyword, keyword ]

A list starts with a `[’ and ends with a ’]'. The entries in the list are comma-separated. The keyword in the list refers to an widget name.

List of values

•

Format: [ value, value, ... ]

An list starts with a `[’ and ends with a ’]'. The entries in the list are comma-separated.

Environment variable

•

Format: ${:alnum:}

This will parse the environment variable as the property value. (that then can be any of the above types). The environment variable should be an alphanumeric string without white-space.

* {


    background-color: ${BG};
}
    

•

Format: env(ENVIRONMENT, default)

This will parse the environment variable as the property value. (that then can be any of the above types). The environment variable should be an alphanumeric string without white-space. If the environment value is not found, the default value is used.

window {


    width: env(WIDTH, 40%);
}
    

If environment WIDTH is set, then that value is parsed, otherwise the default value (40%).

Inherit

•

Format: inherit

Inherits the property from its parent widget.

mainbox {


    border-color: inherit;
}
    

Supported element paths

Base widgets

The default widgets available in rofi and the default hierarchic:

•

window

Note that these path names match the default theme. Themes that provide a custom layout will have different elements, and structure.

State

State: State of widget

Optional flag(s) indicating state of the widget, used for theming.

These are appended after the name or class of the widget.

Example

button selected.normal { }
element selected.urgent { }
    

Currently only the entrybox and scrollbar have states:

Entrybox

{visible modifier}.{state}
    

Where visible modifier can be:

• normal: no modification
• selected: the entry is selected/highlighted by user
• alternate: the entry is at an alternating row (uneven row)

Where state is:

• normal: no modification
• urgent: this entry is marked urgent
• active: this entry is marked active

These can be mixed.

Example:

nametotextbox selected.active {


    background-color: #003642;


    text-color: #008ed4;
}
    

Sets all selected textboxes marked active to the given text and background color. Note that a state modifies the original element, it therefore contains all the properties of that element.

Scrollbar

The scrollbar uses the handle state when drawing the small scrollbar handle. This allows the colors used for drawing the handle to be set independently.

all widgets

• enabled: enable/disable rendering of the widget
• padding: padding Padding on the inside of the widget
• margin: padding Margin on the outside of the widget
• border: border Border around the widget (between padding and margin)/
• border-radius: padding Sets a radius on the corners of the borders.
• background-color: color Background color
• background-image: image Background image
• border-color: color Color of the border
• cursor: cursor Type of mouse cursor that is set when the mouse pointer is hovered over the widget.

window

• font: string The font used in the window
• transparency: string Indicating if transparency should be used and what type:

• location: position The place of the anchor on the monitor
• anchor: anchor The anchor position on the window
• fullscreen: boolean Window is fullscreen.
• width: distance The width of the window
• x-offset: distance
• y-offset: distance The offset of the window to the anchor point, allowing you to push the window left/right/up/down

scrollbar Properties

• background-color: color
• handle-width: distance
• handle-color: color
• border-color: color

box

• orientation: orientation Set the direction the elements are packed.
• spacing: distance Distance between the packed elements.

textbox

• background-color: color
• border-color: the color used for the border around the widget.
• font: the font used by this textbox (string).
• str/content: the string to display by this textbox (string).
• vertical-align: Vertical alignment of the text. A number between 0 (top) and 1 (bottom).
• horizontal-align: Horizontal alignment of the text. A number between 0 (left) and 1 (right).
• text-color: the text color to use.
• text-transform: text style {color} for the whole text.
• highlight: text style {color}. color is optional, multiple highlight styles can be added like: bold underline italic #000000; This option is only available on the element-text widget.
• width: override the desired width for the textbox.
• content: Set the displayed text (String).
• placeholder: Set the displayed text (String) when nothing is entered.
• placeholder-markup: If true, placeholder text supports pango markup for stylizing.
• placeholder-color: Color of the placeholder text.
• blink: Enable/Disable blinking on an input textbox (Boolean).
• markup: Force markup on, beware that only valid pango markup strings are shown.
• tab-stops: array of distances. Set the location of tab stops by their distance from the beginning of the line. Each distance should be greater than the previous one. The text appears to the right of the tab stop position (other alignments are not supported yet).
• cursor-width: The width of the cursor.
• cursor-color: The color used to draw the cursor.
• cursor-outline: Enable a border (outline) around the cursor. (Boolean)
• cursor-outline-width: The width of the border around the cursor. (Double)
• cursor-outline-color: The color to use for the cursor outline. (Color)
• text-outline: Enable a border (outline) around the text. (Boolean)
• text-outline-width: The width of the border around the text. (Double)
• text-outline-color: The color to use for the text outline. (Color)

