v0.2.28

• Optimized rendering pipeline for improved performance: Implemented deferred damage checking and render coalescing
  • Added Wakeup events to batch multiple rapid terminal updates into single render passes
  • Deferred damage calculation until render time to reduce unnecessary computations
  • Skip rendering for unfocused windows when disable_unfocused_render is enabled
  • Skip rendering for occluded windows when disable_occluded_render is enabled
  • Improved damage merging to always accumulate updates even when already marked dirty
  • Enhanced performance for rapid terminal output by coalescing non-synchronized updates

Changelog

• 4a1ac1b update deps and prepare v0.2.28
• 883027f update release.md
• 8b0549f fix lint
• b540149 remove damage
• fa62e33 drop snapshots
• fabba97 performer
• 1462227 Improve terminal update synchronization and reduce lock contention
• 79d8658 wip new sync logic
• ce0882c flake.lock: Update
• 11a1416 default_disable_occluded_render as false
• 5ecb738 mark 0.2.27 for metainfo.xml

nightly

Changelog

• eb9fe5f update com.rioterm.Rio.metainfo.xml

v0.2.27

• Breaking: If xterm-rio is installed we prioritized it over rio terminfo.
• Fix sixel/iterm2 graphics persistence issue: Fixed graphics remaining visible when overwritten by text
  • Graphics are now properly removed when cells containing them are overwritten
  • Fixes issues with file managers like Yazi where images would persist incorrectly
  • Simplified graphics cleanup logic by removing unused ClearSubregion functionality
• CJK Font Metrics: Fixed CJK characters displaying "higher" than Latin characters #1071
  • Implemented comprehensive CJK font metrics handling with consistent baseline adjustment
  • Fixed scrolling issues for mixed Latin and CJK text content
  • Added CJK character width measurement using "水" (water ideograph) as reference
  • Created consistent cell dimensions across different font types
  • Developed extensive test suite with 40+ font-related tests to verify fixes

Changelog

• 7ccc174 prepare v0.2.27
• bdba71b add notes
• 596ac8e use borrowed ID
• 3bd5481 font id should be always default to respect cell
• 705f30f update releases.md
• 4cf26f0 Fix CJK characters displaying higher than Latin characters
• 808be0a Implement consistent font metrics for CJK rendering
• f5872bf unify clearsubregion to remove texture (ref: #709)
• aa1b201 update com.rioterm.Rio.metainfo.xml
• edb0049 update docs about terminfo
• a0a1874 update terminfo
• 1f5d69c prioritize xterm-rio if installed

v0.2.26

• Fix frame dropping in release builds: Fixed an issue where release builds would drop frames due to damage event timing
  • Damage events are now emitted directly after parsing PTY data, ensuring proper batching
  • Removed redundant Wakeup event mechanism that was causing multiple renders per update
  • Synchronized update timeouts now properly emit damage events
  • Significantly improves rendering smoothness in optimized builds

Changelog

• 92537c4 update dependencies
• f8eca69 Add install instructions for scoop
• 8d3ba94 remove route_id from machine
• e054524 Damage events are now emitted directly after parsing PTY data, ensuring proper batching
• a78f476 Only emit damage event if there's actual damage on updateTitle

v0.2.25

• Fix: Rio doesn't launch from context menu on Windows.
• Fix: Rio lacks embedded icon on Windows 10 by @christianjann.
• Fix custom shells in /usr/local/bin not found on macOS: Fixed an issue where custom shells installed in /usr/local/bin were not found when Rio was launched from Finder or other GUI applications
  • On macOS, Rio now uses /usr/bin/login to spawn shells, ensuring proper login shell environment with full PATH
  • Custom shells like Fish, Nushell, or custom Zsh installations in /usr/local/bin will now work correctly

