code.delx.au - gnu-emacs/blob - etc/NEWS

   1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
   2
   3 Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
   5
   6 Please send Emacs bug reports to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org.
   7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
   8
   9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 23.
  10
  11 See files NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18, and NEWS.1-17
  12 for changes in older Emacs versions.
  13
  14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
  15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
  16
  17 Temporary note:
  18  +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
  19  --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
  20 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
  21 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
  22
  23 \f
  24 * About external Lisp packages
  25
  26 \f
  27 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.1
  28
  29 ** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+, rather than Lucid.
  30
  31 ** configure now checks for libgif before libungif when searching for
  32 a GIF library.
  33
  34 \f
  35 * Changes in Emacs 23.1
  36
  37 ** If you set find-file-confirm-nonexistent-file to t, then C-x C-f
  38 requires confirmation before opening a non-existent file.
  39
  40 ** If the gpm mouse server is running and t-mouse-mode enabled, Emacs uses a
  41 Unix socket in a GNU/Linux console to talk to server, rather than faking events
  42 using the client program mev.  This C level approach provides mouse
  43 highlighting, and help echoing in the minibuffer.
  44
  45 ** The new variable next-error-recenter specifies how next-error should
  46 recenter the visited source file.  Its value can be a number (for example,
  47 0 for top line, -1 for bottom line), or nil for no recentering.
  48
  49 ** The mode-line display a `@' if the default-directory for the current buffer
  50 is on a remote machine, or a hyphen otherwise.
  51 ** The new command balance-window-area balances windows both vertically
  52 and horizontally.
  53
  54 ** The new command close-display-connection can be used to close a connection
  55 to a remote display, e.g. because the display is about to become unreachable.
  56 \f
  57 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.1
  58
  59 ** New user option `initial-buffer-choice' specifies what to display
  60 after starting Emacs: startup screen, *scratch* buffer, visiting a
  61 file or directory.
  62
  63 \f
  64 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
  65
  66 \f
  67 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
  68
  69 ** New command kill-matching-buffers kills buffers whose name matches a regexp.
  70
  71 ** Minibuffer changes:
  72
  73 *** isearch started in the minibuffer searches in the minibuffer history.
  74 Reverse isearch commands (C-r, C-M-r) search in previous minibuffer
  75 history elements, and forward isearch commands (C-s, C-M-s) search in
  76 next history elements.  When the reverse search reaches the first history
  77 element, it wraps to the last history element, and the forward search
  78 wraps to the first history element.  When the search is terminated, the
  79 history element containing the search string becomes the current.
  80
  81 \f
  82 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
  83
  84 ** minibuffer-indicate-depth-mode shows the minibuffer depth in the prompt.
  85
  86 \f
  87 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
  88
  89 ** compilation-auto-jump-to-first-error tells `compile' to jump to
  90 the first error encountered during compilations.
  91
  92 ** In the `copyright' package, you can specify your copyright holders's names.
  93 Only copyright lines with holders matching copyright-names-regexp will be
  94 considered for update.
  95
  96 ** VC
  97 *** Clicking on the VC mode-line entry now pops the VC menu.
  98
  99 *** The VC mode-line entry now has a tooltip.
 100
 101 *** VC backends can provide extra menu entries to be added to the "Version Control" menu.
 102 This can be used to add menu entries for backend specific functions.
 103
 104 ** sgml-electric-tag-pair-mode lets you simultaneously edit matched tag pairs.
 105
 106 ** BibTeX mode:
 107
 108 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' options `whitespace', `braces', and
 109 `string', disabled by default.
 110
 111 *** New variable `bibtex-cite-matcher-alist' contains rules to
 112 identify cited keys in BibTeX entries, used by `bibtex-find-crossref.
 113
 114 *** Command `bibtex-url' now allows multiple URLs per entry.
 115
 116 +++
 117 ** Tramp
 118
 119 *** New connection methods.
 120 The new methods "plinkx", "plink2", "psftp", "sftp" and "fish" have
 121 been introduced.  There are also new so-called gateway methods
 122 "tunnel" and "socks".
 123
 124 *** Multihop syntax has been removed.
