Moddable SDK 4.7.0

The Moddable SDK 4.7.0 release contains improvements made between April 3, 2024 and May 5, 2024.

This release features very low-level improvements to the Moddable SDK. Highlights include:

• Nordic nRF52 IO enhancements
• String performance optimizations
• First implementation of draft ECMA-419 Files API
• Significant additions to xst, the XS test tool, to expand test coverage including running test262 under Hardened JavaScript

Note: This release is expected to be the last using ESP-IDF 5.1.2. We will migrate to ESP-IDF 5.2.1 in the next few weeks. ESP-IDF 5.2.1 has many Wi-Fi and BLE improvements.

Release Details

• XS JavaScript engine

  • String optimizations
    • Background: XS optimizes strings to minimize memory use. For some operations on larger strings (over 1024 bytes), this reduces performance.
    • Added optional side-table to optimize common string operations. The side-table caches the following information for the most recently used strings:
      • String length in bytes
      • String length in Unicode codepoints
      • Flag indicating string is 7-bit only ASCII
      • Last accessed index in bytes and Unicode codepoints
    • Side-table improves performance of common operations by 100x or more for long strings
    • Disabled by default in embedded runtimes
    • Enabled by default in command line build tools and xsbug
  • Upgrade to fdlibm from FreeBSD (previously using Netlib version)
    • Benefits
      • Actively maintained version
      • Fixes several undefined behavior errors
      • Generates results consistent with V8
    • Note: XS does not use fdlibm by default but provides it as an option for runtimes that need numerical consistency beyond what ECMA-262 requires
  • Fixes for issues uncovered through fuzz testing. Thank you to @Agoric for their support of this work.
    • String.prototype.at could read from arbitrary memory if garbage collection occurred while validating arguments
    • Eliminate overflow in newly added Uint8Array toBase64 and toHex
  • Fix build conflict between string cache and metering (contributed by @raphdev)

• Modules

  • ECMA-419
    • Early implementation of Files for ECMA-419 3rd Edition. This is currently POSIX-only, for macOS and Linux. Embedded device support and unit tests are planned.
  • Poco
    • Option to allocate pixel buffers in DMA capable memory as required by ILI9341 (MIPI) 8-bit parallel display driver
    • Let display driver set minimum size of pixel rendering buffer
  • ILI9341 (MIPI) 8-bit parallel display driver keeps display output disabled until first frame is drawn to eliminate start-up display glitch

• Devices

  • nRF52
    • Improvements when building on nRF targets on Windows
      • USE_WDT supported
      • Don't build USB sources on device without USB (UART-only)
    • ECMA-419 PWM
      • hz getter returns actual frequency, not requested frequency
      • Support more frequencies with nrF52 specific top_value property in constructor's options object
    • Instrumentation supported on UART-only builds
    • Reset pins to default configuration when closed (not in use). This can reduce energy use.
    • Uses SPI2 by default, instead of SPI3, to work around intermittent start-up failures
    • Fix build conflict with nRF52 _read and new read symbol from XS Base64 support
  • ESP32
    • Backlight management changes for Hosts that implement Backlight class (e.g. Moddable Two, Moddable Display 2)
      • Commodetto and Piu turn on backlight for projects that include them
      • Projects that don't use Commodetto or Piu leave backlight off at start-up

• Documentation

  • Add note about working with ESP32 devices that have both USB and UART ports
  • Document XS build flags related to strings for configuring ports
  • Fix broken links in documentation (contributed by @stc1988). Discovered as part of the project translating Moddable SDK documentation into Japanese.

• Tools

  • xst
    • Option to track all XS memory allocations to support more efficient fuzzing
      • Optionally abort when memory limit exceeded
      • Free memory on unrecoverable VM exists
    • Source code split into three parts to contain test262 and fuzzing support in their own files for easier maintenance
    • Profiling data includes metering count when metering is enabled
    • Remove code to disable LSAN, now that xst can clean-up memory allocations on abort (contributed by @raphdev)
    • Options to run test262 under lockdown (-l) and inside a Compartment after lockdown (-lc) to validate test262 conformance under Hardened JavaScript.
  • serial2xsbug on macOS suggests launching xsbug if attempt to connect to it fails
  • nodered2mcu maps Blockly to Function node (enables Blockly support for embedded JavaScript using Node-RED) (thanks to @ralphwetzel for the suggestion and @spillz-dxb for the motivation) @phoddie/node-red-mcu#126

Contact Us

If you have questions or suggestions about anything here, please reach out:

• Start a new Discussion on our GitHub repository
• Drop by our Gitter to chat
• Contact us on Twitter at @moddabletech

Moddable SDK 4.6.0

The Moddable SDK 4.6.0 release contains improvements made between March 4, 2024 and April 3, 2024.

Highlights of this release include:

• M5Nano C6 and M5Stack Core 2 v1.1 device support
• Support for proposed standard Base64 and Hex extensions to Uint8Array from Ecma TC39. XS is the first JavaScript engine to ship support for this proposal! Please give it a try to help evaluate the design before it is finalized.
• fontbm now included in the release tools binaries making it easier than ever to use custom fonts in your projects (if you don't use the downloadable release binaries, you'll still continue building fontbm yourself)

Note: This release is expected to be the last using ESP-IDF 5.1.2. We will migrate to ESP-IDF 5.2.1 in the next few weeks. ESP-IDF 5.2.1 has many Wi-Fi and BLE improvements.

