Application Filter

A CLI app that filters your /usr/share/applications by fields provided in the .desktop for each app and prints to stdout. Perfect for showing specific apps in your rofi window.

Manual

Flag	Description	Example
--categories {categories}	Filter apps by category separated by comma (not case sensitive)	--categories System,Network
--type {type}	Filter apps by type separated by comma (not case sensitive)	--type Application
--keywords {keywords}	Filter apps by keywords separated by comma (not case sensitive)	--keywords GPU,Radeon
--nodisplay	Show apps with NoDisplay set to true (hidden by default)	--nodisplay
--exclude {filter}	Remove apps that fit the flag's criteria	--exclude --type GPU,Radeon
--output {field}	What to output for apps that meet the filter	--output exec --output Name
--stdin {field}	Search apps for the field with the value provided in stdin, and then output the field provided with --output	--stdin Name --stdin categories

Terms

• filter refers to a flag that filters results. This does not include --nodisplay
• field refers to one of categories, type, keywords, name, file, nodisplay, or exec

Examples

Heres a command to show you a dmenu of all your apps tagged System and run the selected one with rofi

$ ApplicationFilter --categories system --output name | rofi -dmenu | ApplicationFilter --stdin name --output exec | sh

The first ApplicationFilter lists the name of all apps with system in their categories, then pipes it to rofi
The second ApplicationFilter takes the chosen application, searches for the application with that name, then outputs the Exec field in the desktop file into sh

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--output and --stdin can also work with categories, types, and keywords! Heres an example that lets you select a category, and then shows all apps in that category

$ printf "system\nnetwork\ngtk" | rofi -dmenu | ApplicationFilter --stdin categories --output name > /tmp/selection && cat /tmp/selection | rofi -dmenu | ApplicationFilter --stdin name --output exec | sh

The --stdin categories filter will look for all apps that match the category provided in stdin, and output the names of the apps into a temp file.
Its worth mentioning that --stdin does NOT separate the input string on commas, so passing system,network will not have the desired output

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If we for some reason want to make this command even less legible, we can add filters with the --stdin flag

$ printf "system\nnetwork\ngtk" | rofi -dmenu | ApplicationFilter --stdin categories --nodisplay --type application --output name > /tmp/selection && cat /tmp/selection | rofi -dmenu | ApplicationFilter --stdin name --output exec | sh

The --nodisplay flag will display apps with NoDisplay=true, and the --type application flag filters out desktop files that arent applications.