[BUG] Including themes (.rasi vs .rasinc extension)

[flipsi]

Rofi version (rofi -v)

1.7.6-dirty

Configuration

https://gist.github.com/flipsi/ecf442bdb71121830c5e7b22b99d55a0

Theme

https://gist.github.com/flipsi/d128959fa8ee6a5cb6a769657cf77e3c

Timing report

https://gist.github.com/flipsi/0d781e139b45cdcdfc56e8107242a42e

Launch command

rofi -show window

Step to reproduce

• Have a custom theme in the user directory, like ~/.config/rofi/themes/gruvbox-dark-purple.rasi
• In the custom theme file, include a global theme , like @import "gruvbox-common.rasi"
• Run any rofi command

Expected behavior

The global theme is imported correctly in rofi version 1.7.5 (I upgrade the Arch Linux package from 1.7.5-3 to 1.7.6-4 and ran into this bug).

I expect the theme import to not fail when upgrading from 1.7.5 to 1.7.6.

Actual behavior

The import fails, leading to an almost unreadable UI (due to low contrast text) with the following error:

Failed to open theme: /home/flipsi/gruvbox-common.rasi
Error: No such file or directory

Additional information

Further investigation revealed that the global theme in /usr/share/rofi/themes changed its extension, presumably it's now some compiled version for performance reasons.

So I was able to workaround the issue by changing my config from

@import "gruvbox-common.rasi"

to

@import "gruvbox-common.rasinc"

I don't know what caused this, but the changelog hasn't been updated since a few versions, so as a user one is a little lost.

What makes the failure more confusing is the fact that the error message only prints the failed file loading attempt for the user's home directory (/home/flipsi and not /usr/share/rofi/themes). So this looks like something is wrong with the searched directories or relative/absolute paths.

Using wayland display server protocol

• No, I don't use the wayland display server protocol

I've checked if the issue exists in the latest stable release

• Yes, I have checked the problem exists in the latest stable version

[DaveDavenport]

Further investigation revealed that the global theme in /usr/share/rofi/themes changed its extension, presumably it's now some compiled version for performance reasons.

See for changelog here:
https://github.com/davatorium/rofi/releases/tag/1.7.6

I think this is the issue, in your custom theme:

@import "gruvbox-common.rasi"

I think that should have been:

@import "gruvbox-common"

I will test this.

[DaveDavenport]

Ok, it does not resolve it right.. Will fix, thanks for reporting.

[DaveDavenport]

Above commit, should now correctly resolve rasinc if no extension is provided. (Was a TODO still in code).
This should make this behaviour more consistent.. Will also update themes to import without extension.

[DaveDavenport]

Further investigation revealed that the global theme in /usr/share/rofi/themes changed its extension, presumably it's now some compiled version for performance reasons.

This was requested so its easier to distinguish between a theme and shared files. No 'pre-compilation' happening.

[flipsi]

Thank you for being so responsive and fixing this! 👍

Also thank you for pointing me to the new changelog. I was going to suggest to add a note to the old one, but I see you already did this. 👏

Does this mean (even though importing themes without extension seems to be the recommended way), imports with the .rasi extension will fail in 1.7.6? Because wouldn't that be a breaking change? If so:

• Did you consider "magically"/"dirtily" resolving .rasi to .rasinc in order to not break UX?
• Should this be highlighted in the changelog? It hardly falls under "Other smaller changes" IMHO, since the behavior I described leaks the internal change.

[DaveDavenport]

• Did you consider "magically"/"dirtily" resolving .rasi to .rasinc in order to not break UX?

No. If explicitly specified, the tool should not change extension. That would cause more confusion then anything else.
Nothing is broken compared to previous versions

To me there is no UX break. I think the only place where it affected people was your usecase, where you import part of a theme file that was shipped with previous rofi that is no longer part of current rofi. (If you would have copied the old common file into your local theme dir, everything still would have worked fine).

The ""fix"" here is to work with it more transparently and avoid possible issues in the future, but I don't really see this as a bug as everything was working as intended and documented.

[DaveDavenport]

Does this mean (even though importing themes without extension seems to be the recommended way), imports with the .rasi extension will fail in 1.7.6? Because wouldn't that be a breaking change? If so:

Does it? or is this an assumption?

[flipsi]

No. If explicitly specified, the tool should not change extension. That would cause more confusion then anything else.

Generally agreed!

To me there is no UX break. I think the only place where it affected people was your usecase, where you import part of a theme file that was shipped with previous rofi that is no longer part of current rofi.

Yes. Unfortunately I don't remember how I created my config years ago, but I would assume I copied the import statement from the docs somewhere. If that's the case, it's likely that more users will run into my issue - and if the import including the extension was part of the official docs at some point, one could consider (re-)moving the gruvbox theme file a breaking change.

But you are right, I see that the import behavior is in fact documented well.

[DaveDavenport]

one could consider (re-)moving the gruvbox theme file a breaking change.

Agree. I think this slipped through the Changelog as an explicit note, given the change was made a long time ago (2 years), and nobody had any issues with it, until now and have been very busy and little time/energy/motivation for rofi.

[flipsi]

Does it? or is this an assumption?

I just assumed this based on your post above.

The docs say

@import "myfile"

which kind of implies with extension to me, despite the good explanation right after:

A name is resolved (if it has no valid extension) as a filename by appending the .rasi and the .rasinc extension. It will first look for files with .rasi, then for files with .rasinc.

Maybe this could be nudged for better by using theme-name instead of myfile.

[flipsi]

Agree. I think this slipped through the Changelog as an explicit note, given the change was made a long time ago (2 years), and nobody had any issues with it, until now and have been very busy and little time/energy/motivation for rofi.

I didn't know it has been so long already. That's a good indicator it will not affect as many users as I feared 👍 Let's hope for the best!

Thank you for all your efforts!