CircuitPython 8.0.0 Release Candidate 1 now available

Developers, programmers and hobbyists night be interested to know that Adafruit has announced the CircuitPython 8.0.0 Release Candidate 1 launch making available the release candidate for further testing before a final release. CircuitPython 8.0.0-rc.1 is now available via the official GitHub release page by following the link below and brings with it a wealth of functionality.

For those of you unfamiliar with CircuitPython it is an open-source derivative of the MicroPython programming language targeted toward students and beginners. Development of CircuitPython is supported by Adafruit Industries. It is a software implementation of the Python 3 programming language, written in C and has been ported to run on several modern microcontrollers, such as those created by Adafruit and others.

CircuitPython 8 Functionality additions

• Add WiFi workflow with browser-based device discovery, filesystem browsing, upload, download, file editing, serial/REPL connection (available on Espressif and Pi Pico W).
• Add 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.
• A settings.toml file in CIRCUITPY provides environment variable values. Some value names are read by CircuitPython to specify WiFi connection parameters, BLE name, and other startup values. But you can also use settings.toml to specify your own parameters for your programs. Values from settings.toml can be retrieved using os.getenv(). More details here.
• 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.
• Enable collections.deque on most builds.
• 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 at runtime in favor of a larger CIRCUITPY drive. This is the default.
• Add TileGrid.contains().
• Add os.utime().
• Add espulp module, for running programs on the ULP co-processor in Espressif chips.
• Add memorymap module for general though limited access to various memory regions.
• 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.
• Add VfsFat.readonly property.
• Add memorymap to allow access to raw memory locations (currently only on Espressif)

Source: CircuitPython 8.0.0 Release Candidate 1 now available