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Platforms

Rebind runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and the same scripts move between them. The core runtime and the namespaces most scripts use — HID, remapping (Bind) and the input hooks, Macro/Timer/Math/Net/File/JSON/Regex/Config/Process/System.Exec, UI/Log/Input, and the Run/Sleep/After/Async globals — are identical on all three OSes. A few namespaces depend on OS-specific APIs and are limited or absent on some platforms. This page maps what runs where, and why.

Platform support

The table below lists every namespace with platform-specific behavior. Everything not in the table is fully cross-platform.

NamespaceWindowsmacOSLinux
ScreenFull (GDI)Full (CoreGraphics)Stub (Screen.List via display-info)
WindowFull (Win32)Enumeration + Kill/IsActive/WaitActive/WaitClose; rest best-effortStub
ClipboardFull (Win32)Full (arboard)Stub
PipeFull (shared memory)Not availableNot available
RegistryFull (Win32)Not availableNot available
DialogFull (native)Full (native)Requires Zenity/KDialog/YAD
System.Execcmd.exe /Csh -csh -c

The rest — Input, Macro, Timer, Math, JSON, Hash, Codec, Env, Log, File, Net, UI, Bind, Script, Regex, Config — is fully cross-platform. Software and hardware mode run the same scripts; neither changes this table — namespace availability is a property of the OS, not the transport. The one capability split between modes is mouse_block: suppressing or transforming mouse movement requires a Rebind device on every OS, because the cursor is drawn below anything a host process can intercept. Key, button, and scroll blocking work in both modes. For hardware setup, see Hardware.

  • Screen samples pixels on Windows (GDI BitBlt) and macOS (CoreGraphics / ScreenCaptureKit). On Linux pixel sampling is stubbed, not absent: Screen.GetPixelColor is still callable but returns a fixed "000000" (black) instead of a real pixel, and Screen.SearchForColor returns nil — neither raises an error. Only Screen.List (display enumeration) is real on Linux.
  • Window is full on Windows. On macOS, enumeration (Find, List) plus Kill, IsActive, WaitActive, and WaitClose are real. The manipulation calls split two ways: Move, Activate, Minimize, Maximize, Restore, and Close are silent no-ops — they return success and do nothing, so a pcall around them will not catch an error — while the Accessibility-gated calls SetTitle, SetAlwaysOnTop, SetTransparency, GetClass, Hide, and Show raise a “not supported on macOS without accessibility” error you can guard with pcall. Window.GetTitle returns an empty string on macOS; titles are only available via the title field on Window.List / Window.Find entries. On Linux, Window is a stub.
  • Pipe (shared-memory IPC) and Registry are Windows-only. They raise an error on macOS and Linux. POSIX shared-memory support for Pipe is planned.
  • Clipboard works on Windows and macOS; it is a stub on Linux.
  • Dialog is native on Windows and macOS; on Linux it needs Zenity, KDialog, or YAD installed.

If you target multiple platforms, guard the OS-specific calls. pcall catches the “not available” error a Windows-only namespace raises on macOS or Linux:

local ok = pcall(function()
  Registry.Write([[HKCU\Software\MyScript]], "REG_SZ", "Profile", "default")
end)
if not ok then
  -- portable fallback: persist to the script directory
  Config.WriteTOML("profile.toml", { profile = "default" })
end