adafruit/circuitpython 8.0.0-beta.5

CircuitPython 8.0.0 Beta 5

on GitHub

This is CircuitPython 8.0.0-beta.5, a beta release for 8.0.0. It is relatively stable, but there will be further additions, fixes, and changes before final release.

WARNING: The flash partitioning for 2MB and 4MB flash ESP32 and ESP32-C3 boards has changed since 8.0.0-beta.2. When you load 8.0.0-beta.3 or later over beta.2 (or vice versa), on these boards, CIRCUITPY will be erased and reformatted.

WARNING: The flash partitioning for the Raspberry Pi Pico W has changed since 8.0.0-beta.1. When you load 8.0.0-beta.2 or later over beta.1 (or vice versa), on the Pico W, CIRCUITPY will be erased and reformatted.

Notable changes to 8.0.0 since 7.3.0

Functionality additions

• Added WiFi workflow with browser-based device discovery, filesystem browsing, upload, download, file editing, serial/REPL connection (available on Espressif and, as of 8.0.0-beta.5, Pi Pico W).
• 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. Mu 1.2.0 and Thonny 4.0.x and later are able to suppress status bar information in the REPL output.
• .env file in CIRCUITPY specifies WiFI connection parameters, BLE name, and other startup values.
• dotenv support: os.getenv() values are set by values in .env file. Values can be fetched from other dotenv-format files.
• WiFi functionality implemented on the Raspberry Pi Pico W.
• Revised Espressif camera support, now available on ESP32, ESP32-S2, and ESP32-S3.
• Bulk analog input: analogbufio (available only on RP2040 for now).
• Pin state can be preserved during deep sleep (available only on Espressif for now).
• Allow setting USB VID, PID, manufacturer, and product ids at runtime.
• Enabled collections.deque on most builds.
• MP3Decoder and WaveFile can now take a filename instead of an open file.
• AnalogIn values are full range from 0 to 65535, instead of having zeros on low-order bits.
• In-place firmware update (dualbank) capability may be disabled in favor of a larger CIRCUITPY drive.
• Added TileGrid.contains().
• Added os.utime().
• Added coproc module, for running programs on an on-chip co-processor. Currently available for the RISC-V core on the ESP32-S2 and ESP32-S3.
• A serial "break" on the USB or UART REPL serial connection will cause a KeyboardInterrupt, like ctrl-C. The advantage over ctrl-C is that the break interrupts even if the input buffer is full.
• Add hidden property to vectorio shapes.
• Add native _pixelmap.PixelMap support, for speed.
• Chained exceptions are now implemented.

Compatibility changes

• PulseOut no longer accepts a PWMOut. Use a Pin instead.
• Auto-brightness support in displayio and framebufferio has been removed. It was never implemented completely.
• OneWire is only in onewireio, and is no longer in busio or bitbangio.
• gamepadshift has been removed: use keypad.ShiftRegisterKeys instead.
• Print out whole-number floats exactly and correctly.
• Restored rainbowio and onewireio to a number of boards. Some boards still have rainbowio turned off for space reasons.
• i2ctarget.I2CTarget is the new name for i2cperipheral.I2CPeripheral. Accept both for now. I2CPeripheral is deprecated and will be removed in 9.0.0.
• Allow display.root_group to be set, instead of using display.show(). display.show() is deprecated and will be removed in 9.0.0.
• The property supervisor.runtime.ble_workflow replaces supervisor.disable_ble_workflow().
• The property supervisor.runtime.next_stack_limit replaces supervisor.set_next_stack_limit().
• The property supervisor.runtime.rgb_status_brightness replaces supervisor.set_rgb_status_brightness().

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-beta.4

Fixes and enhancements

• Implement chain parameter in traceback.print_exception() and format_exception(). #7297. Thanks @jepler.
• Fix board-specific MDNS hostnames. #7295. Thanks @tannewt.
• Rework analogbufio API. #7294. Thanks @tannewt.
• Fix some escapes of translated messages. #7292. Thanks @jepler.
• Handle DNS names with trailing dot. #7281. Thanks @jepler.
• Add SocketPool.gaierror exception. #7269. Thanks @jepler.
• Correct wifi.Radio.connect() and start_ap() signatures, default args, and arg validation. #7249. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Do not block for I2CTarget.request(-1). #7242. Thanks @s-ol.
• Allow a serial "break" to cause KeyboardInterrupt, like ctrl-c, for both USB and UART REPL serial. #7234, #7227. Thanks @jepler.
• Fix terminalio crash when display is tiny. #7223. Thanks @jepler.
• Fix reset handling for PWM-based status LEDs. #7219. Thanks @tannewt.
• Allow display.root_group to be set, instead of using display.show(). #7215. Thanks @FoamyGuy.
• Pass RGBW values more efficiently internally in adafruit_pixelbuf. #7209. Thanks @jepler.
• Remove special-case code for CYW43 in shared-bindings. #7207. Thanks @jepler.
• Upgrade ulab to version 6.0.1. #7202. Thanks @jepler.
• Add hidden property to vectorio shapes. #7197. Thanks @FoamyGuy.
• Add native _pixelmap.PixelMap support, for speed. #7191. Thanks @jepler.
• Update protomatter (RGB matrix support). #7182. Thanks @MicroDev1.
• Fix bugs in asyncio; make sockets selectable. #7173. Thanks @jepler.
• Implement chained exceptions. #7069. Thanks @jepler.