Changelog

• 018afe9 fix lint
• cc9c25c prepare 0.2.25
• 13c7185 Add embedded icon for Windows
• 915ef1e fix working-dir parameter for windows (closes #1239)
• 06dc3e1 update README
• b00e893 update releases
• 02c836e use login shell for macos
• 274974e flake.lock: Update
• e19ef8c Apply fixes suggested by clippy
• 1763fa8 update flatpak metainfo

v0.2.24

• Fix game mode regression.
• Hint Label Damage Tracking: Improved hint label rendering performance with proper damage tracking
  • Hint label areas are now properly marked for re-rendering when cleared
  • Eliminates visual artifacts when hint labels are removed
  • Optimized rendering to only update affected screen regions
• Configurable Hyperlink Hover Keys: Hyperlink hover modifier keys are now configurable
  • Configure custom modifier keys through the hints system in config.toml
  • Default behavior unchanged: Command on macOS, Alt on other platforms
  • Supports any combination of Shift, Control, Alt, and Super/Command keys
  • Example: mouse = { enabled = true, mods = ["Shift"] } to use Shift key
• Hints Configuration: Renamed hints.enabled to hints.rules for better clarity
  • Update your configuration: [[hints.enabled]] → [[hints.rules]]
  • All hint configuration sections now use hints.rules.* instead of hints.enabled.*
  • Functionality remains the same, only the configuration key names changed

Changelog

• 8a243cc prepare 0.2.24
• 51b845e fix tests for hints and links
• fe30b5b fix bindings
• 0c82d8f update force_full_damage
• 110b53b migrate hint logic to new snapshot system
• d3db672 Fix IME behavior on macOS to prevent spurious commit events
• 3140c64 fixup! fix build
• 475005c fix build
• ced2811 rename to rules
• d8c817d add configurable colors for hint
• dbc9260 hints initial implementation
• 0bc944e hints
• 31a2ebf implement hyperlink hints
• 06f7f9a flake.lock: Update
• ff9fd98 flake: devShells: include rustfmt and rust-analyzer nightly
• 8bce14b flake: packages: rio: build with minimal toolchain
• 31cc24a flake: devShells: msrv: use rust-toolchain.toml
• 4005b1f migrate to hashmap again
• ec6c853 fix panels not being updated
• cf3d016 avoid heap for contexts
• 5cd5d42 update cache
• 2b91b56 shutdown io when is done
• 445a9fd fix game mode
• 937d2d0 fix game strategy
• 4add1fe update com.rioterm.Rio.metainfo.xml

v0.2.23

• Fix some rendering regressions introduced by 0.2.21.
• Improve performance by stopping locking on rendering run steps.
• Fix: X11: WM_CLASS has an empty string property.

v0.2.22

Changelog

• 32373d5 Merge branch 'wip-perf'
• a20fe57 comment markers for now
• a8caf55 schedule every 2 seconds
• a8a29e6 fix caret cursor
• 25bc218 update note to mention v0.2.20
• a42e9fe revisit perf on renderer
• 18db3ef fix lint on cache key changes
• f59050c if there's something pending we need to act
• cc432a5 emit the actual damage
• a740295 update tests
• 3717a3e base on font_id only
• 1401d30 deserialization
• 8f823fd remove unnecessary metrics
• 27038bd remove unnecessary stuff
• 86cf79a remove warm cache
• b501d89 remove unused vertexpool
• 677c72a fix lint
• d8aaf94 drop cursor update
• cd25106 update to skip save double cache (non-color)
• 510f42c remove opt-level declaration from dev and let it to rust decide
• c8da8e8 fix tab identation on scd files
• b09619e Merge branch 'fix-regression-on-release'
• 9166073 reinforce damage through event
• 7fa3860 fixup! rewriting cache on text_run
• 350fe17 rewriting cache on text_run
• c7fc36e move to hashmap

v0.2.21

Note: v0.2.21 introduces a new rendering architecture per terminal damage system, and it may contain bugs. Any issue please report 🙏

Changelog

• Breaking: navigation.use-current-directory has been renamed to navigation.current-working-directory.