Release Details

• Devices
  • Add support for M5Stack Core 2 v1.1. (Contributed by @meganetaaan and first time contributor @RChikamura!)
  • Add support for M5Nano C6 (esp32/m5nanoc6) (contributed by @stc1988)
  • Add esp32/esp32h2_cdc and esp32/esp32c6_cdc platform targets for USB debugging (motivated by @stc1988) #1326
• ESP32 family
  • Wi-Fi now clears credentials when done with a connection to avoid unexpected reconnects
  • ECMA-419
    • Digital Bank no longer uninstalls GPIO ISR service as it may be in use by other system components
    • Analog input fully initializes data structures (Contributed by @linfan68) #1322
  • ILI9341_P8 driver
    • Defaults to 50 FPS
    • Enable tearing-effect interrupt
    • Fixes for compatibility with testmc
• Modules
  • EventSource (for Server-Sent Events) now supports method, headers, and body options. This was motivated by certain AI cloud services.
  • AudioOut and pins/servo modules now link on Linux for convenience when using the simulator (Reported by @ronron-gh) #1328
  • Piu outline shape object supports disabling bounding box clip
  • zlib encoder and decoder modules reduce native stack size by moving buffers from stack to heap. This allows the modules to be used reliably with the default stack configurations.
    
• XS
  • Base64 / Hex Stage 3 proposal fully implemented
    • See proposal's playground for documentation and examples
    • Passes 100% of test262 tests
    • API designed enables streaming decoding and encoding to reduce peak memory use. See the example.
    • Moddable SDK modules and examples updated to use new JavaScript language Base64 and Hex transformations in place of Moddable SDK Base64 and Hex modules
    • Hex and Base64 modules still supported, but new code is recommended to use the new JavaScript language features
  • Fixes for issues uncovered through fuzz testing. Thank you to @Agoric for their support of this work.
    • Obscure bug in DataView.prototype.slice triggered by hostile use of species that triggered a call to memcpy with overlapping ranges
    • Obscure native stack overflow in RegExp parser
    • Reliably convert -9223372036854775808 to BigInt
• Tools
  • fontbm font generator
    • Supports user supplied character files. Documentation. (Motivated by work by @kitazaki and input from @NW-Lab) phoddie/node-red-mcu#123
    • If fontbm is available in the default $PATH, then $(FONTBM) environment variable no longer needs to be set
  • test262 now runs on ESP32-S3 devices using esp32/esp32s3 platform target
  • xst now has -b option to load binary files as JavaScript source text (useful for fuzzer generated test cases)
  • Disable ASAN on RegExp stack check for more reliable fuzzing (contributed by @raphdev)
• Tests
  • Wi-Fi scan cancel test waits for final scan to complete
  • Wi-Fi mode off test uses $DONE(err) instead of throwing
  • Wi-Fi constructor BSSID test uses highest signal strength access point if more than one available to improve reliability of test
  • Wi-Fi timeouts increased to allow tests to pass in more environments
• TypeScript
  • Typings for the standalone easing functions, recently split out from Piu. (Contributed by @stc1988)

Contact Us

If you have questions or suggestions about anything here, please reach out:

• Start a new Discussion on our GitHub repository
• Drop by our Gitter to chat
• Contact us on Twitter at @moddabletech

Moddable SDK 4.5.0

This release contains improvements to the Moddable SDK made between February 2, 2024 and March 4, 2024.

Highlights of this release include:

• XS 15, the latest version of our embedded JavaScript engine is here! It supports all the new capabilities of the latest revision of the JavaScript language, ECMAScript 2024!
• Energy savings. ESP32 now has the option to power-off Wi-Fi when not in use and nRF52 uses significantly less energy when in idle, extending battery life.
• New M5Stack simulator lets you use the Moddable SDK's simulator to more accurately develop your M5Stack projects.

New Hardware: Moddable recently launched the Moddable Display product line. Moddable Display is the beautiful way to bring your latest embedded JavaScript project from the workbench to the real world.

Reminder: ESP-IDF v5.1.2 is now recommended for ESP32 development. Please see the January 2024 Release Notes for details on how to update.

Release Details

• XS
  • XS 15 is here, with full support for ECMAScript 2024 (ES2024)! Conformance with the standard for all new features is 100%. Overall conformance is 99.92% for language tests and 99.88% for built-ins tests (see the XS Conformance document for details). New features in ECMAScript 2024 include:
    • New RegExp v flag for Unicode set mode to work with Unicode properties of strings, set notation, and improved case-insensitive matching
    • Promise.withResolvers() for convenience when creating promises in some programming styles
    • Object.groupBy() and Map.groupBy() to aggregate data
    • Atomics.waitAsync() for non-blocking wait on shared memory changes (not available yet for embedded targets)
    • String.prototype.isWellFormed() and String.prototype.toWellFormed() to efficiently check and ensure a string contains well-formed Unicode
    • Resizable ArrayBuffer and growable SharedArrayBuffers (these were already supported in XS 14)
  • Optimizations for String getOwnProperty, String.prototype.at(), and String.prototype.replaceAll()
  • Handle out of memory errors safely in xsdtoa.c
  • Fixes for issues uncovered through fuzz testing. Thank you to @Agoric for their support of this work.
  • XS reports syntax error for try without either catch or finally
  • Module specifiers with an arbitrary number of "../" are now supported
• ESP32
  • 8-bit parallel ILI9341 driver
    • CS pin optional
    • frameRate accessor to set hardware refresh rate
    • Uses binary semaphore to synchronize with tearing-effect ISR to eliminate spin loop
  • Using Serial JTAG debugger port with xsbug is now much more reliable. Worked around bug in the ROM that caused occasional hangs when writing. #1299 (reported by @NW-Lab)
  • Audio output supports optional GPIO to enable/disable an external audio amplifier
  • Clean-up watch-dog timer settings in sdkconfig files
• nRF52
  • Default to PowerMode.LowPower instead of PowerMode.ConstantLatency for (much) lower energy use during system sleep
    • New example showing how to set PowerMode
  • Hardware supports misaligned writes, so no need to set mxMisalignedSettersCrash (slightly faster 32-bit TypedArray writes)
  • When done using pin, reset to default state to reduce energy use
• Modules
  • New WiFi.Mode enumeration of constants for Wi-Fi operating modes
  • Wi-Fi implements new off mode to disable the Wi-Fi stack #1295
    • This frees memory (about 60 KB on ESP32) and reduces energy use
    • Implemented on ESP32 and Raspberry Pi Pico
    • Check for availability with if ("off" in WiFi.Mode)
    • Requested by @beckerzito, thanks to @tve for input.
  • OpenAI Audio streaming now supports Wave files in additional to previous MP3 support. (Contributed by @stc1988) #1316
  • Easing equation functions split out from Piu to their own module to be more generally useful (suggested by @stc1988) #1309
  • MQTT client handles write error while sending initial connect message
• Drivers
  • GT911 touch interrupt now triggers on rising edge (lower latency)
  • AM2320 temperature and humidity sensor - more reliable read timing and general clean-up. (contributed by @louisvangeldrop) #1311
• Tools
  • M5Stack simulator! (contributed by @stc1988). Use mcconfig -d -m -p sim/m5stack to try it out.
  • mcpack fixes for module aliasing to allow more npm modules to work correctly. (Reported by @FWeinb who is now using protobuf for protocol buffers)
  • xst
    • On Linux no longer sets -fsanitize-recover=undefined (contributed by @raphdev)
    • Hooks memory allocators (malloc, etc) to be able to force failures when fuzzing
  • mcchex now available in Linux binary distribution (contributed by @ethos-jgreenwood) #1315
• TypeScript
  • Typing for Time.delta() (contributed by @meganetaaan)
  • Typing for Outline.scale single scale factor overload (contributed by @stc1988)
  • Typing for easing (contributed by @stc1988)
• Examples
  • ECMA-419 blink and button examples report missing pin configuration
  • Color-Picker example manifest updated to include Commodetto explicitly #1303 (reported by @stc1988)
  • Wi-Fi examples updated to use new WiFi.Mode enumeration to improve readability
  • SomaFM app uses much less memory on station list screen, improving reliability