Port and board-specific changes

Broadcom

Espressif

• Web workflow fixes. #7309. Thanks @tannewt.
• Ensure orderly shutdown of SSL socket. #7291. Thanks @jepler.
• Fix S3 deep sleep. #7280. Thanks @tannewt.
• Simplify some ESP32-C3 board sdkconfig files. #7245. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Fix accidental .gitignore entries for board-specific sdkconfig files. #7211. Thanks @jepler.
• Enable microcontroller.cpu.temperature on ESP32-S3. #7199. Thanks @MicroDev1.

i.MX

nRF

RP2040

• Add Pico W CYW43 startup delay needed on some board samples; fix will be refined later. #7313. Thanks @jepler.
• Fix slow PWM duty cycle update. #7299. Thanks @BooleanMattock.
• Web workflow. #7286, #7272, #7247. Thanks @tannewt.
• Start with SPI clock hight for SPI modes 2 and 3. #7229. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Fix idling until interrupt. #7201. Thanks @jepler.
• Ignore alarm pin changes before actual deep sleep. #7196. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Pico W access point support. #7101. Thanks @bill88t.

SAMx

• Fix sdcardio. #7278. Thanks @jepler.
• Fix playing mono files on stereo output. #7253. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Fix SAMD21 tick event channel handling. #7217. Thanks @dhalbert.

STM

• Fix timer references, to fix PWMOut frequency errors. #7212. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Add PDMIn support for STM32L4. #7169. Thanks @blues.

Individual boards

• 1. Keebs Frood: add missing pins. #7165. Thanks @piit79.
• AI Thinker ESP32-C3S and C3S-2M: add status LED. #6217. Thanks @Neradoc.
• Espressif ESP32-BOX-Lite: correct sdkconfig. #7311. Thanks @dhalbert.
• Raspberry Pi Pico W: support reading board.VOLTAGE_MONITOR. #7179. Thanks @jepler.

Documentation changes

• Fix supervisor.ticks_ms() documentation. #7275. Thanks @jshimbo.
• Fix wifi.Monitor documentation. #7265. Thanks @jepler.
• Remove mention of _pixelbuf in adafruit_pixelbuf. #7163. Thanks @jepler.

Build and infrastructure changes

• Add GitHub codespaces support (currently only for Cortex-M). #7263. Thanks @bablokb.
• Fix ci_set_matrix.py. #7235. Thanks @MicroDev1.
• Improve PR commit diffs during builds. #7231. Thanks @MicroDev1.
• Use Python 3.x for builds again. #7204. Thanks @jepler.
• Fix Pico W DEBUG=1 builds. #7192. Thanks @bill88t.
• Save code space: eliminate unused QSTRs; don't use smart quotes in translations. #7181. Thanks @jepler.
• Simplify argument validations to save code space. #7175. Thanks @jepler.
• Temporarily use Python 3.10 for builds because of 3.11 library incompatibilities. #7164. Thanks @jepler.
• Print out boards list for port if BOARD= is missing or incorrect. #7162. Thanks @rhooper.
• Mention rust dependency for minify_html in BUILDING.md. #7160. Thanks @rhooper.
• Choose which pull-request jobs to do more accurately. #7132. Thanks @MicroDev1.

Translation additions and improvements

• Change phrasing of boot button message so it stands alone as a sentence, making translation easier. #7150. Thanks @Neradoc.
• Thanks for translations:
  • @Atalanttore (German)
  • @bergdahl (Swedish)
  • @boranroni (Turkish)
  • @hexthat (Chinese - Pinyin)
  • @Pixel-Clay (Russian)
  • @urfdvw (Chinese - Pinyin)
  • @wtuemura (Portugese - Brazil)

New boards since 8.0.0-beta.4

• Adafruit Feather RP2040 Scorpio (not yet released). #7126. Thanks @jepler.
• CRCibernetica IdeaBoard. #7198. Thanks @CRCibernetica.
• Czech maker Maker badge. #7135. Thanks @dronecz.
• Luatos Core ESP32C3. #7306. Thanks @evildave666.
• PillBug Mechwild. #7188. Thanks @kylemccreery.
• WeAct Studio Pico 16MB. #7208. Thanks @domdfcoding.

Known issues

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

Thanks

Thank you to all who used, tested, and contributed since 8.0.0-beta.4, including the contributors above, and many others on GitHub and Discord. Join us on the Discord chat to collaborate.