1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 5 Jan 2000
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS.
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
11 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
12 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
14 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
15 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
18 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
19 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if they these are available.
21 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
23 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
24 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
25 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
26 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
28 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
29 a version-dependent component.
31 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
32 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
33 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
34 character is still bound as before.
36 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
39 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
40 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to executable-chmod.
42 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
43 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
44 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
45 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
46 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
47 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
48 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
50 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
51 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
52 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
53 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
54 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
55 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
56 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
57 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
58 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
60 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
61 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
63 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
64 point in a pop-up window.
66 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
67 displays all characters in that character set.
69 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
70 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
72 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
75 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
77 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
78 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
80 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
81 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
82 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
83 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
85 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
86 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
87 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
88 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
90 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
91 on the display using several methods
93 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
94 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
95 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
97 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
98 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
100 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
102 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
103 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
105 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
106 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
107 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
108 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
110 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
111 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
112 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
114 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
115 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
117 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
118 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
121 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
122 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
125 ** New X resources recognized
127 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
128 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
129 is useful for debugging X problems.
133 emacs.synchronous: true
135 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
136 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
137 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
138 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
139 visual class names are
148 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
149 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
152 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
153 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
154 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
159 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
161 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
162 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
163 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
164 resource values are `true' or `on'.
168 emacs.privateColormap: true
170 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
171 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
172 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
174 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
175 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
176 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
179 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
181 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
182 all frames except the selected one.
184 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
185 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
187 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
188 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X either in the echo
189 area or with tooltips.
191 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
192 read mail from the menu etc.
194 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
195 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
197 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
199 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
203 -------------------------
210 ** Changes in Outline mode.
212 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
213 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
214 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
216 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
217 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
219 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either M-x clone-buffer
220 or C-u m <entry> RET. M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and
221 several other special buffers.
223 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
224 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
227 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
228 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
230 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
231 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
232 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
234 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
235 is running in batch mode. For example,
237 (message "%s" (read t))
239 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
242 ** Faces and frame parameters.
244 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
245 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
246 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
247 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
248 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
249 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
250 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
252 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
253 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
254 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
255 `default' face and vice versa.
259 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
260 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
261 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
263 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
265 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
266 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
267 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
268 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
270 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
271 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
272 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
274 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
277 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
279 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
280 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
281 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
282 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
285 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
287 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
288 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
289 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
290 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
293 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
294 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
295 under Lisp changes, below.
297 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
299 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
300 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
303 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
304 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
305 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
306 customizing face `fringe'.
308 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
309 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
313 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
314 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
316 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
318 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
319 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
320 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
321 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
322 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
325 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
326 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
327 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
328 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
329 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
330 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
332 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
333 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
334 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
335 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
336 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
337 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
339 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
340 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
341 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
342 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
343 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
345 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
347 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
348 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
349 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
351 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
353 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
354 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
355 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
356 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
357 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
362 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
363 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
367 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
368 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
369 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
372 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
374 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
375 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
376 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
379 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
380 have to do anything to activate it.
382 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
384 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
385 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
386 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
387 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
389 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
391 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
393 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
395 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
398 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
401 ** Hscrolling in C code.
403 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
404 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
409 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
410 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
412 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
414 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
415 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
416 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
417 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
418 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
420 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
422 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
425 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
426 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
428 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
430 - Mouse-2 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
431 toggles the read-only status.
433 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
435 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
437 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
438 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
441 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
443 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
444 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
445 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
446 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
447 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
448 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
453 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
454 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
455 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
457 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
458 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
459 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
460 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
461 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
462 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
464 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
466 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
468 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
469 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
470 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
472 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
473 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
475 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
476 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
477 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
479 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
481 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
482 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
483 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
484 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
486 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
487 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
488 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
489 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
491 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
492 notably at the end of lines.
494 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
495 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
497 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
499 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
500 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
501 after each match to get the replacement text.
503 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
504 you edit the replacement string.
506 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', let's
507 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
508 lisp-complete-symbol.
510 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
512 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
513 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
514 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
515 window size by setting the following variable:
517 - User option: max-mini-window-height
519 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
520 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
521 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
525 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
527 ** Changes to hideshow.el
529 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
530 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
532 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
534 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
535 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
536 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
537 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
538 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
539 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
541 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
542 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
543 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
544 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
546 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
548 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
549 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
550 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
551 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
552 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
554 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
555 something like this in your .emacs.
557 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
559 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
561 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
563 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
564 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
565 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
567 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
568 buffer, fixing old-style date formats if necessary.
570 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
571 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
573 The search for a file's version number is performed based on regular
574 expressions from `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be
575 cutomized. Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of
578 ** Changes in Font Lock
580 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
581 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
584 ** Comint (subshell) changes
586 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
587 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
589 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
590 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
591 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
593 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
594 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
595 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
597 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and
598 scheme-interaction-mode now highlight user input, and support choosing
599 previous input with mouse-2. To control this feature, see the
600 user-option `comint-highlight-input'.
602 ** Changes to Rmail mode
604 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
605 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
606 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
607 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
608 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
611 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
612 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
613 regexp matching your mail addresses.
615 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
616 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
617 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
618 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
619 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
621 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
624 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
625 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
628 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
629 in which folder to put messages automatically.
631 ** Changes to TeX mode
633 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
636 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
638 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
639 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
640 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
641 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
642 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
643 can be edited from that buffer.
645 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
646 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
647 `A' to use all marked entries).
649 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
650 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
652 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
653 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
654 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
657 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
658 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
659 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
660 in column 1 are always made leaves.
662 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
663 has the following new features:
665 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
666 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
667 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
668 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
670 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
671 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
672 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
673 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
674 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
677 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
682 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
683 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
684 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
686 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
687 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
688 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
689 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
693 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
694 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
695 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
697 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
698 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
701 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
702 between custom options. Example:
704 (defcustom default-input-method nil
705 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
706 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
707 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
709 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
710 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
712 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
713 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
714 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
716 ** New features in evaluation commands
718 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
719 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
720 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
721 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
722 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
724 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
725 code when called with a prefix argument.
729 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
730 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
731 is, delete only empty directories.
733 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
734 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
735 copy directories recursively.
737 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
738 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
739 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
741 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
742 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
745 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
746 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
747 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
748 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
749 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
751 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
752 use the -f option when sending mail.
756 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
757 current user setups (although it's believed that these
758 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
759 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
760 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
761 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
764 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
765 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
766 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
767 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
768 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
769 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
770 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
771 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
773 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
774 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
775 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
776 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
779 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
780 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
781 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
782 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
783 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
784 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
785 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
786 function documentation for more info.