Contact Us

If you have questions or suggestions about anything here, please reach out:

• Start a new Discussion on our GitHub repository
• Drop by our Gitter to chat
• Contact us on Twitter (X) at @moddabletech

Moddable SDK 4.4

This release contains improvements to the Moddable SDK made between January 3, 2024 and February 1, 2024.

Highlights of this release include:

• Moddable Display. Our latest hardware is also our most beautiful. Fully supported in this release.
• Web Streams. Help explore the feasibility and potential of this powerful web standard on embedded devices.
• OpenAI text-to-speech provides another high quality option that's easy to add to projects.
• Bosch BME68x Visualizers for round displays (works in the simulator too). Learn how to use outline graphics to creatively visualize sensor data.
• Many low-level improvements for nRF52 ports. The port that powers our ultra-low energy Moddable Four is more capable than ever.

New Hardware: Moddable recently launched the Moddable Display product line. Moddable Display is the beautiful way to bring your latest embedded JavaScript project from the workbench to the real world.

Documentation: All of the Moddable SDK documentation is available to read on moddable.com. We recently moved the site to a new hosting provider so browsing the documentation is fast.

Reminder: ESP-IDF v5.1.2 is now recommended for ESP32 development. Please see the January 2024 Release Notes for details on how to update.

Release Details

• Moddable Display
  • Build build targets to support all Moddable Display products
  • Documentation
• New Bosch BME68x Visualizers for sensor (temperature, humidity, pressure) on round display
  • Check out the video demo
  • Core host with four different visualizers implemented as mods
  • Great example of using outline rendering to build an advanced UI
  • See readme for details and build instructions
• Experimental web streams implementation for embedded (!!)
  • Effort to study feasibility of standard web streams on embedded
  • Modified version of WHATWG reference implementation
  • Includes examples using fetch(), ECMA-419 Digital IO, and ECMA-419 touch sensor
  • Conformance verified at better than 99% using Web Platform Tests.
  • See the readme for more information
• Modules
  • OpenAI text-to-speech support using streaming MP3 audio. (Contributed by @stc1988)
  • New AW3641 flash-light driver (with example). Works with M5Stack Core-S3. (contributed by @NW-Lab)
  • ls013b4dn04 display driver support for 180 degree rotation
    • Works with Moddable Four and Moddable Display 4
      • Jog dial adjusts direction based on screen rotation
      • Accelerometer adjusts direction based on screen rotation
  • structuredClone() fix for TypedArray under XS 14.3
  • Implement TextDecoder special case for invalid UTF-8 data on flush (for compatibility with Web Streams tests)
  • Streaming JSON parser
    • Major documentation update with cookbook and reference sections
    • Eliminated timezone dependency in unit tests
  • MQTT client
    • Keep-alive improvements to eliminate mistaken disconnects
    • Uses elapsed-time rather than time-of-date for keep-alive timeouts
  • Support TLS device certificates for Node-RED MCU Edition
• ECMA-419
  • TCP socket on macOS no longer tries to look-up IP addresses using DNS. Fixes connection failures.
  • TLS socket now uses normative module specifier embedded:io/socket/tcp/tls
  • HTTP server (listener) example fix for missing request body (reported by @stc1988) #1298
  • MQTT client
    • Now accepts buffer for read() (in addition to number, as before)
    • Keep-alive improvements to eliminate mistaken disconnects
    • Uses elapsed-time rather than time-of-date for keep-alive timeouts
• XS
  • xst (XS test tool)
    • Uses fdlibm for certain functions of the Math object to guarantee exact results across all platforms test (details). fdlibm is recommended, but not required, by ECMA-262.
    • Supports Fuzzilli on Linux builds (for cloud fuzzing!) (contributed by @raphdev)
    • On macOS and Windows now supports Memory and Undefined Behavior sanitizers (contributed by @raphdev)
  • Bug fixes for issues detected by fuzzing
    • Fix infinite loop in Regular Expression's with nested greedy quantifiers
    • Fix crash calling super() from within an arrow function
    • If SharedArrayBuffer allocation fails, there was a potential to crash on the next garbage collection. Fixed.
    • Consistent out-of-memory handling via fxAbort()
      • JavaScript parser previously threw exception
      • dtoa library previously ignored allocation failures
  • xsbug
    • Crash on surrogate pairs split across buffers fixed
    • REPL now ignores debugger statements, as it does other breaks
• Devices
  • ESP32
    • Fix sample rate validation on ESP32 audio (reported by @stc1988) #1287
    • Fix audio build on Windows when using ESP32 analog audio (reported by @NW-Lab) #1275
    • Configure output slot for I2S audio on ESP32 (contributed by @stc1988) Fixes #1236
  • nRF52
    • Support for Serial 7E1 and 7O1 modes
    • Optional pull-up on receive pin for serial
    • Supports multiple devices on the same I²C bus
    • Report address of mods flash partition from mcconfig using -t modLocation
    • Free SPI buffers on close()
    • Instrumented builds working again
  • Fix date to conversion for New Year's Day on ESP8266, nRF52, Raspberry Pi Pico, and QCA4020 (off by one error in modGmTime).
• Tools
  • New mchex tool to convert any file to the Intel Hexadecimal Object File Format (.hex)
  • mcconfig for simulator now supports -t xsbug to debug without re-building
• Documentation
  • Timer
    • Added details of this in callbacks
    • Detailed description of initial and repeat intervals
• Examples
  • Timer example updated with schedule and unschedule
  • Moddable Four first-run app doesn't try to sleep in debug builds (deep sleep is unavailable in debug builds)
• TypeScript
  • Typings for embedded:network modules (contributed by @tve)
  • Typings for Header and URL (contributed by @stc1988)

