Highlights of what’s new in 0.6.20

The 0.6.20 release has both user-facing and internal enhancements, including fixes and updates to Motoko, the Motoko base library, and Candid.

New features and capabilities

The most significant new features and capabilities include updates in the following functional areas:

DFX

  • A new notification message that the DFINITY Canister SDK sends anonymous usage data to DFINITY Stiftung by default has been added to dfx commands. The notification message is only displayed once, the first time you run any dfx subcommand. For example, the first time you run dfx new to create a new project, the notification is displayed before any other project creation messages.

    The purpose of this notification is to inform you that dfx is configured to collect anonymous information about dfx command activity and errors. Collecting anonymous data is enabled by default in an effort to improve the developer experience based on usage patterns and behavior.

    If you want to prevent the collection of data about dfx usage, you can explicitly opt-out by setting the following environment variable:

    DFX_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1

    To find out more about the data collected and what your consent means, see the DFINITY Canister SDK Terms and Conditions.

  • The dfx commands that support the --network option have been updated to support URLs when specifying the network value.

    Previously, the --network option required you to specify a network name that matched a network aliases configured in the project’s dfx.json file.

Candid

The Candid web interface has been updated to provide easier navigation and a better user experience. The updates to the Candid web interface include the following new features and improvements:

  • A new Console drawer provides quick access to method output and a list of all available methods as links for fast navigation.

  • Canister methods and their related form elements are more clearly separated and annotated.

  • Method output is selectable and easier to toggle between text, UI, and JSON formats.

  • The layout is now responsive to provide an optimized display when viewing service using mobile devices or other media.

Motoko

  • The Motoko base documentation examples are now executable in the browser.

  • The Motoko compiler supports specifying command-line arguments using --args <file> and --args0 <file>.

    The new options enable the compiler to read newline and NUL terminated arguments from a specified file name.

Issues fixed in this release

This section covers any reported issues that have been fixed in this release.

Known issues and limitations

This section covers any known issues or limitations that might affect how you work with the DFINITY Canister SDK in specific environments or scenarios.