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Changelog

September 2026

This release covers development from June through August 2026. The IDE gained a new Karel the Robot language, a lab mode, an interactive shell, and an edit history facility. The layout and command handling were rebuilt, and both the Python and C runtimes were updated.

Karel the Robot

  • New Karel plugin implementing the original syntax from Pattis (1981), including a parser, editor syntax mode, and renderer.
  • Worlds are defined in separate files and selected with a WORLD directive in the Karel file. The directive updates the world live while editing, and world names autocomplete. Various line endings are accepted in world files.
  • Execution is traced: the running line is highlighted at the slower speeds, and the animation and tracing speeds were tuned.
  • The grid layout follows the original book more closely, with a revised sprite and CSS fixes.
  • Syntax checking is stricter and marks errors in the editor. Grammar fixes include rejecting a semicolon after define.
  • KAREL-CHEATSHEET.md documents the language; test-cheatsheet.mjs runs every snippet in it through the parser as a test.

Lab mode

  • New lab mode (lab.html), based on CS50 Labs, with a rendered README pane alongside the editor and terminal. Labs are configured in YAML; README content is rendered from Markdown and sanitized.

Shell

  • New opt-in shell plugin running on top of the terminal. It provides builtins (ls, cat, head, echo, pwd, cd, mkdir, touch) operating on the virtual file system, pipes between builtins, and output redirection.
  • The shell keeps its own working directory, separate from the editor and file tree, and launches programs through the app, yielding terminal input while a program runs.
  • make hello compiles hello.c into hello, and ./hello alice bob runs it with command-line arguments. Both take relative and absolute paths; a bare hello is not a path, as in a real shell. make does not read a makefile: it compiles with the same clang flags the Run button uses.
  • An interpreter now has to match the file it is given. python3 hello.c used to compile and run a C program; it is now an error. Interpreter names are registered per language rather than hardcoded in the shell, so a plugin language can name its own.
  • Terminal internals moved into their own module as part of this work.

Edit history

  • New edit history plugin, reachable from the File menu, which records checkpoints of code files and lets students browse them. Consecutive edits at one place are accumulated into a single checkpoint; copy/paste, undo/redo and external edits are recorded separately. Reverting creates a new marked checkpoint.

Rover assistant

  • New optional assistant overlay (Rover, via clippyjs), toggled from View ▸ Show Rover. Its visibility and dragged position are persisted. Other code can drive it through Terra.assistant to play animations, speak, or ask a question. The sprite is served as a static file.

Layout and interface

  • Upgraded to GoldenLayout 2.
  • Rebuilt layout management: panes can be arranged horizontally, vertically, or as tabs and stacks, and layout switching is now surgical rather than a full rebuild. Orientation is preserved when resetting the layout.
  • New output tab stack for the terminal, and a new canvas tab type (used by Karel). The output tab follows the active editor. The canvas cannot be closed.
  • Revised IDE aesthetics: new tab visuals, a reworked toolbar, new folder icons in the file tree without the caret, and a terminal title.
  • Dark mode was fixed across the IDE, including icons, and the CSS was simplified.
  • Added a focus toggle between code and terminal, simplified keyboard shortcuts, improved font handling, and a separate font size for demo mode. Existing shortcuts are now shown in the menus, which were also renumbered and given action markers.
  • Fixes for closing files across multiple stacks, opening a file from an Untitled tab, flicker when splitting output tabs, dragging and closing panes, and Karel editor focus after a run.

Running code

  • Run buttons are enabled at app load and stay usable while Python is booting.
  • Pyodide is reloaded after each run so state is reset, with a loading label shown for the first worker as well.
  • Fixed pytest and other output not being flushed after a run, and the prompt is cleared before running.
  • The run flow between app and worker was simplified, and the "runButton" concept was renamed to snippet.

Python runtime

  • Upgraded Pyodide, and added an update script driven by packages.txt, which resolves dependencies and downloads wheels so the IDE runs fully offline. Bundled packages: numpy, pandas, matplotlib, pytest, mypy, pycodestyle and checkpy.
  • Python error formatting no longer depends on the Python version.
  • Python setup documentation moved to doc/PYTHON.md.

C runtime

  • Files are now lazy-loaded from the C runtime instead of being copied up front.
  • WASM runtime errors were replaced with clearer, clang-like messages (@Jelleas).

Files and file tree

  • Improved context menus in the file tree; the file tree controller was split into smaller parts.
  • File and folder creation is deferred until a name is given, so it can be cancelled.
  • vfs.update creates a file if it does not exist yet, additional paths can be hidden from VFS listings, default.profraw is ignored, and missing file timestamps no longer cause errors.
  • Change events fire both before and after editor content is reloaded.

Exam mode

  • Images produced during a run (for example graphs) are now shown in exam mode.
  • Exam configuration moved to a separate module, with a cleaner exam flow, clearer boot messaging and a tidier path for hiding the submit button.

Internals

  • Commands are owned by the app and surfaced by the view controller, through a separate command registry and user command module, replacing scattered menu/toolbar/keyboard handling.
  • The app was split into a base class plus mode-specific apps, with concern modules for file system implementations, and layout/UI code moved out of the exam and IDE apps into dedicated layout classes.
  • The language worker client was separated from the app, and a language worker can now be plugged in (used by Karel).
  • The Rover and run-as plugins no longer use jQuery; the modal was generalized onto the dialog element.
  • Files were reorganized into apps/, ui/, commands/, fs/ and lib/, and a jsconfig.json was added.
  • Added webrick instructions for the dev server.