adafruit/circuitpython 8.0.0-beta.0

CircuitPython 8.0.0 Beta 0

on GitHub

This is CircuitPython 8.0.0-beta.0, a beta release for 8.0.0. It is relatively stable, but there will be further additions and fixes before final release.

Notable changes to 8.0.0 since 7.3.0

• Added WiFi workflow with browser-based device discovery, filesystem browsing, upload, download, file editing, serial/REPL connection.
• Added a one-line status bar, which displays connection status, last exception, and version on a terminal window title or on the top line of an attached display. Support for status bar display is also being added to the Mu and Thonny editors.
• .env file in CIRCUITPY specifies WiFI connection parameters, BLE name, and other startup values.
• Revised Espressif camera support, now available on ESP32, ESP32-S2, and ESP32-S3.
• Added TileGrid.contains().
• AnalogIn values are full range from 0 to 65535, instead of having zeros on low-order bits.
• OneWire is only in onewireio, and is no longer in busio or bitbangio.
• gamepadshift has been removed: use keypad.ShiftRegisterKeys instead.
• dotenv support: os.getenv() values can be set in the .env file.
• PulseOut no longer accepts a PWMOut. Use a Pin instead.
• i2ctarget.I2CTarget is the new name for i2cperipheral.I2CPeripheral. Accept both for now. I2CPeripheral will be removed in 9.0.0.
• Auto-brightness support in displayio and framebufferio has been removed. It was never implemented completely.
• Restored rainbowio and onewireio to a number of boards.
• Print out whole-number floats exactly and correctly.
• Enabled collections.deque on most builds.

Download from circuitpython.org

Firmware downloads are available from the downloads page on circuitpython.org. The site makes it easy to select the correct file and language for your board.

Installation

To install follow the instructions in the Welcome to CircuitPython! guide. To install the latest libraries, see this page in that guide.

Try the latest version of the Mu editor for creating and editing your CircuitPython programs and for easy access to the CircuitPython serial connection (the REPL).

Documentation

Documentation is available in readthedocs.io.

Port status

CircuitPython has a number of "ports" that are the core implementations for different microcontroller families. Stability varies on a per-port basis. As of this release, these ports are consider stable:

• atmel-samd: Microchip SAMD21, SAMx5x
• cxd56: Sony Spresense
• espressif: Espressif ESP32-S2
• nrf: Nordic nRF52840, nRF52833
• raspberrypi: Raspberry Pi RP2040
• stm: ST STM32F4 chip family

These ports are considered alpha and will have bugs and missing functionality:

• broadcom: Raspberry Pi boards such as RPi 4, RPi Zero 2W
• espressif: ESP32, ESP32-S3, ESP32-C3
• litex: fomu
• mimxrt10xx: NXP i.MX RT10xxx
• stm: ST non-STM32F4 chip families