Contact Us

If you have questions or suggestions about anything here, please reach out:

• Start a new Discussion on our GitHub repository
• Drop by our Gitter to chat
• Contact us on Twitter at @moddabletech

Moddable SDK 4.3.8

This release contains improvements to the Moddable SDK made between December 1, 2023 and January 2, 2024.

Highlights of this release include:

• Streaming JSON parser
• LTR-553ALS driver for combined Proximity and Ambient Light sensor (ECMA-419 compatible)
• nRF52 watchdog timer support

Important: ESP-IDF v5.1.2 is now recommended for ESP32 development.

• If you used xs-dev to install the Moddable SDK, execute xs-dev update --device esp32
• Otherwise, follow the update instructions for macOS and Linux and Windows.

Release Details

• Contributed
  • New streaming JSON parser reduces RAM required to process JSON responses by 10x or more. Invaluable when working with web services that return large, bloated JSON responses. Extensively documented. Includes examples demonstrating different uses including simple property name (key) filtering, pattern matching, and advanced context-aware filters. (Contributed by @markwharton)
• Devices
  • New ECMA-419 LTR-553ALS sensor driver (Proximity and Ambient Light). (Contributed by @stc1988) This sensor is built into the M5Stack Core3.
  • Built-in ESP32 touch pad support builds with ESP-IDF v5. (reported by @ntGus) #1263
  • Support Watchdog Timer on nRF52 devices (set "USE_WDT":"1" in "build" section of manifest)
• Embedded Runtime
  • Rework message handling (modMessage) to minimize blocking while processing messages. At most, only messages present at start of service are now processed. (reported by @beckerzito) #1257
  • Only enable unit test support for xsbug:// when debugging is enabled
  • For ESP32, separate out soft-reset (MODDEF_SOFTRESET) support from unit test (MODDEF_TEST) to allow it to be used in more scenarios. Call modSoftReset() from C to request a soft reset at next turn. #1267
• Modules
  • HTTP server reads through all of ignored request body for maximum compatibility (reported by @tve) #1270
  • HTTP server accepts boxed string (String object) as response body (reported by @tve) #1269
  • ECMA-419 TCP Listener had incorrect destructor function in host hooks leading to crash when terminating virtual machine (reported by @tve) #1267
• XS JavaScript engine
  • Improvements to adding private field to object in ROM. These are related to stamping private fields (see "Returning overriding object").
    • If object is petrified (fully immutable), adding private field fails with an exception (previously crashed)
    • If object is alias-able, adding private field succeeds
  • XS host hooks modified to support native dispatch table
    • signature field replaces sweeper (unused). Signature indicates the type of the dispatch table that follows.
    • Any fields following signature are defined by the object
    • Use xsGetHostHooks(), xsGetHostHooksIf(), or xsGetHostHooksValidate() to retrieve host hooks for for an object
  • Fix undefined behavior in strtod2() when converting long string literals flagged by UBSAN on oss-fuzz. (Thanks to David M. Gay for review and refinement)
  • String.fromArrayBuffer() and ArrayBuffer.fromString() now correctly handle null characters (reported by @tve) #1271 (thanks to @Frida854 for reporting a problem in the initial implementation #1279)
• Examples
  • Two new examples to draw a bitmap image from a PNG (motivated by question from @RiteshK551) #1280
    • Rectangular image with no alpha channel
    • Arbitrarily shaped image with blended edges using alpha channel
• Documentation
  • Describe Files class error handling (contributed by @tve)
  • Document behavior of HTTP server close() (contributed by @tve)
  • Explain handling of Strings in HTTP (contributed by @tve)
  • Recommend install of icon pack when using WSL2 (works around GTK bug). (contributed by @kallistisoft) #1272

Moddable SDK 4.3.4

This release contains improvements to the Moddable SDK made between November 6, 2023 and November 30, 2023.

