rufi

A fast, highly customizable application launcher for X11 built in Rust.

Features

• Ultra-fast fuzzy search with intelligent scoring
• Highly customizable themes with multiple presets
• Desktop applications support (.desktop file parsing)
• Proper keyboard handling with X11 keymap detection
• Smart ranking (applications preferred over commands)
• Intelligent caching with configurable timeout
• Optimized performance with background loading
• Beautiful UI with Catppuccin theme by default

Installation

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.70+
• X11 development libraries

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt install build-essential libx11-dev libxcb1-dev

Fedora/RHEL:

sudo dnf install gcc libX11-devel libxcb-devel

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S base-devel libx11 libxcb

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/BarriosXJavier/rufi.git
cd rufi
cargo build --release
sudo cp target/release/rufi /usr/local/bin/

Configuration

Create ~/.config/rufi/rufirc.toml to customize rufi. The configuration file uses TOML format:

# Window settings
width = 800
height = 500
font = "JetBrains Mono"
font_size = 14

# Performance
max_results = 50
cache_timeout = 300

# Display
show_descriptions = true
show_icons = true

[theme]
bg_color = 0x1e1e2e
fg_color = 0xcdd6f4
selected_bg = 0x89b4fa
# ... more theme options

Note: These theme options correspond to the `ConfigTheme` struct in the source code.

Available Themes

rufi comes with several built-in themes, with light and dark variations:

• catppuccin-mocha (default)
• catppuccin-latte
• nord-dark
• nord-light
• dracula
• tokyo-night-dark
• tokyo-night-light
• gruvbox-dark
• gruvbox-light

You can list all available themes with the --available-themes flag.

Usage

Basic Usage

# Launch rufi
rufi

# Or bind to a key combination in your window manager
# Example for i3/sway: bindsym $mod+d exec rufi

Command-line Options

You can set and save the default theme using the --theme flag:

rufi --theme nord-dark

This command will update your ~/.config/rufi/rufirc.toml file with the selected theme and then launch rufi with the new theme applied.

To see a list of all available themes, run:

rufi --available-themes

Keyboard Controls

• Type: Search applications and commands
• ↑/↓: Navigate results
• Enter: Launch selected item
• Escape: Close rufi
• Backspace: Delete characters

Search Features

rufi provides intelligent fuzzy search with multiple matching strategies:

1. Exact matches - highest priority
2. Prefix matches - fir matches firefox
3. Substring matches - fox matches firefox
4. Description matches - searches in app descriptions
5. Fuzzy matches - ff matches firefox

Applications are prioritized over command-line tools in search results.

Performance Optimizations

• Background loading: Applications load asynchronously
• Smart caching: Configurable cache timeout prevents unnecessary rescanning
• Optimized fuzzy search: Fast scoring algorithm with early termination
• Minimal redraws: Only updates when necessary
• Efficient X11 usage: Proper resource management

Development

Project Structure

src/
├── main.rs           # Main application logic
├── config.rs         # Configuration handling  
├── fuzzy.rs          # Fuzzy search algorithms
├── ui.rs             # X11 UI rendering
├── commands.rs       # Application/command collection
├── error.rs          # Custom error types
└── theme.rs          # Built-in theme definitions

Building for Development

# Debug build with faster compilation
cargo build

# Run with debug logging
RUST_LOG=debug cargo run

# Run tests
cargo test

# Format code
cargo fmt

# Lint
cargo clippy

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feature-name
3. Make your changes with tests
4. Run cargo fmt and cargo clippy
5. Submit a pull request

Feature Requests

• Custom font support via Pango/Cairo for anti-aliased text
• Icon rendering support
• Plugin system
• Wayland support
• SSH/remote command execution
• File browser mode
• Window switcher mode

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• Inspired by rofi
• Theme colors from Catppuccin
• Built with x11rb for X11 bindings

---

Made with ❤️ and ☕ for the Linux desktop