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Add to SafariWhen comparing Plank vs Rofi, the Slant community recommends Rofi for most people. In the question“What are the best app launchers for UNIX-like systems?” Rofi is ranked 1st while Plank is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Rofi is:
e.g.: <code>run: st toxic</code> Runs a tox client in the terminal emulator "st". <code>run: maim ~/Images/screenshots</code> take a screenshot with "maim" and save it to given location.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Simple and minimal
Plank is a good choice for those looking for something simple that just does its job well. There is no UI for options built in to the dock as to change anything those options will have to be accessed through a text file.
Pro Solid and lightweight
Pro Third party themer available
An additional third party app has been developed that allows theming the dock without the use of any extra resources. This is great for those that are not using elementary OS and the elementary tweaks extra.
Pro Can run commands
e.g.:
<code>run: st toxic</code> Runs a tox client in the terminal emulator "st".
<code>run: maim ~/Images/screenshots</code> take a screenshot with "maim" and save it to given location.
Pro Minimalist design, yet can use customizable themes
Also it's easy to make use of your own "plugin" (scripts).
Pro Case insensitive
Instead of having to worry about case sensitive characters, you can use caps or lowercase wherever you please without causing any issues.
Pro Customisable
Pro Great keybindings
They seem to be emacs based.
Pro Resource efficient
Pro Simple
Pro No resource usage when you're not using it
Other launchers often run in the background to be prepared for showing the launcher. Rofi doesn't do this.
Pro Clipboard history extension
Greenclip adds clipboard manager functionality.
Pro Greatly maintained
Pro Easily switch windows without mouse
Cons
Con No right click menu for some apps outside of elementary OS
Other file explorers and terminals (those not found in the default elementary OS) do not have any right click menus for the dock meaning it is impossible to launch multiple windows for certain file explorers or terminals.
Con Poor workplace awareness (cycling windows)
When configured to only show apps on current workspace, cycling an app open on multiple workspaces will switch workspace focus, update the dock and often leave you to cycle another app.
Con One of the most poorly documented launchers for new users
Challenge:
Install Rofi and google how to actually start or use it. Sure, there's plenty of Arch users screaming about dmenu, showing off editing of config files, integrating it with i3 or this or that, but how do we actually:
1) Start it.
2) Use it.
Rofi seemed intriguing, because it was ranked #1 on slant, but it may be better to use a third party dock in Xfce, because there's simply no resource on how to use Rofi for a complete newbie.
Con Lacks a default "blank slate" launch behavior
Unlike Ulauncher, Albert and similar launcher there's no generic "enable everything" launch behavior. You can configure Rofi to do almost this, but it's whitelist based, so you'd have to reconfigure it if you install or uninstall a plugin, and Rofi has to know if the plugin should be part of the combi mode or treated as an isolated mode.
Con Lacks conventions for plugins
Some other launchers have stricter plugin/extension APIs, making the plugin behavior more consistent.
For example plugins in Rofi respond to your choice differently (at least by default). Some output the result to stdout (like the calc mode) and others add the result to the clipboard (the emoji mode/plugin). And there's no API for plugins to add their own config option. They can check your CLI arguments, but that's not a perfect solution as different plugins could implement the same argument to mean different things.
Con Lacks keywords to switch between modes
You can switch between modes with ctrl+tab by default, but if you have a lot of modes this is slow.
Con Issues on Wayland
If you use Wayland, then Rofi may fail to grab keypresses or inputs, or may fail altogether. Works fine if you switch to X11.
Con Issues when Caps Lock is active
When typing with Caps Lock activated, it's impossible to use Backspace. Rofi eventually freezes in this scenario.