Highlights of this release include:

• New animated Piu round-balls example for circular displays
• New circular display simulator (WaveShare Pico RP2040)
• Support for M5Dial and M5Stamp S3 devices
• LittleFS now available on Raspberry Pi Pico

Release Details

• Devices
  • ESP32 Family
    • Add support for M5Dial device (contributed by @stc1988)
    • Add support for M5Stamp S3 device (contributed by @stc1988)
    • Watchdog timer working again on ESP32 Family devices. Was temporarily broken by upgrade to ESP-IDF 5. (Contributed by @tve)
  • Raspberry Pi Pico
    • LittleFS is now available on Raspberry Pi Pico (requested by @ArashMotamedi, implemented by @mkellner)
  • nRF52
    • Latest nRF52 bootloader binary with option to update firmware using BLE
• Modules
  • ECMA-419
    • ECMA-419 Serial implementations all default the format to "buffer". This was previously "number" on some platforms. Tracks an update to ECMA-419. EcmaTC53/spec#41 (Reported by @HipsterBrown). Projects that rely on the default format being "number" need to be updated.
    • ECMA-419 HTTP Client consistently updates writable count to fix edge case write failures with TLS. (reported by @sburel)
    • ECMA-419 GT911 touch driver implements get configuration to allow Piu to use its interrupt
    • MQTT.js module implementation now uses URL module
    • ECMA-419 WebSocket module implementation now uses URL module
    • ESP32 family devices running a debug build now reserve the Serial transmit and receive pins used for debugging. If a script attempts to use these pins, it generates an exception. Inspired by report #1226 by @ralphwetzel.
  • ElevenLabs text-to-speech supports additional parameters (contributed by @stc1988)
• XS
  • Fix typeof operator for host (native) functions to return "function"
  • Module loader now only calls resolve hook once for each unique module specifier in a Compartment
  • Module loader wasn't always decrementing loaded module count, leading to preposterous loaded module count
  • Fix crash in XS debugging support when launching a second time (very rare).
• Examples
  • New Piu round-balls example for circular displays -- balls bounce of the edges of a circle
  • Fix capitalization of GIF and QRCode paths in Moddable Four First run app to build on case-sensitive file systems
  • httpserverputfile example now uses config.file.root for portability. (Reported by @kallistisoft) #1246
  • Giphy app only opens Flash module instance once. This allows it to work on ESP-IDF 5 which no longer supports memory mapping the same region multiple times. (reported by @stc1988) #1258.
• Instrumentation
  • Fix instrumentation memory leak when root VM allocated more than once
  • Instrument additional cases of floating point math in add, subtract, and multiply
• Tools
  • mcrun supports -t build option to build mod without deploying or running
  • New "WaveShare Pico RP2040" device simulator provides round screen (for use with piu/round-balls example)
  • ESP32 makefile on macOS & Linux supports experimental -t buildArchive to build the archive with Moddable SDK objects but not build and link the ESP-IDF host (for specialized scenarios like building the Moddable SDK into an ESP-IDF application)
  • XS Linker fixes #1209 again ("0" and "@" confusion). This original fix was broken when fixing #1232. Both #1209 and #1232 are now fixed. Thanks to @linfan68 for re-reporting.
• Tests
  • Add warning if Resource slice test on fails on Windows because Moddable SDK was checked out with Windows line endings instead of Unix line endings
• Documentation
  • XS in C documentation updated with high-level introduction to Host Object, Host Data, and Host Chunk. (contributed by @tve based on text from @phoddie)
  • Repository root readme notes that XS now supports ECMAScript 2023

Moddable SDK 4.3.0

This release contains improvements to the Moddable SDK made between October 2, 2023 and November 5, 2023.

This release contains many enhancements for mods, one of the most unique and popular features of the Moddable SDK. Highlights of this release include:

• The XS performance profiler now works with mods, so you can profile all the JavaScript code in your project (including the examples in our book.
• Arrow functions are incredibly popular with JavaScript developers for their compact syntax. They are so popular that developers often use them when their primary feature -- automatically binding to this -- isn't needed. We've reduced the memory use arrow functions that don't access this so embedded JavaScript developers can use them with the smallest possible overhead.
• ESP-IDF v5 support has deepened with improvements to several more modules since rolling out last month in Moddable SDK 4.2. Thank you to the developers who reported issues and helped with fixes.

News

• Save the date! 🎉Ecma TC53 is holding a workshop to discuss proposals and consider options for Embedded JavaScript standardization including new APIs, interoperability, packaging, and Hardened JavaScript. 🎉
  • 📆December 6
  • 📍Apple Park
  • 🧑🏽‍💻Everyone with relevant expertise welcome
• The Node-RED MCU Plug-in by @ralphwetzel is live. It has some great new features include:
  • Support for Node-RED v3.1.0
  • Support for Moddable Four and other nRF52 powered devices

November Community Update

The monthly Moddable Community Call is now a monthly Moddable Community Update! We'll share more about this soon. Sign up to receive an email notification when new community updates are published.