788 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
789 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
790 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
791 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
792 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
793 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
794 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
795 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
797 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
799 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
800 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
802 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
803 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
804 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
805 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
806 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
809 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
810 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
811 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
814 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
815 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
816 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
817 chapter about this in the manual.
819 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
820 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
821 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
822 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
823 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
825 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
826 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
827 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
829 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
830 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
832 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
833 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
834 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
837 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
838 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
839 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
840 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
843 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
844 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
845 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
848 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
849 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
850 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
851 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
854 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
855 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
856 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
857 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
860 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
861 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
862 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
864 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
866 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
867 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
868 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
869 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
871 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
872 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
873 the column specified by comment-column.
875 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
876 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
877 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
878 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
879 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
880 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
882 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
883 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
886 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
888 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
889 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
890 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
891 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
894 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
896 ** Makefile mode changes
898 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
900 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
901 Fontlock mode is active.
905 ** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
906 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
907 that started the search.
909 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
910 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
912 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
914 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
915 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
916 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
917 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
918 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
919 `secondary-selection'.
921 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
922 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
923 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
924 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
925 usual snappy response.
927 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
928 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
929 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
930 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
932 ** Changes in sort.el
934 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
935 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
936 new user-option sort-numberic-base can be used to specify a default
939 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
941 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
942 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
943 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
945 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
946 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
948 ** Shell script mode changes.
950 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
951 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
952 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
956 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
958 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
959 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
960 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
961 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
962 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
964 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
965 declarations when given the --declarations option.
967 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
968 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
970 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
973 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
975 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
977 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
980 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
981 variables are tagged.
983 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
985 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
988 ** Changes in etags.el
990 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
991 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
992 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
994 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
995 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
997 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
998 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
999 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1000 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1002 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1004 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1005 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1007 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1009 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1010 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1011 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1013 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1014 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1016 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1017 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1019 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1020 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1021 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1023 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1024 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1025 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1026 There is currently no specific input method support for them.
1028 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1029 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1030 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1032 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1034 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1036 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignore-regexps'
1037 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1038 expression from that list, are not checked.
1040 ** New modes and packages
1042 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1043 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1045 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1046 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1047 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1049 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1050 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1051 separate Texinfo file.
1053 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine
1054 or by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1055 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS.
1056 It comes with log-view-mode to view RCS and SCCS logs and log-edit-mode
1057 used to enter checkin log messages.
1059 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1060 without invoking external programs.
1062 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1063 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1064 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1065 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1066 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1068 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1069 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1071 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1072 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1074 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1075 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1076 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1077 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1078 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1081 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1082 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1083 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1084 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1086 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1087 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1088 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1090 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1093 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1095 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1097 ; comment (until end of line)
1101 $A default non-terminal
1102 $"C" default terminal
1103 $?C? default special
1104 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1105 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1106 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1107 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1108 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1109 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1110 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1111 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1112 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1113 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1114 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1115 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1116 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1117 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1118 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1120 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1122 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1123 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1124 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1125 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1126 equal signs of assignments.
1128 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1129 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1131 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1132 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1133 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1134 customize the package.
1136 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1138 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1139 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1140 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1141 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1142 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1143 which answers different needs.
1145 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1146 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1147 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1148 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1149 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1152 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1153 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1155 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1157 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1159 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1161 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1164 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1167 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1169 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1171 *** whitespace.el ???
1173 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1174 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1175 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1176 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1177 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1178 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1179 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1181 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1183 Here is an example of columns:
1186 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1187 porcupine strawberry airplane
1189 Doing the following settings:
1191 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1192 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1193 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1194 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1197 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1199 M-x delimit-columns-region
1203 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1204 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1205 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1207 delim-col has the following options:
1209 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1212 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1213 between each column.
1215 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1218 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1221 delim-col has the following commands:
1223 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1224 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1226 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1227 were operated on recently.
1229 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1231 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1232 recentf at Emacs startup.
1234 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1235 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1236 file list can be displayed:
1238 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1239 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1240 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1242 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1243 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1245 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1248 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1249 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1250 specific to Message mode.
1252 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1253 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1254 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1256 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1257 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1258 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1260 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1261 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1263 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1265 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1266 minibuffer with completion.
1268 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1269 with the diary features.
1271 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1272 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1274 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1277 ** Withdrawn packages
1279 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1280 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1282 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1284 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1287 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1288 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1290 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1291 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1292 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1294 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1295 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1297 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1298 function was declared obsolete.
1300 ** Function plist-member is renamed from widget-plist-member (which is
1301 retained as an alias).
1303 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1304 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1305 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1307 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1309 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1311 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1312 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1314 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1316 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1318 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1320 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1321 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1322 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1323 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1326 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1327 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1328 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1329 minibuffer even if it is active.
1331 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1332 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1333 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1334 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1335 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1336 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1338 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1339 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1340 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1341 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1342 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1343 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1344 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1346 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key
1347 and event names in angle brackets.
1349 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1350 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1351 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1352 Default value is nil.
1354 ** The user option line-number-display-limit can now be set to nil,
1357 ** select-safe-coding-system now also checks the most preferred
1358 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1359 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1361 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1364 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1365 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1366 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1367 than replacing the local map.
1369 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1370 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1372 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1374 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1378 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1380 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1381 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1382 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1383 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1385 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1386 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1387 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1388 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1390 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1391 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1392 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1394 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1395 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1396 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1397 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1398 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1399 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1400 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1403 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1405 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1406 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1407 character set as previously.
1409 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1410 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1411 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1413 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1414 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1415 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1416 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1418 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1419 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1421 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1422 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1425 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1426 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1428 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1429 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1430 buffers and strings.
1432 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1433 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1434 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1435 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1436 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1437 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1438 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1441 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1442 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1443 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1445 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1446 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1447 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1448 may differ between buffer and string text.
1450 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1451 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1453 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1454 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1455 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1456 `composition' from STRING.
1458 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1459 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1461 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1464 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1465 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1466 character set is not used.
1468 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1469 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1470 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1473 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1474 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1475 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1478 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1479 that offset in the file before writing.
1481 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1482 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1484 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1485 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1486 from which the command was issued.
1488 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1489 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1490 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1491 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1494 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1495 to `window-buffer-height'.
1497 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1499 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1500 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1501 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1503 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1506 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1507 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1509 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1510 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1511 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1513 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1514 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1515 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1516 is currently displayed in some window.
