Nova Rio fork

Nova Rio is temporary. It retires when Nova no longer needs it: when upstream Rio carries every delta below (or an equivalent), or when Nova replaces Nova Rio with Zellij's own terminal. Each delta lists its own removal condition. No delta has been proposed upstream yet, and that may never happen: as of October 2026, Zellij's own terminal window is close to release.

This is Yazelix Nova's minimal Rio fork. The active edge branch starts from exact upstream revision b2e7c38bdc56bb86b346ca4f37b9aeaa5151d790 (Rio 0.5.20) and carries only twelve behavioral deltas:

• Standalone distribution uses nrio, independent nrio config directories, NRIO_CONFIG_HOME, and the Nova Rio / com.yazelix.nova-rio application identity. The Nix overlay exports nrio without overriding pkgs.rio. Retire this identity delta when the fork is removed or upstream owns an independently selectable distribution identity.

• Nova's terminal look is the built-in base configuration (rio-backend/src/config/nova/): borderless plain window, 0.70 opacity with blur and cell opacity, JetBrains Mono 16 with Nerd Font and Noto symbol maps, line height 1.12, trail cursor, and adaptive nova-dark / nova-light palettes. The user's config.toml overlays it key by key: tables merge, other values replace, and a theme without adaptive-theme drops the adaptive palettes. Explicit [colors] keys override the selected palettes. A missing or invalid file falls back to the embedded base, without loading user themes. Themes in the config directory's themes win over the built-in Nova palettes. The Nix package supplies the fonts; other builds find them by family name. Retire this delta with the nrio identity.

• Alternate-screen CSI 2 J clears obsolete direct Kitty placements. Remove this when upstream preserves the same main-screen scrollback boundary.

• Linux Vulkan image textures wait for submitted GPU work before freeing their descriptors and pixels on deletion, replacement, eviction, or shutdown. Remove this when upstream protects the same image lifetime. The upstream b2e7c38 destructor frees live descriptors; Yazi preview cleanup reproduces validation error VUID-vkDestroyDescriptorPool-descriptorPool-00303. Verify image/video switching and popup hide/reopen in a fresh Rio with Vulkan validation enabled. Presentation semaphores belong to swapchain images, rather than frame slots, so reacquiring the image gates reuse. Intel Wayland reproduces upstream's VUID-vkQueueSubmit-pSignalSemaphores-00067; retain this correction until upstream follows the same swapchain ownership through resize and shutdown.

• Odd and even vertical grid remainders are balanced through one shared grid origin. Remove this when upstream uses an equivalent origin for paint, input, graphics, cursors, and IME.

• Explicit backgrounds of Unicode upper/lower half blocks (▀ / ▄) stay opaque, matching their foreground samples, so window.opacity-cells = true does not stripe terminal artwork. Default-background sparse halves and ordinary TUI backgrounds retain their existing transparency. This corrects upstream behavior present in b2e7c38; current upstream 59203ccd retains the same alpha routing in rio-grid. Remove this when upstream composites both samples consistently without changing normal text opacity.

• The compact quit prompt uses Nova's rounded orange treatment and measured, balanced spacing. Remove this when upstream styling is accepted as-is or exposes a native styling surface.

• --theme-mode dark|light selects the configured adaptive palette at launch and remains authoritative across config reloads. Remove this when upstream exposes an equivalent launch override.

• Native hints share Unicode-aware grid spans across mouse and keyboard input, follow terminal soft wraps, preserve configured OSC 8 actions and URI fields, and refresh hover feedback on modifier changes. Linux defaults to Ctrl-click; macOS retains Super-click. Link presses own their release ahead of application mouse reporting, and drags or stale targets cancel activation. Remove this delta when upstream provides the same matching and gesture behavior, with the accepted modifier available through native configuration.

• Cursor trails obey the existing visibility, blink, focus, and IME policy. Hidden cursors discard their trail; the next visible position starts fresh. New animations request frames until they settle. Remove this delta when upstream passes the same hidden-cursor and idle-animation regressions.

• Synchronized updates buffer drawing immediately after the begin marker, including payload in the same PTY read. The existing timeout and size bounds remain authoritative. Remove this delta when upstream passes the same chunk-boundary regression, including split Unicode and frame markers.

• --config-editor validates TOML from stdin without loading assets or opening a window, then prints a version-1 TOML inventory of eight common global settings. Defaults are the effective values over Nova's built-in base, and accepted blur choices come from native config types; the complete native parser validates each candidate. Platform overrides retain precedence. This is RIO-CONFIG-UI-001, consumed by Nova Ratconfig. It is a finite editor surface, not a complete schema or an asset-availability check. Remove this delta when upstream provides an equivalent headless inventory and validator.

