-----Original Message-----
From: nvda-addons@nvda-addons.groups.io <nvda-addons@nvda-addons.groups.io> On Behalf Of Noelia Ruiz
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2021 11:33 AM
To: nvda-addons@nvda-addons.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda-addons] NVDA Add-ons Community Directive: do NOT override system environment variables by assigning new strings

Hi, would you write it in the current guidelines or other relevant document to remember it? If a checklist for add-on reviews is published when the store is ready, we may propose this directive to remember it, like consulting commands of NVDA and add-ons supported by community, or even a test could be writen in GitHub Actions searching offending lines, though manual review would be necessary.

2021-01-21 20:20 GMT+01:00, Joseph Lee <joseph.lee22590@gmail.com>:

Hi,

A better community directive title should be:

Directive: do not override system environment variables without
preserving old values

A really elegant alternative is not using system path environment
variable
-
manually locate the path to the executable you want.

Cheers,

Joseph



From: nvda-addons@nvda-addons.groups.io
<nvda-addons@nvda-addons.groups.io>
On Behalf Of Joseph Lee via groups.io
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2021 11:15 AM
To: nvda-addons@nvda-addons.groups.io
Subject: [nvda-addons] NVDA Add-ons Community Directive: do NOT
override system environment variables by assigning new strings



Hi all,

The following NVDA Add-ons community directive applies to ALL add-ons
going forward and will be applied when reviewing add-ons:

You can query system environment variables by doing:

import os

os.environ[variableString]



A crucial environment variable is system path (os.environ["path"]).
This variable is used by operating systems (in this case, Windows) to
search listed directories for executables. The variable is not really
a string - it is a list of strings separated by a semicolon.

If an add-on wants to add new paths to environment variables:

# Don't do this:

os.environ["path"] = newStr



# Alternative 1:

Os.environ["path"] += ";" + pathStr



# Alternative 2:

environPath = os.environ["path"].split(";")

environPath.append(newPath)

os.environ["path"] = ";".join(environPath)



# Improved alternative 2:

newPath = somePath

environPath = os.environ["path"].split(";")

if newPath not in environPath:

environPath.append(newPath)

os.environ["path"] = ";".join(environPath)



Any add-on that overrides environment variables without preserving old
values will break add-ons that opens executables for their features.



Community directive: going forward, if an add-on is found to have
modified system environment variables without preserving existing
values will be flagged and authors will be asked to release a fix as
soon as possible. Or, for that matter, do NOT ever (EVER) modify
environment variables just for convenience (especially system path
variable, as it will break NVDA, add-ons, and quite possibly Windows).
This directive takes effect immediately.



The above directive applies to all add-ons, including those outside
community add-ons website.



Affected add-ons:

* Acapela TTS 1.6.5 (based on investigations by an add-on author).
* Others that directly edit environment path variable without
preserving existing values.



Next steps:

1. Existing add-ons on community add-ons website should be examined by
authors to see if the above community directive should be applied.
2. New add-ons or add-ons currently under review (including ones with
pending review requests) will be subject to the directive before
review (including pending review) begins.
3. Developers of add-ons hosted outside community add-ons website will
be asked to modify their add-ons if the above community directive
should be applied to their add-ons.
4. The NVDA Add-ons community urges developers of Acapela TTS add-on to
release a fix as soon as possible.



Cheers,

Joseph