1518 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1519 argument function's results.
1521 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1522 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1524 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1525 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1527 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1528 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1530 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1531 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1534 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1535 nil don't display a cursor
1536 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1537 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1538 others display a box cursor.
1540 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1541 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1542 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1543 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1545 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1546 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1547 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1548 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1552 (string-to-syntax "()")
1555 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1558 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1559 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1566 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1571 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1576 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1583 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1584 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1587 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1588 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1589 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1590 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1593 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1595 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1596 for a regexp in a string.
1598 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1599 `mouse-position-function'.
1601 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1602 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1604 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1605 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1608 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1611 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1612 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1615 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1616 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1617 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1618 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1622 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1623 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1626 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1627 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1628 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1629 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1632 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1633 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1634 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1635 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1638 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1639 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1640 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1643 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1644 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1647 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1649 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1650 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1651 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1655 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1656 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1659 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1660 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1663 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1664 instead of being optional.
1667 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1668 modify read-only text.
1671 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1673 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1674 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1675 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1676 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1677 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1679 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1680 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1681 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1682 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1683 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1684 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1685 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1688 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1689 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1690 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1694 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1695 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1698 ** New function `propertize'
1700 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1701 strings with text properties.
1703 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1705 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1706 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1707 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1708 specified value of that property. Example:
1710 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1713 ** push and pop macros.
1715 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1716 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1717 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1719 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1720 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1721 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1723 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1725 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1726 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1728 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1729 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1730 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1731 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1733 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1734 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1735 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1736 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1739 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1740 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1742 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1743 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1744 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1745 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1746 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1748 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1750 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1751 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1752 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1753 [:alpha:] matches letters.
1754 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1755 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1756 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
1757 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
1758 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
1759 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
1760 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1761 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
1762 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
1763 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
1764 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
1767 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
1769 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
1771 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
1773 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
1774 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
1778 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
1779 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
1780 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
1784 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
1785 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
1787 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
1789 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
1790 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
1791 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
1792 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
1793 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
1795 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
1797 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
1798 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
1799 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
1803 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value', or t.
1804 Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage collection if
1805 their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere outside of the
1806 hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
1808 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
1810 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
1812 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
1814 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
1816 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
1818 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
1821 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
1823 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
1825 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1827 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
1829 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
1831 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
1833 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1835 Returns the size of TABLE.
1837 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
1839 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
1841 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
1843 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
1845 - Function: clrhash TABLE
1849 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
1851 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
1854 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
1856 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
1857 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
1859 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
1861 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
1863 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
1865 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
1866 arguments KEY and VALUE.
1868 - Function: sxhash OBJ
1870 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
1872 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
1874 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
1875 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
1876 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
1877 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
1878 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
1880 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
1882 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
1883 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
1884 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
1886 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
1887 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
1889 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
1890 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
1892 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
1893 (sxhash (upcase a)))
1895 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
1896 'case-fold-string-hash))
1898 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
1901 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
1903 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
1904 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
1905 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
1908 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
1910 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
1911 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
1914 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
1915 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
1916 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
1917 is too short to reach that column.
1920 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
1921 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
1922 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
1923 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
1925 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
1926 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
1927 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
1930 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
1931 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
1934 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
1935 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
1938 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
1939 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
1940 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
1941 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
1942 temporary-file-directory instead.
1945 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
1946 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
1947 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
1948 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
1951 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
1952 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
1955 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
1957 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
1958 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
1959 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
1962 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
1964 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
1965 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
1966 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
1967 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
1968 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
1969 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
1971 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
1972 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
1973 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
1974 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
1977 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
1979 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
1980 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
1981 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
1984 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
1985 string where arguments appear in the result string.
1989 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
1991 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
1992 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
1995 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
1998 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2000 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2001 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2004 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2006 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2007 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2013 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2014 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2016 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2017 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2018 to enable sound support.
2020 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2021 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2022 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2023 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2024 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2026 The following sound properties are supported:
2030 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2031 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2035 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2036 may be present, but not both.
2040 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2041 0..1. This property is optional.
2043 Other properties are ignored.
2045 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2047 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2050 ** Changes to garbage collection
2052 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2053 of live and free strings.
2055 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2056 strings that have been consed so far.
2059 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2063 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2065 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2068 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2070 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2072 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2073 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2074 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2075 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2076 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2078 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2079 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2082 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2085 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center'.
2087 When this property is specified, the image is vertically centered
2088 around a centerline which would be the vertical center of text drawn
2089 at the position of the image, in the manner specified by the text
2090 properties and overlays that apply to the image.
2093 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2095 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2096 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2097 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2098 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2100 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2101 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2103 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2104 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2105 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2106 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2107 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2108 just display it black instead.
2110 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2113 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2117 ** New face implementation.
2119 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2120 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2125 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2127 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2129 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2130 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2132 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2134 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2136 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2138 6. Foreground color.
2140 7. Background color.
2142 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2144 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2146 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2148 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2150 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2153 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2154 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2156 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2157 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2158 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2159 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2160 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2161 attributes mentioned above.
2163 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2164 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2167 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2168 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2174 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2175 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2176 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2177 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2178 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2179 results in a fully-specified face.
2182 *** Face realization.
2184 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2185 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2186 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2187 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2188 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2189 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2191 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2192 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2193 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2194 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2196 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2197 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2198 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2199 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2200 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2202 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2203 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2204 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2205 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2206 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2209 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2210 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2211 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2212 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2215 **** Clearing face caches.
2217 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2218 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2224 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2225 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2226 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2228 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2229 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2230 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2231 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2232 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2234 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2235 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2236 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2238 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2240 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2241 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2242 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2243 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2244 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2245 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2246 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2248 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2249 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2255 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2256 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2259 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2260 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2261 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2262 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2263 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2266 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2268 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2271 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2273 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2275 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2276 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2277 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2279 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2280 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2281 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2282 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2283 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2284 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2285 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2286 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2287 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2288 of the face font sort order.
2290 - Function: x-font-family-list
2292 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2293 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2294 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2295 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2297 - Variable: font-list-limit
2299 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2300 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2301 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2304 *** Setting face attributes.
2306 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2307 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2308 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2311 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2312 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2314 The following attributes are recognized:
2318 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2319 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2320 and `?' are allowed.