Performance Optimizations

• Major: Implemented efficient CVDisplayLink-based VSync synchronization for macOS
  • Perfect frame timing aligned with display hardware refresh cycles
  • Eliminates screen tearing and stuttering through hardware VSync synchronization
  • Adaptive refresh rate support: automatically handles 60Hz, 120Hz, ProMotion displays
  • Multi-display support: adapts when windows move between displays with different refresh rates
  • Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) integration for thread-safe cross-thread communication
  • Smart rendering: Only renders when content actually changes using dirty flag system
  • Power efficient: skips unnecessary redraws when content is static, reducing CPU usage
  • Professional rendering quality with smooth, tear-free visual updates
  • CVDisplayLink runs on dedicated background thread, never blocking UI operations
• macOS VSync Optimization: Disabled redundant software-based vsync calculations on macOS
  • CVDisplayLink already provides hardware-synchronized VSync timing
  • Eliminates unnecessary frame timing calculations and monitor refresh rate queries
  • Reduces CPU overhead and improves rendering performance
  • Software vsync logic remains active on other platforms for compatibility
• Major: Implemented a new text run caching system replacing line-based caching
  • Up to 96% reduction in text shaping overhead for repeated content
  • Individual text runs (words, operators, keywords) cached and reused across frames
  • 256-bucket hash table with LRU eviction for optimal memory usage
• Cache Warming: Pre-populate cache with 100+ common terminal patterns on startup
  • Programming keywords: const, let, function, class, import, export, etc.
  • Indentation patterns: 4/8/12/16 spaces, single/double/triple tabs
  • Shell commands: ls, cd, git, npm, cargo, sudo, etc.
  • Operators & punctuation: =, ==, =>, ();, {}, [], etc.
  • File extensions: .js, .ts, .rs, .py, .json, .md, etc.
  • Error/log patterns: Error:, [INFO], FAILED, SUCCESS, etc.
  • Immediate cache hits eliminate cold start shaping delays
• SIMD-Optimized Whitespace Detection: Multi-tier optimization for indentation processing
  • AVX2: 32 bytes per instruction (x86-64 with AVX2 support)
  • SSE2: 16 bytes per instruction (x86-64 with SSE2 support)
  • NEON: 16 bytes per instruction (ARM64/aarch64)
  • Optimized scalar: 8-byte chunks (universal fallback)
  • Up to 32x performance improvement for long indentation sequences
  • Critical for Python, nested JavaScript/TypeScript, YAML, and heavily indented code
• Memory Pool for Vertices: High-performance vertex buffer pooling system
  • Size-categorized pools: Small (64), Medium (256), Large (1024), XLarge (4096) vertices
  • Zero allocation overhead through buffer reuse across frames
  • LRU management with automatic cleanup when pools reach capacity
  • Thread-safe concurrent access with performance monitoring
  • Eliminates GC pressure and improves frame rate consistency
• Background Font Operations: Non-blocking font management
  • Font data release and cleanup in dedicated background thread
  • System font scanning and preloading without blocking main thread
  • Prevents frame rate drops during font operations
• Occlusion-Based Rendering: Skip rendering for occluded windows/tabs
  • Automatically detects when windows are completely hidden by other windows
  • Skips rendering for occluded windows to save GPU resources and improve performance
  • Renders one frame when window becomes visible again to ensure display is updated
  • Configurable via [renderer] disable-occluded-render = true (enabled by default)
  • Significantly improves performance when running multiple tabs or windows

Other Improvements

• Optimize the character cluster cache for wide space characters.
• New font atlas, more efficient.
• Implemented around 75% Memory Reduction: Text glyphs now use R8 (1 byte) instead of RGBA (4 bytes).
• IME Cursor Positioning: Added configurable IME cursor positioning based on terminal cell coordinates
  • IME input popups now appear precisely at the cursor position
  • Improves input experience for CJK languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
  • Configurable via [keyboard] ime-cursor-positioning = true (enabled by default)
• Shift+Click Selection: Added Shift+click support for expanding text selections
  • Shift+clicking now extends the current selection to the clicked cell
  • Provides standard terminal selection behavior expected by users
  • Regular clicking without Shift still clears selection and starts new one as before
• CLI accepts relative paths for working directory CLI argument: When invoking rio from other terminals using rio --working-dir=<path>, a relative path is now correctly processed

