rio — caveats & limitations

Linux and Windows 11 are tested. macOS support arrived in 0.3.0: source installation and the suite passed on macOS 27 on 29 September; Homebrew and MacPorts paths remain untried. BSD remains unverified. Extension interfaces may change during alpha.

Cross-platform behaviour differences

On macOS, rio.app keeps its own copy of `wish`

Re-run ./install-macos.sh after upgrading or moving Tcl/Tk.

On macOS, Ctrl-click is not a right-click in rio

Use a right-click or two-finger click to open context menus.

Over-tall menus close on hover (X11)

Tk menus can close unexpectedly on some X11 window managers. rio uses bounded menus and picker dialogs to avoid oversized menus.

A headless test run needs a real window, and X11 would hand it your keyboard

For development tests, use the upstream test notes.

A killed command's exit code differs on Windows (there are no signals)

A timed-out agent command may return different exit codes by OS; rely on the timeout message.

"Open Folder…" needs a double-click to enter the folder (X11)

Double-click into the folder, then press Open. Selecting its row alone may not open it.

A core with tcltls older than 1.8 can't fully verify https

Upgrade tcltls on the core's host and restart it. Network settings.

An OpenSSH older than 8.0 can't check a repository signature

Install OpenSSH 8.0+ on the core's host. Repository verification.

Behavioural limitations

Drag-to-open needs the optional tkdnd extension, and a local core

Install tkdnd for desktop file drops. Remote sessions cannot open dropped local paths; use their file browser.

Their saved open-tab lists overwrite each other. Open a different project folder for each independent workspace.

Colour arrives late at the bottom of a very large file, and "binary" is judged from the first 8 KB

Large files may highlight slowly. View ▸ Language… ▸ Plain Text disables highlighting. Binary detection only examines the first 8 KB. Large-file handling.

A same-second, same-length rewrite can go unnoticed

External-change detection uses modification time and file size. A rewrite preserving both can be missed; reopen the file when in doubt, preserving any unsaved edits first.

A recovery copy can be skipped on Windows, and one can outlive its file

Long paths on Windows can prevent a recovery copy from being written. Keep projects near the drive root or use a short XDG_DATA_HOME. Copies for files you never reopen remain on disk until you delete them. Untitled tabs have no recovery copy. Recovery files.