Changes since 8.0.0-alpha.1

Fixes and enhancements

• WiFi workflow. Thanks @tannewt for most of the pull requests below and thanks especially to @RetiredWizard for testing.
  • Device discovery: #6697. Thanks @tannewt.
  • General: #6778, #6662, #6651, #6638, #6608, #6591, #6503, #6528, #6473: thanks @tannewt. #6683: thanks @Neradoc. #6682: thanks @andywarburton.
  • File management, including upload, download, rename, editing: #6770, 6769, #6733, #6731, #6695, #6693: thanks @tannewt.
  • File editing: #6777, #6771, #6686: thanks @tannewt. #6680, #6611: thanks @FoamyGuy.
  • Websocket-based serial/REPL: #6729, #6666, #6584: thanks @tannewt.
• Check for UTF-8 content when reading a file into a str. #6754. Thanks @jepler.
• Correct status LED handling on many boards. #6753. Thanks @tannewt.
• Do not reload again or enter REPL during an auto-reload. #6751. Thanks @tannewt.
• Fix generic TouchIn deinit on constructor failure. #6743. Thanks @Sciss.
• Remove support for passing a PWMOut to PulseOut. #6741. Thanks @tannewt.
• Update frozen libraries. #6782, #6780, #6520, #6517, #6490: thanks @dhalbert; #6740: thanks @pypewpew (@deshipu).
• Support RGB565 in qrio. #6739. Thanks @jepler.
• Rename i2cperipheral.I2CPeripheral to i2ctarget.I2CTarget to match new official I2C nomenclature. Both are available in 8.x.x; I2CPeripheral will be removed in 9.0.0. #6738, #6722. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Remove auto_brightness support. #6734. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Remove all= keyword argument from _bleio.ScanEntry.matches(). Use match_all= instead. #6730. Thanks @tannewt.
• Restore rainbowio and onewireio to a number of boards. #6727. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Format all whole-number floats exactly. #6722 (cherry-pick from MicroPython). Thanks @dhalbert.
• Status/title bar, displaying connection status, exception information, and version. #6715, #6713, #6698, #6666, #6473. Thanks @tannewt.
• Make keypad.EventQueue event be selectable, which allows more efficient asyncio polling for events. #6712. Thanks @jepler.
• Validate cs parameter in adafruit_bus_device.SPIDevice. #6696. Thanks @gamblor21.
• Update stage frozen library to add PNG support. #6648. Thanks @pypewpew (@deshipu).
• Ctrl-L in REPL will clear screen and redraw line. #6639. Thanks @jepler.
• Specify default BLE name in .env. #6596. Thanks @Neradoc.
• Add framebufferio.FrameBufferDisplay.root_group. #6595. Thanks @Neradoc.
• Update pwpewpew-lcd frozen library. #6569. Thanks @pypewpew (@deshipu).
• Update ulab. #6567. Thanks @jepler.
• Always release displays during deep-sleep. #6543. Thanks @jepler.
• Catch most exceptions during dir(). #6539. Thanks @jepler.
• Update frozen libraries. #6782, #6780, #6520, #6517, #6490: Thanks @dhalbert; #6740: thanks @pypewpew (@deshipu).
• Validate palette_index in Palette functions. #6515. Thanks @FoamyGuy.
• Enable collections.deque on most builds. #6474. Thanks @rtyley.

Port and board-specific changes

Broadcom

Espressif

• Fix ESP32 touch; rework Espressif touch. #6772. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Fix dimly-on LEDs that should be off. #6753. Thanks @tannewt.
• Allow connection retries if connection is intermittent. #6744. Thanks @tannewt.
• Retry wifi send only if initial send at least partially succeeded. #6742. Thanks @tannewt.
• Increase main task stack size. #6725. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Add plain ESP32 support. #6719, #6694, #6571. Thanks @dhalbert, @jepler.
• Fix handling of long inputs to ESP32-C3 serial connection. #6698. Thanks @tannewt.
• Fix ESP32-S2, ESP32-S3 USB problem. #6687. Thanks @tannewt.
• Rewrite camera support using esp32-camera library. #6684. Thanks @jepler.
• Allow reserving PSRAM via espidf. #6667. Thanks @jepler.
• Fix ESP32-C3 wifi crash and REPL responsiveness. #6666. Thanks @tannewt.
• Use -Os to shrink builds. #6663. Thanks @tannewt.
• Improve USB serial connection on ESP32-C3. #6660. Thanks @tannewt.
• Fix issue with empty BLE characteristic. #6614. Thanks @litui.
• Don't fully reset wifi device: allows reconnects without hard reset. #6600. Thanks @jepler.
• Add wifi.Radio.tx_power. #6572, #6542. Thanks @todbot.
• Validate args to int.from_bytes(). #6562. Thanks @isacben.
• Go into safe mode when ESP interrupt watchdog fires. #6534. Thanks @tannewt.
• Update ESP-IDF. #6531. Thanks @tannewt.
• Use UART configuration struct internally. #6453. Thanks @KurtE.

i.MX

nRF

• Test for BLE disconnect while reading. #6495. Thanks @DavePutz.

RP2040

• I2CTarget support. #6758. Thanks @gamblor21.
• Improve PIO documentation. #6714. Thanks @dannystaple.
• Allow zero-length PIO init programs. #6637. Thanks @jepler.
• Fix interrupt handling in UART.in_waiting, allowing longer inputs. #6583. Thanks @tannewt.
• Fix validation on WAIT PIO instruction. #6550. Thanks @crackmonkey.

SAMx

• Fix I2C frequency validation. #6670. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Fix SPI DMA race problem. #6520, #6498. Thanks @dhalbert.

