gitk will not start on Mac: unknown color name "lime"

Question

I've installed git on a mac via brew install git. When I try to start gitk I get the following error:

Error in startup script: unknown color name "lime"
    (processing "-fore" option)
    invoked from within
"$ctext tag conf m2 -fore [lindex $mergecolors 2]"
    (procedure "makewindow" line 347)
    invoked from within
"makewindow"
    (file "/usr/local/bin/gitk" line 12434)

It appears that my Mac doesn't have a color named lime.

Can I add a lime color to the environment, or is there a better fix?

The git version is 2.7.0, and the Mac is running Yosemite 10.10.5

Answer 1

You can check your version of Tcl/Tk by running wish and using the command info patchlevel. It appears that git 2.7.0, Tcl/Tk 8.5.9, and OS X 10.11 El Capitan do not work well together.

I solved this problem by doing brew cask install tcl, which installed 8.6.4, and gitk works now.