listview

• columns: integer Number of columns to show (at least 1)
• fixed-height: boolean Always show lines rows, even if fewer elements are available.
• dynamic: boolean True if the size should change when filtering the list, False if it should keep the original height.
• scrollbar: boolean If the scrollbar should be enabled/disabled.
• scrollbar-width: distance Width of the scrollbar
• cycle: boolean When navigating, it should wrap around
• spacing: distance Spacing between the elements (both vertical and horizontal)
• lines: integer Number of rows to show in the list view.
• layout: orientation Indicate how elements are stacked. Horizontal implements the dmenu style.
• reverse: boolean Reverse the ordering (top down to bottom up).
• flow: orientation The order the elements are layed out. Vertical is the original `column' view.
• fixed-columns: boolean Do not reduce the number of columns shown when number of visible elements is not enough to fill them all.
• require-input: boolean Listview requires user input to be unhidden. The list is still present and hitting accept will activate the first entry.

listview text highlight

The element-text widget in the listview is the one used to show the text. On this widget set the highlight property (only place this property is used) to change the style of highlighting. The highlight property consist of the text-style property and a color.

To disable highlighting:

  element-text {


    highlight: None;


  }
    

To set to red underlined:

  element-text {


    highlight: underline red;


  }
    

Basic layout structure

The whole view is made out of boxes that pack other boxes or widgets. The box can be vertical or horizontal. This is loosely inspired by GTK.

The current layout of rofi is structured as follows:

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ window {BOX:vertical}                                                              │
│ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐  │
│ │ mainbox  {BOX:vertical}                                                       │  │
│ │ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │  │
│ │ │ inputbar {BOX:horizontal}                                                 │ │  │
│ │ │ ┌─────────┐ ┌─┐ ┌───────────────────────────────┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ │ │  │
│ │ │ │ prompt  │ │:│ │ entry                         │ │#fr│ │ / │ │#ns│ │ci │ │ │  │
│ │ │ └─────────┘ └─┘ └───────────────────────────────┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ └───┘ │ │  │
│ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │  │
│ │                                                                               │  │
│ │ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │  │
│ │ │ message                                                                   │ │  │
│ │ │ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │  │
│ │ │ │ textbox                                                               │ │ │  │
│ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ │  │
│ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │  │
│ │                                                                               │  │
│ │ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │  │
│ │ │ listview                                                                  │ │  │
│ │ │ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐   │ │  │
│ │ │ │ element                                                             │   │ │  │
│ │ │ │ ┌─────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │   │ │  │
│ │ │ │ │element─icon     │ │element─text                                 │ │   │ │  │
│ │ │ │ └─────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │   │ │  │
│ │ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘   │ │  │
│ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │  │
│ │                                                                               │  │
│ │ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │  │
│ │ │  mode─switcher {BOX:horizontal}                                           │ │  │
│ │ │ ┌───────────────┐   ┌───────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐ ┌───────────────┐ │ │  │
│ │ │ │ Button        │   │ Button        │  │ Button       │ │ Button        │ │ │  │
│ │ │ └───────────────┘   └───────────────┘  └──────────────┘ └───────────────┘ │ │  │
│ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │  │
│ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘  │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
    

Error message structure

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ window {BOX:vertical}                                                            │
│ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐  │
│ │ error─message {BOX:vertical}                                                │  │
│ │ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐  │  │
│ │ │ textbox                                                                │  │  │
│ │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘  │  │
│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘  │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
    

Advanced layout

The layout of rofi can be tweaked by packing the `fixed' widgets in a custom structure.

The following widgets are fixed, as they provide core rofi functionality:

• prompt
• entry
• overlay
• case-indicator
• message
• listview
• mode-switcher
• num-rows
• num-filtered-rows

The following keywords are defined and can be used to automatically pack a subset of the widgets. These are used in the default theme as depicted in the figure above.

