2023.3 Add-on API changes

[NVDA Add-on API Announcements]

Reminder, this mailing list is read only, please provide feedback by replying directly to emails, or via GitHub.
This list is intended to notify of changes to the add-on API, for confirmation of the latest state for breakages or deprecations, please refer to the 'changes file' for the NVDA release you are interested in.

Add-on API changes have been merged, planned for inclusion in the 2023.3 release:
"Update braille independently on caret #15163"

Deprecations:
- braille.BrailleHandler.handlePendingCaretUpdate is now deprecated with no public replacement. It will be removed in 2024.1

If API breaks or planned future breaks (deprecations) will cause difficulties for the ongoing development of an add-on you maintain, please let NVDA developers know by replying directly to emails, or via GitHub.

[NVDA Add-on API Announcements]

Add-on API changes have been merged, planned for inclusion in the 2023.3 release:

"Text alignment reporting and enhancements for MS Excel cells and MS Word text (#15205)"

If API breaks or planned future breaks (deprecations) will cause difficulties for the ongoing development of an add-on you maintain, please let NVDA developers know by replying directly to emails, or via GitHub.

Deprecations:

Importing the constants xlCenter, xlJustify, xlLeft, xlRight, xlDistributed, xlBottom, xlTop from NVDAObjects.window.excel is deprecated.
Use XlHAlign or XlVAlign enumerations instead.

The mapping NVDAObjects.window.excel.alignmentLabels is deprecated.
Use the displayString methods of XlHAlign or XlVAlign enumerations instead. 

[NVDA Add-on API Announcements]

Add-on API changes have been merged, planned for inclusion in the 2023.3 release:

"Allow excluding display drivers from automatic detection #15200"

If API breaks or planned future breaks (deprecations) will cause difficulties for the ongoing development of an add-on you maintain, please let NVDA developers know by replying directly to emails, or via GitHub.

Deprecations:

• bdDetect.addUsbDevices and bdDetect.addBluetoothDevices have been deprecated. Braille display drivers should implement the registerAutomaticDetection classmethod instead. That method receives a DriverRegistrar object on which the addUsbDevices and addBluetoothDevices methods can be used.
• The default implementation of the check method on brailleDisplayDriver uses bdDetect.driverHasPossibleDevices for devices that are marked as thread safe. Starting from NVDA 2024.1, in order for the base method to use bdDetect.driverHasPossibleDevices, the supportsAutomaticDetection attribute must be set to True as well.

[NVDA Add-on API Announcements]

2023.3rc1 has been released.
The API for 2023.3 is now considered stable.

[NVDA Add-on API Announcements]

2023.3 has been released.