The config-editor mechanism was reviewed against upstream b2e7c38 and 6b0f5c8a: the existing --write-config writes a file but provides no editor inventory or candidate validation. The editor adds no dependencies. Run its contract with cargo test -p rio-backend -p rioterm --features rioterm/wgpu config_editor_uses_native_defaults_and_validation. The base overlay regressions are cargo test -p rio-backend -p rioterm --features rioterm/wgpu nova_.

The half-block regression is cargo test -p rioterm --features wgpu half_block_compositing. Run python3 misc/scripts/test-half-block-opacity.py in a fresh candidate Rio with at least 14 rows, window.opacity = 0.7, and window.opacity-cells = true: equal-color columns must be flat, distinct samples must reverse between upper/lower blocks, and sparse halves and normal text backgrounds must retain translucency. Repeat with odd/even cell heights, full opacity, and cell opacity disabled. Selection and cursor colors retain their existing overrides. The policy keeps explicitly colored half-block artwork opaque; uniformly translucent artwork would require coverage-aware compositing rather than applying alpha to two overlaid passes.

Nova consumes exact commits rather than a moving branch. The crates, native configuration schema, terminal type (rio / xterm-rio), and all behavior outside these twelve deltas remain upstream-owned. Mars features and Yazelix Cursors are intentionally absent.

The hyperlink mechanism was reviewed against upstream b2e7c38 and historical Mars commits 2177a794e7 (matching) and 9dc93ee46e (paired click ownership). Rio's native hints, grid text/wrap helpers, and structured platform opener remain the owners; no Mars input subsystem or shell launcher is imported.

Upstream b2e7c38 reproduces the hidden-cursor defect. The fork was also checked with Yazi and timing-stressed Codex through Nova Zellij. Run the regression with cargo test -p rioterm --features wgpu hidden_trail_restarts and the visual probe with python3 misc/scripts/test-cursor-trail.py in the installed terminal. Hidden phases must show no cursor; revealing it must not animate from the hidden position, and visible moves must settle while terminal output is idle. Synchronized repaint phases must keep the visible cursor steady. Their parser regression is cargo test -p rio-vt sync_update_buffers_payload.

Install beside upstream Rio

The supported fork installation is the Nix flake on Linux and macOS:

nix profile add github:Yazelix/nova-rio/edge#nrio
nrio

Pin an exact commit in a consumer lock file. Home Manager users add inputs.nova-rio.packages.${pkgs.stdenv.hostPlatform.system}.nrio to home.packages; keep the upstream Rio package and configuration independent. The overlay exports pkgs.nrio, leaving pkgs.rio alone.

The fork reads $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nrio/config.toml on Linux (default ~/.config/nrio/config.toml) and ~/.config/nrio/config.toml on macOS. NRIO_CONFIG_HOME overrides that directory. Upstream RIO_CONFIG_HOME has no effect on the fork. The native configuration schema and --write-config remain Rio's; unset keys take Nova's built-in look. No existing Rio config is migrated or rewritten.

Warning

The built-in look turns off scrollback (scrollback-history-limit = 0), because Nova's Zellij keeps it. If nrio runs a plain shell instead of yzx enter, set scrollback-history-limit = 10000 (upstream Rio's default) in config.toml.

Linux installs com.yazelix.nova-rio.desktop, titled Nova Rio, with its own nrio icon and application ID; macOS installs NovaRio.app with bundle ID com.yazelix.nova-rio and the nrio URL scheme. These coexist with upstream's identities. The terminal capability names remain upstream's for compatibility. On Linux, nrio adds the package's Mesa Vulkan drivers to standard driver discovery (VK_ADD_DRIVER_FILES), so it opens outside NixOS. Host drivers stay visible, and an explicit VK_ADD_DRIVER_FILES, VK_DRIVER_FILES or VK_ICD_FILENAMES keeps Vulkan Loader precedence.

To use a separately installed no-Rio Nova archive, set the fork's native config:

[shell]
program = "/absolute/path/to/archive/bin/yzx"
args = ["enter"]

Use an absolute installed archive path or its stable installation symlink. The full Nova package already selects its pinned fork and Nova-owned config; it does not expose nrio on PATH. The no-Rio archive still omits Rio. nix build .#checks.x86_64-linux.coexistence checks both packages, independent config creation, and the Linux Vulkan driver wrapper. Native Darwin checks use checks.aarch64-darwin.coexistence; Linux evaluation alone does not prove macOS behavior. Other inherited upstream packaging recipes are not a supported Nova release channel.

Upstream Rio

Rio Terminal

Rio is a modern terminal built to run everywhere.
About · Install · Config · Changelog · Sponsor

Documentation: rioterm.com.

Supporting the Project

If you use and like Rio, please consider sponsoring it: your support helps to cover the fees required to maintain the project and to validate the time spent working on it!

Packaging

Demo with split and CRT on MacOS

Demo with blurred background on Linux

Demo of Rio running on a Steam Deck

Minimal stable rust version

Rio's MSRV is 1.96.1.