 125 The pseudo-method "multi" has been removed.  Instead of, multi hops
 126 can be specified by the new variable `tramp-default-proxies-alist'.
 127
 128 *** More default settings.
 129 Default values can be set via the variables `tramp-default-user',
 130 `tramp-default-user-alist' and `tramp-default-host'.
 131
 132 *** Connection information is cached.
 133 In order to reduce connection setup, information about used
 134 connections are kept persistent in a file.  The name of this file is
 135 defined in the variable `tramp-persistency-file-name'.
 136
 137 *** Control of remote processes.
 138 Running processes on a remote host can be controlled by settings in
 139 `tramp-remote-path' and `tramp-remote-process-environment'.
 140
 141 *** Success of remote copy is checked.
 142 When the variable `file-precious-flag' is set, the success of a remote
 143 file copy is checked via the file's checksum.
 144
 145 ** Miscellaneous programming mode changes
 146
 147 *** The variable `fortran-line-length' can change the fixed-form line-length.
 148
 149 ** Miscellaneous
 150
 151 *** comint-mode uses `start-file-process' now (see Lisp Changes).
 152 If `default-directory' is a remote file name, subprocesses are started
 153 on the corresponding remote system.
 154
 155 *** C-x C-q in dired-mode now runs the command wdired-change-to-wdired-mode,
 156 and C-x C-q in wdired-mode exits it with asking a question about
 157 saving changes.
 158
 159 \f
 160 * Changes in Emacs 23.1 on non-free operating systems
 161
 162 ---
 163 ** IPv6 is supported on MS-Windows.
 164 Emacs now supports IPv6 on Windows XP and later, and earlier versions
 165 of Windows with third party IPv6 stacks installed. Previously IPv6 was
 166 supported on other platforms, but not on Windows due to using the winsock
 167 1.1 header file, even though Emacs was linking to the winsock 2 library.
 168
 169 \f
 170 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
 171
 172 +++
 173 ** The function `dired-call-process' has been removed.
 174
 175 \f
 176 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
 177
 178 ** Non-breaking space now acts as whitespace.
 179
 180 +++
 181 ** In `condition-case', a handler can specify "let the debugger run first".
 182
 183 You do this by writing `debug' in the list of conditions to be handled,
 184 like this:
 185
 186     (condition-case nil
 187         (foo bar)
 188       ((debug error) nil))
 189
 190 ** The `require-match' argument to `completing-read' accepts a new value
 191 `confirm-only'.
 192
 193 +++
 194 ** The regexp form \(?<num>:<regexp>\) specifies the group number explicitly.
 195
 196 +++
 197 ** New variable `user-emacs-directory'.
 198 Use this instead of "~/.emacs.d".
 199
 200 +++
 201 ** The new function `start-file-process is similar to `start-process',
 202 but obeys file handlers.  The file handler is chosen based on
 203 `default-directory'.  The functions `start-file-process-shell-command'
 204 and `process-file-shell-command' are also new; they call internally
 205 `start-file-process and `process-file', respectively.
 206
 207 +++
 208 ** `file-remote-p' has new optional parameters IDENTIFICATION and CONNECTED.
 209 IDENTIFICATION specifies which part of the remote identifier has to be
 210 returned.  With CONNECTED passed non-nil, it is checked whether a
 211 remote connection has been established already.
 212
 213 ** The two new functions `looking-at-p' and `string-match-p' can do
 214 the same matching as `looking-at' and `string-match' without changing
 215 the match data.
 216
 217 ** The interactive-form of a function can be added post-facto via the
 218 `interactive-form' symbol property.  Mostly useful to add complex interactive
 219 forms to subroutines.
 220 \f
 221 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 23.1
 222
 223 \f
 224 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 225 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
 226
 227 GNU Emacs is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 228 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 229 the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
 230 any later version.
 231
 232 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 233 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 234 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 235 GNU General Public License for more details.
 236
 237 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 238 along with GNU Emacs; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
 239 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor,
 240 Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
 241
 242 \f
 243 Local variables:
 244 mode: outline
 245 paragraph-separate: "[  \f]*$"
 246 end:
 247
 248 arch-tag: e759449d-88b3-4de4-9900-3a6c3dfa23e2