rofi-games

Game launching plugin for Rofi. Requires a good theme for the best results.

Note

If you want similar functionality to this plugin without using rofi, or if you don't need all of the extra features this standalone plugin provides, checkout rgd as an alternative.

Installation

AUR

paru -S rofi-games

Home Manager

programs.rofi = {
  enable = true;
  plugins = with pkgs; [
    rofi-games
  ];
};

just

1. Clone repo:

   git clone https://github.com/Rolv-Apneseth/rofi-games.git

2. Use just to install (requires cargo and just)

   cd rofi-games && sudo just install

Uninstall with sudo just uninstall

Manual (not recommended)

git clone https://github.com/Rolv-Apneseth/rofi-games.git
cd rofi-games
cargo build --release --lib
sudo cp target/release/librofi_games.so /usr/lib/rofi/games.so

• If you are using the latest changes from the rofi repo (e.g. rofi-lbonn-wayland-git, rofi-git), then the build step needs to be preceded by RUSTFLAGS="--cfg rofi_next" for it to work
• The last cp command assumes that the rofi plugins directory is /usr/lib/rofi, which may not be the case for you. Use pkg-config --variable pluginsdir rofi to find the one for your system, though if there is no output from that command, you may need to just try /usr/lib64/rofi or /usr/lib/rofi (the install script in the justfile falls back to these in that order).

Theme

For the optimal experience, and to achieve what is shown in the demo image, use a good rofi theme. You can use one of the default themes provided with rofi-games but I recommend customising it at least a little bit (at least add the search icon). More information about themes here.

• To run with the default theme, the full command becomes:

  rofi -modi games -show games -theme games-default

• If you customised a theme and named the file games.rasi, it becomes:

  rofi -modi games -show games -theme games

Keybinds

Keybind	Default rofi keybind	Action
kb-accept-entry	Enter	Launch game
kb-accept-alt	Shift+Enter	Open game's root directory
kb-delete-entry	Shift+Delete	Delete game's access data (see sorting)

• To change a rofi keybind, you can, for example, use -kb-accept-entry Ctrl+c

Currently supported launchers / game sources

Parsing of installed games has been extracted into a separate library: lib_game_detector

The following sources are currently supported:

• Steam
  • Steam shortcuts (non-Steam games) are also supported. Just make sure to launch the shortcut through Steam at least once first so that the required files are created/updated.

Tip

To add box art for a shortcut using the Steam UI, navigate to the Steam library page (where the different games' box art is shown) and find the desired shortcut, right-click -> Manage -> Set custom artwork

• Heroic Games Launcher (all sources, including Amazon and manually added games, should work)

  • The GOG source doesn't store the box art like the others, but rather the icons. Use the fallback_to_icons (enabled by default) option in the configuration to at least show those (though they won't look ideal).

• Lutris

Tip

To set the box art, simply right click the entry in the Lutris library, select "Configure", and click on the left-most image to select a new image file.

• Bottles

  • Only games which are in the Library are displayed

• Instances from the following modded Minecraft launchers:

  1. Prism Launcher
  2. ATLauncher

Note

Modded Minecraft instances don't have box art by default, so look at the configuration section below to see how to match an instance title to define box art for it. Titles are usually given in the form Minecraft: {instance name}

Configuration

Custom entries, for unsupported games (or technically anything you want), can be made by creating a config file at ~/.config/rofi-games/config.toml ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME is respected). Here is an example configuration:

# Allows hiding any entries which don't have box art images defined
hide_entries_without_box_art = false
# Directory to find box art in if an absolute path is not given
box_art_dir = "/home/rolv/.config/rofi-games/box-art"
# If the box art for a game is not found, fallback to using the icon
fallback_to_icons = true
# Show the source launcher next to the title of each entry
show_entry_source_text = true
# Make entry titles bold - recommended if showing the source text
use_bold_entry_title = true

# Settings relating to the ordering of listed entries
[sort]
# Possible options for sort order:
#  - "alphabetical"
#  - "none" - don't apply any ordering algorithm
#  - "frequency" - most frequently accessed
#  - "recency" - most recently accessed
#  - "frecency" - weighted combination of frequency and recency (default)
order = "frecency"
 # Option to reverse the result of the sort order. Ignored if sort order is none.
reverse = false

# Define a new custom entry
[[entries]]
title = "GDLauncher"
launch_command = "gdlauncher"
# Looks for the image in the defined `box_art_dir`
path_box_art = "gdlauncher.png"
path_game_dir = "/opt/GDLauncher"

# Change box art for a title
[[entries]]
title = "Cyberpunk 2077"
path_box_art = "/home/rolv/images/cyberpunk.png"

# Define box art for a title e.g. Minecraft instances
# Modded Minecraft instances are always prefixed with "Minecraft: "
[[entries]]
title = "Minecraft: Fabulously Optimized"
path_box_art = "fabulously_optimized.png"

# Hide/disable a title
[[entries]]
title = "THE FINALS"
hide = true

• The box_art_dir field is optional, but will be used if the path_box_art field of a given entry is not an absolute path.

• The path_box_art is optional, and if box_art_dir is defined, it can just be a relative path within that directory.

Tip

SteamGridDB is a great place to find box art images for games.

• In the first entry, a custom entry is defined for GDLauncher. All fields must be defined, except for path_game_dir.

• In the second entry, a game already detected by lib_game_detector is matched by the title field. The custom entry is used to override certain fields for that entry, e.g. changing the box art image.

  • This can also be used to set box art images for the sources listed above that don't provide box art by default e.g. Lutris, Minecraft instances

Warning

If you have multiple games which match a given title (e.g. from multiple launchers), creating a custom entry will only override the fields on the first match, and other matches will be ignored. If you have multiple entries in your configuration file with the same title, they will override each other.

Tip

To run a script with spaces in the launch command, you will need to use \\ before any space characters, e.g. launch_command = "/home/user/GOG\\ Games/Stardew\\ Valley/start.sh". Other options can be passed in directly without escaping spaces.

Sorting

There are several options for sorting the displayed games, which are outlined above in the example config. Most of those options rely on access data, which is stored in a small database file at $XDG_DATA_HOME/rofi-games/access_data.db.

When launching (or opening the root directory of) a game through rofi-games, the access data for that game is updated/created, allowing entries to be sorted by how recently and/or frequently they've been accessed.

To delete access data for a single game, launch rofi-games and use the kb-delete-entry outlined in keybinds (Shift+Delete by default). To delete all access data, simply delete the database file.

Credit

The original idea belongs (as far as I know) to @ntcarlson, so big thanks to them. The original script I used to use for this was derived from this Reddit post they shared.

Converting to an actual rofi plugin is thanks to the author of rofi-mode.rs library, and thanks also to the author rofi-vscode-mode as that was very helpful as an example for rofi-mode usage and the PKGBUILD.