2324 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2325 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2326 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2327 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2331 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
2336 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2337 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2338 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2342 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2343 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2346 `:foreground', `:background'
2348 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2352 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2353 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2354 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2359 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2360 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2361 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2366 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2367 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2368 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2369 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2373 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2374 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2375 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2376 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2377 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2378 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2379 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2380 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2381 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2382 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2383 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2384 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2385 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2386 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2387 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2388 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2393 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2394 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2398 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2399 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2400 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2401 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2402 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2403 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2405 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2406 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2410 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2411 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2412 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2415 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2416 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2417 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2419 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2422 *** Face attributes and X resources
2424 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2427 Face attribute X resource class
2428 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2429 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2430 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2431 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2432 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2433 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2434 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2435 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2436 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2437 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2438 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2439 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2440 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2441 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2442 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2443 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2444 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2445 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2446 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2447 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2450 *** Text property `face'.
2452 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2453 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2454 specification can be
2456 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2458 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2459 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2460 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2461 for face attribute names.
2463 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2464 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2465 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2468 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2470 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2471 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2472 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2473 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2474 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2475 used to clear the mapping table.
2477 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2479 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2480 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2481 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2482 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2483 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2484 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2485 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2486 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2487 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2488 modify their color-related behavior.
2490 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2493 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2495 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2496 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2497 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2498 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2499 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2500 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2501 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2502 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2503 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2506 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2508 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2510 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2511 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2512 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2514 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2516 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2517 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2520 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2521 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2522 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2523 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2524 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2525 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2526 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2529 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2530 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2531 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2533 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2535 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE
2537 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2538 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2539 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2540 constrained position if that is is different.
2542 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2543 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2544 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2545 constrained to the field that has the same `field' text-property
2546 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2547 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2550 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2551 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2552 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2553 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2554 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2556 - Function: erase-field &optional POS
2558 Erases the field surrounding POS.
2559 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2560 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2562 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2564 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
2565 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2566 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2567 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at beginning of an
2568 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2570 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2572 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2573 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2574 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2575 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at end of a field,
2576 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2578 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2580 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2581 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2582 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2584 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2586 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2587 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2588 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2593 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2594 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2595 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2596 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2598 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2599 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2600 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2601 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2604 IMAGE is an image specification.
2606 *** Image specifications
2608 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
2609 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
2610 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
2611 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
2612 described below are ignored.
2614 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
2618 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
2619 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
2620 to use for its ascent.
2622 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
2623 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
2625 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
2626 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
2627 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
2628 overlays that apply to the image.
2632 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2633 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2637 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2642 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2643 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2644 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2645 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2647 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2649 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2650 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2651 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2652 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2653 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2654 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2655 background of the image.
2659 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2660 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2661 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2662 may be present in the image specification.
2666 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2667 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2668 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2669 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2671 *** Supported image types
2673 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2675 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2676 properties supported are
2680 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2681 is the frame's foreground.
2685 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2686 the frame's background color.
2688 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2689 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2690 instead of a `:file' property.
2694 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2698 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2704 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2705 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2707 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2709 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2712 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
2713 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
2716 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2718 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2719 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2720 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2721 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2723 Additional image properties supported are:
2725 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2727 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2728 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2731 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2732 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2734 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2735 to display compressed images.
2737 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2739 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
2740 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
2743 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
2745 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
2746 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
2749 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
2751 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
2752 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2755 **** GIF, image type `gif'
2757 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
2758 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
2760 Additional image properties supported are:
2764 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
2765 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
2767 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
2768 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
2769 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
2772 (defun show-anim (file max)
2773 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
2774 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
2776 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
2779 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
2782 (goto-char (point-min))
2783 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
2784 (insert-image img "x"))
2785 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
2787 **** PNG, image type `png'
2789 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
2790 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2793 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
2795 Additional image properties supported are:
2799 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
2800 integer. This is a required property.
2804 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
2805 must be a integer. This is an required property.
2809 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
2810 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
2811 files. This is an required property.
2813 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
2818 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
2819 which are supported in the current configuration.
2821 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
2822 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
2823 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
2824 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
2825 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
2827 *** Simplified image API, image.el
2829 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
2830 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
2831 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
2832 define an image based on available image types. The functions
2833 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
2839 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
2842 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
2843 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
2844 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
2845 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
2846 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2847 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2848 of the display margins.
2850 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
2851 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
2852 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
2853 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
2859 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
2860 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
2861 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
2862 that have a `help-echo' property.
2864 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
2865 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
2866 the window in which the help was found, OBJECT is the buffer or string
2867 which had the `help-echo' property. POSITION is the position within
2868 OBJECT under the mouse pointer. The function should return a help
2869 string or nil for none.
2871 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
2872 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
2874 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
2875 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
2876 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
2877 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
2878 used as help string.
2880 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
2881 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
2882 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
2885 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
2887 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
2888 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
2890 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
2891 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
2892 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
2893 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
2896 (global-set-key [A-down]
2899 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
2900 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
2901 (global-set-key [A-up]
2904 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
2905 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
2908 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
2910 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
2911 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
2912 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
2913 is called with one argument, POS.
2915 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
2916 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
2917 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
2918 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
2919 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
2922 ** Tool bar support.
2924 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
2925 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
2926 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
2927 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
2928 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
2929 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
2931 *** Tool bar item definitions
2933 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
2934 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
2935 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
2937 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
2938 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
2939 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
2940 property (see below).
2942 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
2943 binding are currently ignored.
2945 The following properties are recognized:
2949 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
2954 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
2958 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
2959 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
2960 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
2962 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
2964 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
2965 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
2969 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
2970 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
2971 meaning of each of the four elements:
2973 Index Use when item is
2974 ----------------------------------------
2975 0 enabled and selected
2976 1 enabled and deselected
2977 2 disabled and selected
2978 3 disabled and deselected
2980 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
2981 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
2983 `:help HELP-STRING'.
2985 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
2986 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
2988 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
2990 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
2991 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
2992 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
2994 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
2995 raised when the mouse moves over them.
2997 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
2998 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
2999 pixels. Default is 1.
3001 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3002 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3004 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3006 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3009 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3010 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3011 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3013 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3015 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3017 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3020 ** Mode line changes.
3023 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3025 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3026 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3027 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3029 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3030 a `local-map' text property.
3032 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3033 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3035 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3036 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3037 `local-map' property.
3039 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3040 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3043 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3044 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3047 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3048 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3051 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3053 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3054 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3055 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3056 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3059 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3062 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3063 position in the header-line.
3066 ** Text property `display'
3068 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3069 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3070 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3071 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3073 *** Variable width and height spaces
3075 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3076 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3077 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3078 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3079 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3080 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3081 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3083 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3084 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3085 properties described below.