Release Details

• Modules
  • Servo driver fix for ESP-IDF v5. Contributed by @meganetaaan.
  • ESP32 audio out no longer uses deprecated is2_write_expand, configuring the IDF driver to do the expansion instead. Reported by @meganetaaan. #1227
  • Improve PSRAM support ESP32 family devices with sdkconfig updates to consistently set CONFIG_SPIRAM_USE_MALLOC
  • ILI9341 (MIPI) display drivers
    • command() API supports all byte buffers now, not just ArrayBuffer
    • Experimental ESP32 ILI9341 parallel display driver updated to work with ESP-IDF v5.
  • SSD1306 driver builds in all cases again (change to destructor failed in some cases). Reported by @stc1988 and @PLCMercenary. #1239
  • ECMA-419
    • Restore serial driver bypass on ESP32. Reported by @meganetaaan. #1226
    • Moddable Four host provider instance now includes PulseCount, SPI, and LIS3DH sensor driver.
  • Raspberry Pi Pico
    • Neopixel driver uses ws2812.pio from Pico SDK for easier maintenance
    • Raspberry Pi Pico build now uses PICO_SDK_DIR instead of PICO_SDK_PATH. Contributed by @stc1988.
  • Outline rendering fix for ESP32-S3. Cannot use program memory (IRAM) for rendering buffer (works on ESP32). Reported by @meganetaaan who also helped isolate the problem. #1239
• XS JavaScript engine
  • Reduce memory use by arrow functions that do not use this. This optimizes a common pattern of JavaScript developers: use of arrow functions when the this binding is not needed.
  • Array destructuring now correctly caches the iterator's next. Reported by @gibson042 #1223
  • Regular Expression maximum qualifier was not always applied correctly. Reported by @Jinyn01. #1238
  • RegExp.prototype.source now only escapes \ if necessary, consistent with web engines. Issue found when testing fix for #1238.
  • Fix bug in linker when building mods that caused symbols to be omitted. Many thanks to @stc1988 for reporting this obscure bug. #1232
  • Debugging support no longer triggers a spurious breakpoint when inspecting a property implemented by a getter.
  • Fixes for issues identified by fuzz testing with Fuzzilli and oss-fuzz. Thank you to @Agoric for their ongoing assistance with this work.
    • Fix use of uninitialized variable in rarely used path in module loader
    • String.prototype.replace and String.prototype.replaceAll changed to eliminate uninitialized variable warning from UBSan (the uninitialized value was never used)
    • dtoa (widely used library to convert floating point numbers to strings) updated to eliminate use of an uninitialized variable. There is no evidence this bug ever caused a conformance issue or created a vulnerability in XS. Many thanks to David M. Gay for the patch.
    • In certain memory configurations, passing a search string to String.prototype.replace or String.prototype.replaceAll that was longer than the string to be searched read from unintended memory which could crash if that memory was unmapped.
• TypeScript
  • Fixes to wifi and pins/digital type declarations
• Examples
  • New EventEmitter example for use with mcpack
  • xsuse example measures memory use of arrow functions in more detail to verify the XS arrow function optimization
• Documentation
  • ESP32 documentation now lists all supported members of the ESP32 family
  • Fix link to BLE Remotes blog post in BLE HID peripheral example. Contributed by @stc1988.
  • Mods documentation describes the current archive format used for mods, as well as a basic introduction to the Atom/Box file structure archives use.
  • Linux portion of Getting Started document updated based on developer feedback
• Tools
  • mcrun (build tool for mods)
    • Suppress output of default check module when pixel format is set to x (unknown -- typically used for projects without a display)
    • Suppress output of empty config module when no configuration properties are defined for the mod
    • For nRF52, adds support for serial connected devices
    • For ESP32, now discovers serial ports consistently with mcconfig
  • XS Profiler now supports profiling mods. This required assigning profile IDs to functions in mods during of remapping process.
  • mcconfig reports an error if it detects it is building a mod, and recommends use of mcrun instead. Inspired by report from @kallistisoft.
  • xs linker (xsl) now preloads modules prefixed with lockdown/ last when preloading. This allows modules to perform operations to prepare the environment immediately before lockdown, after all ordinary preloaded modules have run.
  • xs test tool (xst) makes lockdown() and harden() available when running test262 harness to support more Hardened JavaScript tests

Contact Us

If you have questions or suggestions about anything here, please reach out:

• Start a new Discussion on our GitHub repository
• Drop by our Gitter to chat
• Contact us on Twitter at @moddabletech

Moddable SDK 4.2.1

This is an interim release of the Moddable SDK to support specific projects.

We will publish a release at the start of November on our usual monthly schedule.

Release notes will be provided at that time.

Moddable SDK 4.2

This release contains improvements to the Moddable SDK made between September 9, 2023 and October 2, 2023.

Moddable SDK 4.2 is a substantial update. Highlights of this release include:

• ESP-IDF v5 is here! After a major effort with great community support, we've merged ESP-IDF v5 support to the main branch. (more)
  • Developers working with ESP32 will need to update their ESP-IDF (update instruction links below).
• xsbug, our JavaScript debugger, has received a major update to speed your development. (more)
  • New breakpoints - conditional, counter, trace, and function name - give you more control.
  • A new interactive console lets you evaluate expressions, set values, and call functions -- making it much faster to gain insights into running code without having to change the source code, rebuild, and re-deploy.
• mcpack, our new embedded packager based to make embedded JavaScript development more accessible to developers working on the web platform. (more)
  • Uses package.json to drive build, allowing easy use of npm and other JavaScript ecosystem tools
  • Analyzes project code to automatically generate a Moddable manifest.json optimized for the project
  • Experimental! Please share your experiences to help evolve mcpack

News

• Save the date! 🎉Ecma TC53 is holding a workshop to discuss proposals and consider options for Embedded JavaScript standardization including new APIs, interoperability, packaging, and Hardened JavaScript. 🎉
  • 📆December 6
  • 📍Apple Park
  • 🧑🏽‍💻Everyone with relevant expertise welcome
• GitHub Copilot – Members of the community have shared their experiences and opinions about using Github Copilot for embedded JavaScript. Check out the discussion to see how it might help your development.

October Community Update

The monthly Moddable Community Call is now a monthly Moddable Community Update! We'll share more about this soon. Sign up to receive an email notification when new community updates are published.