• mainbox Packs: inputbar, message, listview, mode-switcher
• inputbar Packs: prompt,entry,case-indicator

Any widget name starting with textbox is a textbox widget, others are box widgets and can pack other widgets.

There are several special widgets that can be used by prefixing the name of the widget:

Textbox widget

This is a read-only textbox widget. The displayed string can be set with content.

Example:

textbox-custom {


  expand: false;


  content: "My Message";
}
    

Icon

This is an icon widget. The displayed icon can be set with filename and size with size. If the property action is set, it acts as a button. action can be set to a keybinding name and completes that action. (see rofi -show keys for a list).

If the squared property is set to false the widget height and width are not forced to be equal.

Example:

icon-paste {


    expand: false;


    filename: "gtk-paste";


    size: 24;


    vertical-align: 0.5;


    action: "kb-primary-paste";
}
    

button

This is a textbox widget that can have a `clickable' action. The action can be set to: keybinding: accepts a keybinding name and completes that action. (see rofi -show keys for a list).

button-paste {


    expand: false;


    content: "My Clickable Message";


    vertical-align: 0.5;


    action: "kb-primary-paste";
}
    

Children

To specify children, set the children property (this always happens on the box child, see example below):

inputbar {


  children: [prompt,entry,overlay,case-indicator];
}
    

The theme needs to be updated to match the hierarchy specified.

Below is an example of a theme emulating dmenu:

* {


    background-color:      Black;


    text-color:            White;


    border-color:          White;


    font:            "Times New Roman 12";
}
window {


    anchor:     north;


    location:   north;


    width:      100%;


    padding:    4px;


    children:   [ horibox ];
}
horibox {


    orientation: horizontal;


    children:   [ prompt, entry, listview ];
}
listview {


    layout:     horizontal;


    spacing:    5px;


    lines:      10;
}
entry {


    expand:     false;


    width:      10em;
}
element {


    padding: 0px 2px;
}
element selected {


    background-color: SteelBlue;
}
    

Padding and margin

Just like CSS, rofi uses the box model for each widget.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ margin                                                           │
│  ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐  │
│  │ border                                                     │  │
│  │ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │  │
│  │ │ padding                                                │ │  │
│  │ │ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │  │
│  │ │ │ content                                            │ │ │  │
│  │ │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ │  │
│  │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │  │
│  └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘  │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
    

Explanation of the different parts:

• Content - The content of the widget.
• Padding - Clears an area around the widget. The padding shows the background color of the widget.
• Border - A border that goes around the padding and content. The border use the border-color of the widget.
• Margin - Clears an area outside the border. The margin is transparent.

The box model allows us to add a border around elements, and to define space between elements.

The size of each margin, border, and padding can be set. For the border, a linestyle and radius can be set.

Spacing

Widgets that can pack more then one child widget (currently box and listview) have the spacing property. This property sets the distance between the packed widgets (both horizontally and vertically).

┌───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ┌────────┐ s ┌────────┐ s ┌────────┐  │
│ │ child  │ p │ child  │ p │ child  │  │
│ │        │ a │        │ a │        │  │
│ │        │ c │        │ c │        │  │
│ │        │ i │        │ i │        │  │
│ │        │ n │        │ n │        │  │
│ └────────┘ g └────────┘ g └────────┘  │
└───────────────────────────────────────┘
    

Advanced box packing

More dynamic spacing can be achieved by adding dummy widgets, for example to make one widget centered:

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  ┌───────────────┐  ┌────────┐  ┌───────────────┐  │
│  │ dummy         │  │ child  │  │ dummy         │  │
│  │ expand: true; │  │        │  │ expand: true; │  │
│  │               │  │        │  │               │  │
│  │               │  │        │  │               │  │
│  │               │  │        │  │               │  │
│  └───────────────┘  └────────┘  └───────────────┘  │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
    

If both dummy widgets are set to expand, child will be centered. Depending on the expand flag of child the remaining space will be equally divided between both dummy and child widget (expand enabled), or both dummy widgets (expand disabled).