STM

• Make family IDs consistent with TinyUF2. #6577. Thanks @NathanY3G.
• Add basic rtc implementation. #6468. Thanks @blues.

Individual boards

• Adafruit CLUE: release display before deep sleep. #6520, #6486. Thanks @DavePutz.
• Adafruit MagTag: add board.GPIO0. #6657. Thanks @nitz.
• Adafruit MatrixPortal: restore traceback. #6530. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Blues Wireless Swan R5: build UF2's. #6511. Thanks @blues.
• Blues Wireless Swan R5: fix 3v3 enabling. #6458. Thanks @blues.
• ELECFREAKS Pico:ed: support status LED, use frozen libraries. #6578, #6526. Thanks @xuhow.
• HiiBot IoTs2: add default buses. #6516. Thanks @Neradoc.
• Invector Challenger 840: add support for 8MB flash. #6652. Thanks @Arudinne.
• Pimoroni Interstate 75: add board.LED. #6664. Thanks @dglaude.

Documentation changes

• Add adafruit_register library documentation to design guide. #6726. Thanks @tannewt.
• Fix autoapi signature parsing bug. #6643. Thanks @jepler.
• Link to more Learn Guides from documentation. #6581. Thanks @FoamyGuy.
• Correct typo in build instructions. #6567. Thanks @thetazero.
• Add WiFi workflow to branding documentation. #6545. Thanks @jepler.
• Improve rotozoom() documentation. #6477. Thanks @FoamyGuy.

Build and infrastructure changes

• Update macOS version for mpy-cross builds and canonicalize executable names. #6665, #6659. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Add pre-commit to requirements-dev.txt. #6658. Thanks @andywarburton.
• Specify which firmware extensions (.bin, .uf2, .hex) to build in mpconfigport.mk and mpconfigboard.mk. #6629. Thanks @Neradoc.
• Download ARM gcc toolchain using a GitHub action. #6532. Thanks @jepler.
• Fix update of CI cache key. #6520, #6506, #6494. Thanks @jepler.
• Use setup-python@v4 in CI. #6497. Thanks @jepler.
• Fix build when DISABLE_FILESYSTEM=1. #6492. Thanks @EmergReanimator.

Translation additions and improvements

Thanks for translations:

• @bergdahl (Swedish)
• @Chameloun (Czech)
• @ckocyigit (German, Turkish)
• @Lisapple (French)
• @urfdvw (Chinese - Pinyin)
• @wtuemura (Portugese - Brazil)

New boards since 8.0.0-alpha.1

• Adafruit ESP32-S2 Camera. #6759. Thanks @ladyada.
• Adafruit Feather ESP32 V2. #6685, #6571. Thanks @dhalbert, @tannewt.
• Adafruit QT Py ESP32. #6685. Thanks @tannewt.
• Benjamin Shockley Fig Pi. #6624. Thanks @bwshockley.
• Electrolama minik. #6485. Thanks @electrolama.
• Espressif ESp32-S3-Box-Lite. #6574. Thanks @makermelissa.
• FRobot Beetle ESP32-C3. #6615. Thanks @askpatrickw.
• Hardkernel Odroid Go. #6709, #6685. Thanks @tannewt, @ladyada.
• Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32C3. #6645. Thanks @prplz.
• Silicognition RP2040-Shim. #6518. Thanks @xorbit.
• Smart Bee Designs Bee-Motion-S3. #6708. Thanks @strid3r21.
• Smart Bee Designs Bee-S3. #6708. Thanks @strid3r21.
• Solder Party BBQ20KBD. #6774. Thanks @arturo182.
• takayoshiotake Octave RP2040. #6720. Thanks @takayoshiotake.
• Waveshare ESP32-S2-Pico. #6672. Thanks @bill88t.
• Waveshare ESP32-S2-Pico-LCD. #6768. Thanks @mayrhomar.
• Wemos Lolin C3 Mini. #6256. Thanks @askpatrickw.
• WIZnet W5500-EVB-Pico. #6630. Thanks @ViktorWiz.

Known issues

• See https://github.com/adafruit/circuitpython/issues for other issues, including issues still to be addressed for:
  • 8.0.0

Thanks

Thank you to all who used, tested, and contributed since 8.0.0-alpha.1, including the contributors above, and many others on GitHub and Discord. Join us on the Discord chat to collaborate.