Release Details

• Devices
  • ESP32
    • ESP-IDF v5 support is here!
      • You must upgrade your ESP-IDF, as builds with ESP-IDF v4 stop with an error message.
      • Update instructions are available for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
      • The Moddable SDK currently targets ESP-IDF v5.1.1 for all ESP32 family microcontrollers
      • There are no changes to the JavaScript APIs on ESP32, so no script changes should be required(!!).
      • This release supports the following models in the ESP32 family: ESP32, ESP32-S2, ESP32-S3, ESP32-C3, ESP32-C6, and ESP32-H2.
      • The Moddable SDK has been updated to use the latest APIs in ESP-IDF v5 (deprecated APIs are nearly all removed)
      • Improvements in the RMT APIs allow the Neopixels module to support multiple strands (on separate GPIO pins)
    • New device breadboard build platform targets with displays (mostly ILI9341 and one GC9A01). Great for breadboard prototyping.
      • esp32/qtpyc3_ili9341
      • esp32/qtpyc2_ili9341
      • esp32/qtpys3_ili9341
      • esp32/xiao_esp32c3_ili9341
      • esp32/xiao_esp32s3_ili9341
      • esp32/esp32h2_ili9341
      • esp32/esp32c6_gc9a01
  • nRF52
    • $(UF2_VOLUME_NAME) now handled correctly on on Windows (reported by @NextWorldLab) #1207
    • Include pwm in Windows build
    • Improved build messages when building for targets that aren't Moddable Four
    • Build improvements to support nRF52 builds of Node-RED MCU using the MCU plug-in (contributed by @NextWorldLab)
  • Raspberry Pi Pico
    • New device breadboard build platform targets. Great for prototyping.
      • pico/ili9341_i2s (includes speaker output)
      • pico/qtpy_ili9341
  • ESP8266
    • modGPIO.h needs to be included when build ECMA-419 IO. (reported by @dtex) #1212
• Tools
  • xsbug has received a major update
    • Enhancements to breakpoints for faster debugging
      • Conditional breakpoints - break only when a JavaScript expression evaluates to rue (e.g this.dx > 3)
      • Counter breakpoints - break after a counter reaches a specified threshold (e.g. on the 10th time, every 60th time, the first 3 times)
      • Function name breakpoints - break on all calls to a specified function name across all source files (e.g. onReadable)
      • Trace breakpoints - instead of breaking, these trace the evaluation of a specified JavaScript expression to the debug console (e.g. `x = ${x}`)
      • Breakpoints may now be disabled
    • Interactive debug console (REPL)
      • Expressions can be evaluated in-scope when stopped in the debugger
      • View properties
      • Set values
      • Call functions
    • See the xsbug documentation for more information
  • mcpack is our new embedded packaging tool for embedded devices. It makes standard, modern embedded JavaScript development more accessible to JavaScript developers working with npm and Node.js.
    • mcpack is a front-end to existing Moddable build tools like mcconfig and mcrun
    • mcpack starts from package.json and analyzes your project's dependencies to automatically generate a Moddable SDK manifest.json
    • mcpack detects the use of Moddable SDK built-in modules and automatically adds them to the generated manifest.
    • mcpack detects the use of well-known globals -- setTimeout, fetch, URL, Worker, etc -- and automatically includes the necessary modules in the generated manifest and initializes the global variables.
    • mcpack detects the use of top-level await (TLA) and automatically generates the needed manifest settings to enable TLA
    • mcpack introduces the "moddable:" namespace for built-in modules. The prefix is optional, so built-in modules may be accessed as "timer" or "moddable:timer".
    • mcpack uses the runtime key "moddable" (registered with WinterCG) to allow package.json to include runs that apply only to Moddable SDK builds.
    • mcpack allows Moddable SDK manifest fragments to be embedded in package.json or to be referenced externally, allowing full access to all capabilities of manifest.json.
    • There is a suite of example projects available that demonstrate how to use mcpack. Check out the readme to learn how to get started with mcpack.
    • mcpack is experimental. We expect it to evolve based on community feedback. Please give it a try!
    • mcpack is not yet fully documented. If you have questions or suggestions, please ask them in our Discussions forum on GitHub.
  • New flags to control debugger launch behavior with mcconfig and mcrun. -d for default debugger (launch xsbug), -dn to not launch debugger, -dl to launch xsbug-log, and -dx to launch xsbug. -l is still supported for xsbug-log, but will eventually be removed. New flags are available on macOS and Linux; Windows is coming soon.
  • mcrun improvements to help installing to ESP32 USB-native devices
  • Simulator (mcsim)
    • Would sometimes launch the project twice, confusing debuggers. Fixed to only launch target project once.
    • Release build fix (breakOnStartFlag only available in debug builds)
  • Rename DISPLAY and ROTATION build variables to COMMODETTOBITMAPFORMAT and POCOROTATION to eliminate conflicts on some Linux distributions
  • nRF52 builds can debug over serial too (in addition to existing USB support)
  • ESP32 installation improvements to add prompts for button presses when necessary (devices without auto-programming capability)
  • Raspberry Pi Pico
    • xsbug-log now supported for Raspberry Pi Pico Linux builds
    • mcconfig now able to build PIO source files included in a manifest. This simplifies integration of PIO support and minimizes binary size. (inspired by @linfan in discussion #1220)
      • Build neopixel and i2s_audio pio modules only if included in project
      • pio and supporting source files compiled directly from external directories (i.e. pico-extras)
• Modules
  • Manifests
    • To more thoroughly support automatic manifest includes by mcpack, many existing module manifests were updated and a number of new module manifests were added. The goal is to ensure that every module can be built by simply including its manifest (rather than directly including the modules in a project manifest). This is now true, with just a few exceptions.
      • In making the changes several errors were corrected, resulting in smaller binaries in some cases.
      • While the changes were made with care, it is possible that some uses were overlooked. If you run into problems building existing projects, please report an issue.
    • BLE client and server manifests now have error case for unsupported platforms to generate earlier failure with clearer message
  • ECMA-419
    • HTTP client
      • Don't require input HTTP headers to be normalized to lowercase (reported by @tve) #1218
      • Handle HTTP 204 and 205 (no content) responses (reported by @tve) #1219
    • Digital bank
      • Fix deadlock in close() uncovered by ESP-IDF v5
  • Poco refactored for better compatibility. The commodetto/PocoCore module is now the foundation and the commodetto/Poco module contains the drawing primitives. This revises a change in Moddable SDK 4.0 made to reduce...