3087 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3088 characters having the `display' property.
3092 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3093 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3095 - :relative-width FACTOR
3097 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3098 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3099 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3100 width of that character by FACTOR.
3104 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3105 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3107 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3111 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3114 - :relative-height FACTOR
3116 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3117 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3121 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3122 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3123 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3126 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3130 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3131 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3132 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3133 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3134 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3135 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3136 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3137 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3138 as display specification.
3140 *** Other display properties
3142 - :space-width FACTOR
3144 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3145 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3150 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3152 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3153 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3154 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3155 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3156 a font is available counts as a step.
3158 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3159 as tall as the frame's default font.
3161 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3162 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3164 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3165 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3169 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3170 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3171 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3172 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3173 `:height' subproperty.
3175 *** Conditional display properties
3177 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3178 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3179 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3180 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3181 the text having the `display' property.
3183 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3187 ** New menu separator types.
3189 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3190 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3191 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3192 to specify other menu separator types.
3194 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3196 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3199 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3201 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3203 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3205 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3207 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3209 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3211 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3213 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3215 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3217 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3218 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3220 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3222 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3224 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3226 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3228 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3230 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3232 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3234 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3236 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3238 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3240 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3242 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3244 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3246 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3248 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3249 the corresponding single-line separators.
3252 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3254 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3255 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3256 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3257 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3258 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3259 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3260 default foreground is black.
3262 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3263 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3264 `ScrollBarBackground').
3266 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3267 settings for scroll bar colors.
3270 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3271 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3274 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3275 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3276 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3277 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3278 the original window start.
3281 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3282 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3283 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3286 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3288 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3289 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3290 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3291 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3293 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3294 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3296 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3298 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3299 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3300 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3301 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3302 temporarily to nil, for example
3304 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3305 (enlarge-window 10))
3307 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3308 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3310 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3311 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3312 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3313 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3314 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3315 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3317 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3319 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3322 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3324 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3326 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3327 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3328 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3329 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3330 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3332 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3336 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3338 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3341 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3343 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3344 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3346 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3348 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3350 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3351 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3352 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3354 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3355 is the one that is used.
3357 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3358 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3359 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3360 separate from the command's regular output.
3361 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3362 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3363 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3366 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3367 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3368 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3369 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3371 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3372 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3373 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3374 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3376 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3377 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3378 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3379 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3381 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3382 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3383 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3384 they never ignore case.
3386 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3387 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3388 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3389 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3390 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3391 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3392 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3394 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3395 the same format that was used in the file before.
3397 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3398 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3400 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3401 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3402 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3404 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3405 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3406 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3407 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3408 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3409 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3410 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3412 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3413 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3414 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3415 format. You can now customize these variables.
3417 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3418 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3419 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3420 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3422 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3423 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3424 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3426 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3427 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3428 doesn't have any effect.
3430 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3433 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3434 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3435 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3437 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3438 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3439 `auto-show-mode' command.
3441 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3442 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3443 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3444 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3445 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3447 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3448 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3450 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3451 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3452 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3454 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3455 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3456 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3457 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3459 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3461 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3462 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3463 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3464 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3465 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3467 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3468 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3470 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3471 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3472 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3473 `?' on other systems.
3475 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3476 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3479 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3480 current codepage when it starts.
3484 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3485 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3486 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3487 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3488 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3489 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3493 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3494 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3496 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3497 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3498 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3499 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3500 buffer-file-coding-system.
3502 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3503 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3506 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3507 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3508 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3509 list of possible coding systems.
3513 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3514 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3515 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3516 docstring for details.
3518 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3519 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3520 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3521 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3522 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3524 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3525 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3527 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3528 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3530 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3531 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3532 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3533 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3536 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3537 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3539 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3540 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3541 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3542 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3544 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3545 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3546 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3547 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3548 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3550 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3552 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
3554 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
3555 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
3557 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
3559 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
3560 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
3561 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
3562 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
3563 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
3567 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
3568 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
3569 Gnus manual for the full story.
3571 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
3572 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
3573 group, which is created automatically.
3575 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
3578 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
3580 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
3581 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
3583 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
3586 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
3588 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
3589 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
3591 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
3593 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
3594 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
3596 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
3597 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
3599 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
3600 control over simplification.
3602 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
3604 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
3607 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
3609 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
3611 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
3612 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
3613 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
3615 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
3616 `a' forces normal posting method.
3618 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
3621 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
3624 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
3625 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
3627 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
3630 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
3632 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
3634 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
3635 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
3637 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
3638 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
3640 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
3642 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
3645 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
3646 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
3648 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
3649 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
3651 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
3653 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
3655 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
3657 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
3659 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
3660 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
3661 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
3663 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
3664 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
3665 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
3666 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
3667 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3669 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3670 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3671 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3672 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3674 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3675 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3676 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3679 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3681 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3682 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3684 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3685 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3686 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3687 removed from the label.
3689 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3690 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3692 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3693 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3695 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3696 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3699 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3701 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3703 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3704 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3706 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3707 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3708 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3710 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3711 changes with a special face.
3713 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3714 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3715 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3717 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3719 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3720 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3721 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3722 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3723 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3725 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3726 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3727 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3729 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3730 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
3731 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
3732 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
3733 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
3734 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
3735 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
3736 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
3737 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
3739 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
3740 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
3741 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
3742 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
3743 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
3746 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
3747 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
3748 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
3749 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
3750 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
3751 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
3753 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
3754 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
3755 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
3756 was not documented clearly before.
3758 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
3759 This includes Tetris and Snake.
3761 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
3763 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
3764 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
3765 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
3766 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
3768 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
3769 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
3770 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
3772 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
3774 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
3775 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
3777 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
3778 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
3781 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
3782 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
3783 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
3784 file names and attributes are returned.
3786 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
3787 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
3788 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
3789 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
3792 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
3793 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
3795 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
3797 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
3798 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
3799 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
3802 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
3803 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
3806 The new function process-running-child-p
3807 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
3808 terminal to its own child process.
3810 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
3811 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
3812 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
3813 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
3815 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
3816 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
3818 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
3819 :included is an alias for :visible.
3821 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
3822 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
3823 to move or copy menu entries.
3825 ** Multibyte editing changes
3827 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
3828 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
3829 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
3830 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
3831 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
3832 (setq char (sref str idx)
3833 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
3834 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
3836 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
3837 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
3838 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
3840 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
3841 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
3842 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
3844 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
3846 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
3847 across the boundary.