Bug Fixes

• Cursor Damage Tracking: Fixed cursor rendering issues after clear command and during rapid typing
  • Replaced complex point-based damage tracking with simplified line-based approach
  • Eliminates edge cases where cursor updates were missed during fast typing sequences
  • Improved reliability by always damaging entire lines instead of tracking column ranges
  • Aligns with modern terminal design principles for more robust damage calculation
• Selection Rendering: Fixed selection highlight not appearing on first render
  • Selection changes now properly trigger damage tracking and rendering
  • Optimized selection damage to only redraw affected lines for better performance
  • Selection highlights now appear immediately when making selections
• Text Selection: Fixed selection behavior during input and paste operations
  • Selection properly clears when typing or pasting text (both bracketed and regular paste)
  • Selection coordinates remain stable during viewport scrolling (following Alacritty's approach)
  • Prevents selection from being lost unexpectedly during normal terminal usage
• Auto-scroll on Input: Fixed issue where typing after scrolling up wouldn't automatically scroll to bottom
  • Now properly scrolls to bottom for both keyboard input and IME/paste operations
  • Ensures cursor remains visible when typing new content
• Scroll Performance: Improved scrolling performance by optimizing render event handling
  • Moved scroll display offset update before mouse cursor dirty event
  • Removed redundant render calls during scroll operations
  • Implemented centralized damage-based rendering in event loop for better performance
• macOS IME Improvements: Fixed emoji input and IME stability issues
  • Resolved IMKCFRunLoopWakeUpReliable errors when using emoji picker
  • Improved coordinate validation and error handling for IME positioning
  • Better handling of direct Unicode input (emoji picker, character viewer)
  • Added throttling to prevent excessive IME coordinate updates
• Documentation: Added comprehensive manual pages (man pages) for Unix-like systems
  • man rio - Main Rio terminal manual page with command-line options
  • man 5 rio - Complete configuration file format documentation
  • man 5 rio-bindings - Key bindings reference and customization guide
  • Available in extra/man/ directory with build instructions
• Terminfo Compatibility: Improved terminal compatibility by adding xterm-rio terminfo entry
  • Added xterm-rio as primary terminfo entry with rio as alias for better application compatibility
  • Applications that look for "xterm-" prefixed terminals (like termwiz-based apps) now work correctly
  • Maintains TERM=rio environment variable for consistency with terminal identity
  • Fixes crashes with applications like gitu and other termwiz-based terminal programs
  • Follows same pattern as other modern terminals (Alacritty, Ghostty) for maximum compatibility

Technical Details

The performance optimizations in this release represent a significant architectural improvement to Rio's text rendering pipeline:

• Text Run Caching: Replaces line-based caching with individual text run caching. Each unique text sequence (word, operator, keyword) is shaped once and reused across all occurrences.
• SIMD Implementation: Platform-adaptive SIMD instructions automatically detect and use the best available CPU features (AVX2 > SSE2 > NEON > optimized scalar) for maximum performance across different architectures.
• Memory Management: The vertex pool system uses size-categorized buffers with LRU eviction, eliminating allocation overhead while preventing memory bloat.
• Cache Strategy: Two-level caching (render data + text runs) with 256-bucket hash table using FxHasher for optimal lookup performance.
• Compatibility: All optimizations maintain full backward compatibility with existing Rio APIs and configurations.

These changes are particularly beneficial for:

• Programming workflows with repetitive code patterns
• Terminal sessions with heavy indentation (Python, nested JS/TS, YAML)
• Long-running sessions where cache warming provides sustained performance benefits
• Systems with limited memory where reduced allocation overhead improves overall responsiveness

Bug Fixes

• Backspace Key Compatibility: Fixed backspace key not working properly in vim when TERM=xterm-256color
  • Changed backspace key bindings to send BS (0x08) instead of DEL (0x7F)
  • Updated Rio terminfo and termcap entries to match actual key behavior
  • Updated XTGETTCAP response to return ^H for kbs capability
  • Ensures compatibility with applicati...

v0.2.20

0.2.20

• Performance: Implemented SIMD-accelerated UTF-8 validation throughout Rio terminal using the simdutf8 crate.
  • Architecture support: AVX2/SSE4.2 (x86-64), NEON (ARM64), SIMD128 (WASM)
  • Automatic optimization: Runtime detection selects fastest implementation available
• Support for XTGETTCAP (XTerm Get Termcap) escape sequence for querying terminal capabilities.
• Font library is now under a RWLock instead of Mutex to allow multiple tabs readings same font data.
• Fix: crash on openSUSE Tumbleweed #1160.

Changelog

• 3a51a09 update lock files
• 9a82477 update releases.md
• b5db389 update release.md
• 16d8fe7 use RWLock to font library instead
• 2c0dc19 add xtgettcap support (#1157)
• 4ba19a1 implement simd support for utf8 operations (#1159)
• 72fa676 avoid use fixed format
• 23e295a move 0.2.19 back to com.rioterm.Rio.metainfo.xml