Moddable SDK 4.1

Moddable SDK 4.1

This release contains improvements to the Moddable SDK made between August 9, 2023 and September 9, 2023.

Highlights of this release include:

• PSRAM and larger flash support on more ESP32-S3 boards
• Web Worker memory configuration now matches manifest's creation for consistency - simpler and more powerful
• XS 14.2 improves debugging of async/await code, adds async support for Explicit Resource Management, and prepares for new debugging capabilities

News

• Moddable Four brings modern Embedded JavaScript to a coin-cell powered development board. If you missed the launch, catch up with our August Community Call. Hear about Moddable Four in-depth, with a focus on energy management to get the longest possible battery life for your project.
• ESP-IDF v5 support is preparing to land. In the next week or two, we'll merge our idf-v5 branch to main, so everyone will be using the latest from Espressif (v5.1.1). We've collaborated with the community to ensure this is a seamless upgrade. Help us out by giving the branch a try before the merge, to ensure is working for you.
• Node-RED MCU Edition now supports secure HTTP and MQTT connections (https:// and mqtts://), including client certificates, thanks to work on the ECMA-419 TLS socket over the last couple months.

September Community Update

The monthly Moddable Community Call is now a monthly Moddable Community Update! We'll share more about this soon. Sign up to receive an email notification when new community updates are published.

Release Details

• Devices
  • ESP32
    • Enable PSRAM and use all flash
      • Adafruit QT Py ESP32-S3
      • Adafruit ESP32-S3 TFT Feather
      • Lilygo T-QT ESP32-S3
      • Lilygo T-Display-S3
      • M5Atom S3
      • M5 Stack Core S3
      • XIAO ESP32-S3
    • USB CDC support for Adafruit QT Py ESP32-S3 - smaller code size and cleaner integration
    • Windows builds can now deploy and debug ESP32 projects over USB. Reported by @NextWorldLab. #1181
    • Generate build error on use of obsolete MODDEF_XS_RESTARTON ESP32 feature
  • nRF52
    • xsbug debugging over serial (alternative to USB). See documentation for details.
    • Flashing firmware over serial using DFU. See documentation for details.
  • ESP8266
    • I²C build fix to resolve file name confusion (two source files with the same name). Reported by @dtex.
• XS 14.2
  • Stepping of await and async functions in the debugger improved
  • Explicit Resource Management
    • Asynchronous support (stage 3 proposal) is now implemented
    • Fixes to synchronous Explicit Resource Management based on new test262 tests
  • Key garbage collection now only performed on forced garbage collection (via API) and when the key table is full. This is done to reduce the overhead of garbage collection of keys. (Note: this feature is disabled by default on embedded targets)
  • New xsImport() and xsImportNow() APIs to better support synchronous and asynchronous module loading from native code. Resolves issue with top-level await in embedded builds using the "strip" feature to minimize the code size of XS.
  • Updates to integer math static methods to match latest proposal, including addition of Math.irandom() and removal of Math.idivmod().
  • String.prototype.normalize fix for type confusion bug triggered by read-only strings (XS_STRING_X_KIND). Issue found by Fuzzilli fuzz testing (thank you @Agoric).
  • Enhancements to XS's debugging protocol to support planned debugging enhancements (stay tuned)
• Modules
  • Web Workers now use manifest creation object to configure worker's virtual machine memory. Supports all configuration options and is consistent. Motivated by discussion with @linfan68 in #1195
    • The previous Worker configuration object is still supported but deprecated. If you use it, you'll see a runtime warning. Please update your code.
  • ECMA-419
    • MQTT client keep alive based on last write (previously last read). Reported by @tve and @mshioji
    • TLS
      • Fix race condition in TLS socket that caused multiple readable callbacks to be queued
      • Now supports configuring the server-name indication with serverName field of constructor's options object. Motivated by Node-RED MCU Edition request from @mshioji.
    • BM8563 Real-Time Clock driver. Contributed by @stc1988. Used in M5Stack Core S3 port.
  • Headers class moved to data/headers to be more generally available (previously in fetch module)
  • New readString() method on Flash object to read UTF-8 strings from flash directly into JavaScript string
• Tools
  • xsbug
    • Promises Settled instrumentation added to xsbug to show total number of Promise resolve and reject handlers invoked per second. Useful to get a sense of how busy system is handling promises.
    • "Break on start" in xsbug works again in the simulator (was broken for projects without "setup/" modules)
• Examples
  • ECMA-419
    • https client example now traces errors to the console in case of request failure
    • The ECMA-419 manifest_io.json no longer includes manifest_base.json. This required updates to the manifests of many ECMA-419 examples which depended on manifest_base.json being included. Thank you to @stc1988 for identifying several of these. #1201
  • Resource example updated with comments to explain expected behavior
  • cryptoblockciphers example updated to reflect changes to buffer use in lower level APIs
  • ePaper mini travel-time example (ESP8266) updated to download JSON of directions to flash to reduce RAM use. Motivated by report from @sebastien-burel #1206
  • ePaper travel-time and mini travel-time apps now URI encode their arguments to eliminate errors from Google Maps service #1206
• Documentation
  • nRF52 documentation fixes and clarifications. Reported by @NextWorldLab. #1199
  • Correct spelling errors across all documentation

Contact Us

If you have questions or suggestions about anything here, please reach out:

• Start a new Discussion on our GitHub repository
• Drop by our Gitter to chat
• Contact us on Twitter at @moddabletech