3849 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
3850 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
3851 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
3852 contains 8-bit characters.
3853 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
3854 contains invalid characters.
3856 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
3857 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
3858 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
3859 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
3862 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
3863 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
3864 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
3865 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
3867 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
3868 compose Thai characters in a string.
3870 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
3871 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
3872 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
3873 menus should always use the third argument.
3875 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
3876 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
3877 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
3878 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
3880 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
3881 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
3882 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
3883 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
3885 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
3886 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
3887 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
3890 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
3892 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
3893 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
3894 requested feature cannot be loaded.
3896 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
3897 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
3898 means to clear out that attribute.
3900 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
3901 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
3903 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
3904 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
3905 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
3906 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
3908 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
3909 the gap of the current buffer.
3911 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
3912 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
3915 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
3916 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
3917 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
3918 it back in after any modifications have been made.
3920 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
3922 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
3923 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
3924 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
3925 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
3926 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
3928 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
3929 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
3930 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
3931 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
3932 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
3934 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
3935 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
3936 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
3938 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
3939 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
3940 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
3941 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
3942 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
3945 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
3946 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
3947 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
3948 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
3950 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
3952 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
3953 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
3954 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
3955 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
3957 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
3958 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
3959 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
3960 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
3961 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
3962 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
3963 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
3966 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
3969 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
3970 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
3971 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
3972 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
3973 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
3975 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
3976 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
3977 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
3978 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
3980 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
3981 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
3982 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
3983 something that most users not do.
3985 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
3986 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
3987 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
3990 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
3993 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
3994 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
3995 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
3996 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
3999 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4000 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4001 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4002 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4003 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4006 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4007 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4008 to be confused by TeX commands.
4010 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4011 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4012 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4013 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4015 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4016 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4017 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4018 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4019 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4021 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4022 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4024 ** Changes in input method usage.
4026 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4027 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4030 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4032 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4033 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4035 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4036 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4038 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4040 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4042 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4043 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4045 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4046 given in the following case:
4047 o When you are using a complex input method.
4048 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4050 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4051 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4052 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4053 setting it to t is helpful.
4055 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4057 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4059 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4060 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4061 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4062 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4065 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4066 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4067 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4070 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4072 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4074 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4075 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4077 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4078 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4079 its owner and group.
4081 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4082 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4084 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4085 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4087 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4088 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4089 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4090 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4092 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4093 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4094 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4095 for writing keyboard macros.
4097 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4098 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4099 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4100 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4101 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4104 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4106 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4107 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4110 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4111 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4112 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4113 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4115 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4116 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4117 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4119 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4120 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4121 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4122 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4124 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4125 failure if the command produces no output.
4127 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4128 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4131 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4132 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4133 function and variable names.
4135 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4136 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4137 file-coding-system-alist.
4139 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4140 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4141 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4142 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4143 according to the current fontset.
4145 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4147 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4148 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4149 nonascii-insert-offset.
4151 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4152 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4153 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4154 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4156 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4157 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4159 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4160 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4162 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4163 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4166 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4167 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4169 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4170 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4171 all variables that have documentation.
4173 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4174 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4175 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4176 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4177 it should show; the default is 20.
4179 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4180 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4183 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4184 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4185 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4186 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4187 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4188 Newly added options are included as well.
4190 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4191 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4192 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4194 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4197 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4198 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4200 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4201 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4204 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4205 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4208 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4209 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4210 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4211 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4214 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4216 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4217 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4218 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4220 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4221 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4222 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4227 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4228 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4230 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4231 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4233 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4234 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4236 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4237 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4238 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4239 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4240 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4241 made invisible again.
4243 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4245 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4246 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4247 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4250 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4251 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4252 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4253 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4254 rmail-default-body-file.
4256 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4257 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4258 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4260 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4261 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4262 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4264 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4265 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4266 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4267 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4268 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4269 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4271 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4272 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4273 provided by feedmail are:
4275 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4276 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4277 there is also a queue for draft messages
4279 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4280 be prompted for confirmation
4282 **** does smart filling of address headers
4284 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4285 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4286 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4288 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4289 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4290 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4291 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4295 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4296 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4298 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4299 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4301 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4302 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4303 for a specified regexp.
4307 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4310 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4311 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4314 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4315 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4316 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4317 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4319 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4320 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4321 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4322 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4323 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4325 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4326 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4327 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4328 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4329 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4331 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4332 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4333 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4334 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4336 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4337 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4338 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4340 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4341 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4342 session to resolve them.
4344 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4345 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4346 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4349 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4350 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4351 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4352 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4353 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4354 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4357 ** Changes in Font Lock
4359 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4360 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4361 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4362 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4363 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4365 ** Frame name display changes
4367 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4368 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4369 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4370 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4372 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4373 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4376 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4378 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4379 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4380 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4382 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4384 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4385 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4386 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4388 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4389 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4392 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4393 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4394 previously sent input.
4396 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4397 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4398 as the search string.
4400 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4401 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4405 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4406 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4407 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4410 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4411 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4412 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4413 style is still the default however.
4415 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4417 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4418 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4419 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4421 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4422 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4424 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4425 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4427 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4428 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4430 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4431 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4433 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4434 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4435 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4436 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4438 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4440 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4441 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4442 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4444 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4445 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4446 expanding dynamically.
4448 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4449 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4451 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4452 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4453 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4454 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4456 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4458 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4460 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4461 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4462 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4463 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4464 against the first word in the title.
4466 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4467 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4468 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4469 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4470 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4471 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4473 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4474 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4475 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4476 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4478 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4480 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4481 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4482 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4483 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4484 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4485 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4487 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4488 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4490 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4491 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4492 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4494 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4495 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4499 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4500 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4501 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4503 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4504 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4505 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4506 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4509 o URLs are automatically skipped
4510 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4512 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4514 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4516 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4517 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4518 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4519 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4521 *** New recursive parser.
4523 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4524 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4525 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4527 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4529 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4530 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4531 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4533 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4535 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4537 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4539 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4541 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4543 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4544 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4546 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4548 *** References to external documents.
4550 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4551 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4552 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
4553 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
4554 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
4555 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
4556 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
4558 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
4560 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
4561 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
4563 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
4564 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
4566 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
4568 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
4569 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
4571 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
4573 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
4574 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
4575 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
4576 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
4577 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
4578 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
4581 *** Support for the varioref package
4583 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
4587 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
4588 and citations are created. These hooks are
4589 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
4590 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
4592 *** Citations outside LaTeX
4594 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
4595 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
4597 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
4599 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
4600 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
4603 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
4605 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
4606 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
4607 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
4608 directories that contain the same file name.
4610 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
4611 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
4612 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
4613 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
4614 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
4615 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
4616 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
4619 ** New modes and packages
4621 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
4622 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
4623 it, but some do not.
4625 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
4628 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
4629 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
4632 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
4634 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
4635 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
4636 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
4637 established system of notation similar to Chess.
4639 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
4640 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
4641 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
4643 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
4644 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
4645 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
4646 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
4647 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
4650 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
4651 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
4653 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
4654 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
4655 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
4656 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
4658 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
4660 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
4661 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
4662 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
4663 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
4664 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
4665 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
4666 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
4667 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
4668 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
4669 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
4670 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
4672 Platform-specific modes:
4674 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4675 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4676 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4677 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4678 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4679 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4680 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4681 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4682 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4684 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4686 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4687 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4688 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4689 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4691 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4692 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4693 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4695 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4696 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4697 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4698 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4700 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4701 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4702 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4705 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4706 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4707 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4708 current input method for reading this one event.
4710 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4711 now control whether to output certain characters as
4712 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4713 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4714 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4715 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4717 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4719 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4720 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4722 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4723 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4724 always increases point by 1.
4726 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4727 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4729 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4731 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
4732 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
4733 default value changed. For example,
4735 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
4740 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
4743 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
4744 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
4745 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
4746 `:version' in the top level group.
4748 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
4750 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
4751 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
4753 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
4754 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
4755 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
4758 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
4759 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
4762 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
4763 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
4764 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
4766 ** Frame-local variables.
4768 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
4769 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
4770 local bindings for that variable.
4772 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
4773 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
4774 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
4777 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
4778 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
4779 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
4780 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
4782 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
4783 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
4784 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
4785 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
4787 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
4788 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
4789 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
4790 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
4791 See the documentation in sregex.el.
4793 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
4794 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
4795 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
4796 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
4798 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
4799 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
4801 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
4802 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
4803 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
4805 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
4806 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
4807 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
4808 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
4810 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
4811 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
4814 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
4815 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
4816 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
4817 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
4818 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
4820 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
4821 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
4822 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
4823 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
4825 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
4826 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
4827 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
4828 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
4829 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
4831 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
4832 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
4833 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
4834 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
4836 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
4837 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
4838 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
4840 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
4841 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
4842 was directed to display this buffer.
4844 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
4845 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
4846 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
4847 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
4848 set-window-configuration.
4850 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
4851 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
4852 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
4853 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
4855 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
4856 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
4857 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
4859 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
4860 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
4861 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
4863 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
4864 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
4866 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
4867 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
4869 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
4870 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
4871 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
4873 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
4874 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
4875 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
4876 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
4880 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
4881 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
4884 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
4885 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
4886 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
4887 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
4888 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
4890 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
4892 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
4893 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
4894 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
4895 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
4898 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
4899 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
4900 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
4901 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
4902 The supported properties include
4904 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
4906 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
4907 item should appear in the menu.
4909 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
4910 which will be REAL-BINDING.
4911 It should return a binding to use instead.
4913 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
4914 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
4915 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
4916 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
4917 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
4920 This means that the command normally has no
4921 keyboard equivalent.
4922 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
4923 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
4924 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
4925 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
4926 value says whether this button is currently selected.
4928 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
4929 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
4931 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
4935 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
4936 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
4937 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
4938 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
4940 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
4942 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
4943 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
4944 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
4945 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
4946 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
4947 forward, away from the user.
4949 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
4951 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
4952 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
4953 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
4954 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
4955 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
4957 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
4959 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
4960 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
4961 that were dragged and dropped.
4963 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
4965 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
4967 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
4968 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
4969 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
4971 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
4972 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
4973 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
4975 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
4976 in Emacs 19 and before.
4978 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
4979 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
4981 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
4982 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
4983 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
4984 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
4986 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
4987 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
4988 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
4989 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
4990 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
4992 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
4993 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
4994 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
4995 consistent with the new representation.
4997 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
4998 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
4999 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5000 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5002 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5003 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5004 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5006 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5007 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5008 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5010 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5011 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5012 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5014 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5015 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5017 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5018 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5020 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5021 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5022 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5023 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5025 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5026 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5028 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5029 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5030 buffer or string being searched.
5032 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5033 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5034 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5035 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5036 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5037 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5038 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5040 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5042 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5043 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5044 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5045 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5046 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5047 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5048 define-coding-system-alias.
5050 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5051 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5052 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5053 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5054 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5055 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5056 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5059 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5060 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5061 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5062 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5064 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5065 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5066 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5067 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5069 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5070 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5071 This function requires a user interaction.
5073 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5074 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5075 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5076 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5077 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5078 select-safe-coding-system.
5080 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5081 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5082 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5085 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5086 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5087 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5089 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5090 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5091 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5092 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5094 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5095 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5096 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5099 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5100 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5102 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5103 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5104 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5105 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5106 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5107 range of characters.
5109 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5110 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5112 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5113 in the current buffer at position POS.
5115 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5116 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5117 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5118 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5119 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5120 binding input-method-function to nil.
5122 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5123 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5124 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5125 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5126 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5128 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5129 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5131 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5132 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5134 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5135 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5136 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5137 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5138 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5140 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5142 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5143 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5144 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5147 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5148 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5150 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5151 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5152 in your .emacs file.)
5154 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5155 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5157 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5158 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5160 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5161 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5164 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5165 delete the character before point, as usual.
5167 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5168 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5169 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5171 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5172 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5173 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5174 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5175 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5178 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5179 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5180 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5181 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5182 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5184 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5185 and is an alias for it.
5187 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5188 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5190 ** Scrolling changes
5192 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5193 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5195 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5196 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5199 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5200 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5201 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5202 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5204 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5205 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5206 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5207 recenters the window.
5209 ** International character set support (MULE)
5211 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5212 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5213 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5214 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5215 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5216 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5218 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5219 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5220 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5221 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5222 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5224 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5225 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5226 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5227 language, to make it possible to type them.
5229 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5230 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5232 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5233 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5235 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5237 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5239 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5240 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5241 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5242 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5243 characters for their work until they want to change.
5247 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5248 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5249 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5250 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5251 support several input methods.
5253 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5254 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5257 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5258 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5259 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5260 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5261 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5264 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5265 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5266 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5267 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5268 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5270 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5271 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5272 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5273 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5275 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5276 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5277 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5278 the first guess is wrong.
5280 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5281 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5283 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5284 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5285 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5286 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5288 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5289 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5290 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5291 translate automatically to and from either one.
5293 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5295 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5296 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5297 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5300 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5301 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5302 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5303 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5305 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5306 character conversion as well.
5308 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5310 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5311 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5312 requires using many fonts.
5314 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5315 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5317 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5318 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5319 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5320 you would use a font.
5322 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5323 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5324 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5326 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5327 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5328 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5329 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5330 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5332 *** Defining fontsets.
5334 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5335 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5336 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5338 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5339 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5340 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5341 standard fontset are created automatically.
5343 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5344 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5345 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5346 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5347 name is `fontset-startup'.
5349 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5350 The resource value should have this form:
5351 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5352 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5353 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5354 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5355 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5356 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5357 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5358 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5359 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5361 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5362 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5363 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5365 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5366 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5368 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5369 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5370 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5371 Here is the substitution rule:
5372 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5373 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5374 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5375 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5376 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5378 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5379 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5380 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5382 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5383 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5384 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5385 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5388 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5389 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5391 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5392 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5393 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5394 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5395 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5396 system for new files that you create.
5398 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5399 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5400 whole Emacs session.
5402 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5403 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5404 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5406 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5407 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5408 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5409 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5410 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5412 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5413 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5414 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5415 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5416 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5418 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5419 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5421 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5422 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5424 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5425 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5427 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5428 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5429 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5430 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5433 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5434 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5435 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5436 translated into that character code.
5438 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5439 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5441 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5443 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5444 the coding system for keyboard input.
5446 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5447 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5448 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5450 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5452 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5453 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5454 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5455 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5456 designed to work with terminals.
5458 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5459 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5460 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5461 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5462 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5463 in the corresponding buffer.
5465 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5467 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5468 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5469 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5471 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5472 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5473 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5476 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5477 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5479 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5480 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5481 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5482 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5484 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5485 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5486 related information.
5488 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5489 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5492 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5493 information about the support for a particular language.
5494 You specify the language as an argument.
5496 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5497 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5500 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5501 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5502 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5503 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5505 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5507 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5508 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5509 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5510 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5511 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5512 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5513 K euc-korea (Korean)
5516 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5519 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5520 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5521 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5525 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5526 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5527 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5528 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5530 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5531 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5533 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5534 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5535 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5536 Rmail files themselves.
5538 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5539 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5541 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5544 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5545 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5546 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5547 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5548 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5550 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5551 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5552 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
5555 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
5556 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
5557 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
5558 without any conversion.
5560 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
5561 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
5562 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
5563 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
5565 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
5566 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
5568 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
5569 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
5571 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
5572 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
5574 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
5575 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
5576 in the buffer before point.
5578 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
5579 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
5582 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
5583 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
5585 ** File locking works with NFS now.
5587 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
5588 in the same directory as FILENAME.
5590 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
5591 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
5592 can become a bottleneck.
5594 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
5595 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
5596 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
5597 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
5598 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
5599 so useful that the change is worth while.
5601 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
5602 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
5603 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
5604 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
5606 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
5607 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
5610 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
5611 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
5612 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
5614 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
5615 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
5616 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
5618 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
5619 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
5620 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
5622 ** Changes in View mode.
5624 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
5625 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
5627 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
5628 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
5630 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
5633 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
5634 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
5636 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
5637 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
5638 not just the selected window.
5640 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
5641 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
5642 turns View mode on or off.
5644 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
5645 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
5646 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
5648 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
5649 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
5651 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
5652 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
5653 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
5654 which version to compare with.
5656 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
5657 blocks if a match is inside the block.
5659 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
5660 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
5661 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
5662 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
5664 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
5665 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
5666 blocks, all of them or none.
5668 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
5669 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
5672 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5673 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5674 However, the mode will not be changed if
5675 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5676 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5677 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5678 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5680 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5682 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5683 these commands do not change the major mode.
5685 ** M-x occur changes.
5687 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5688 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5690 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5691 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5692 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5694 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5695 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5696 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5697 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5698 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5700 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5701 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5702 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5703 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5705 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5706 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5707 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5709 ** Outline mode changes.
5711 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5713 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5715 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5716 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5717 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5720 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5721 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5724 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5725 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5727 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5729 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5730 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
5731 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
5732 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
5734 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
5735 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
5736 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
5738 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
5739 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
5742 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
5743 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
5744 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
5745 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
5747 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
5748 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
5749 can be. The default value is 30.
5751 ** Changes in Mail mode.
5753 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
5754 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
5755 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
5756 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
5757 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
5760 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
5761 compose-mail-other-frame.
5763 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
5764 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
5765 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
5766 buffer that shows the original message.
5768 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
5769 with separator lines around the contents.
5771 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
5772 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
5773 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
5774 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
5776 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
5778 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
5779 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
5780 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
5781 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
5783 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
5784 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
5787 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
5788 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
5791 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
5792 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
5793 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
5794 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
5796 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
5797 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
5798 be taken to be magic.
5800 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
5801 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
5802 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
5804 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
5805 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
5807 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
5808 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
5810 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
5812 new key dired.el binding old key
5813 ------- ---------------- -------
5814 * c dired-change-marks c
5816 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
5817 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
5818 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
5820 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
5821 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
5822 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
5823 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
5824 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
5825 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
5829 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
5830 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
5831 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
5832 each time you run it.
5834 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
5835 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
5837 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
5838 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
5839 means to move in the opposite direction.
5841 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
5842 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
5844 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
5845 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
5846 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
5847 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
5852 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
5854 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
5857 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
5858 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
5860 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
5863 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
5865 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
5867 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
5869 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
5870 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
5871 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
5873 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
5875 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
5877 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
5878 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
5880 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
5881 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
5882 used to pick articles.
5884 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
5885 another have been added.
5887 `M-x gnus-change-server'
5889 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
5890 generating lines in buffers.
5892 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
5895 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
5897 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
5899 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
5901 *** Scores can be decayed.
5903 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
5905 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
5906 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
5908 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
5911 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
5913 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
5914 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
5916 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
5918 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
5919 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
5921 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
5922 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
5924 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
5927 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
5928 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
5930 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
5932 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
5934 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
5936 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
5938 Use the `Y c' command.
5940 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
5942 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
5944 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
5946 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
5947 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
5949 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
5951 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
5953 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
5954 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
5956 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
5958 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
5959 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
5960 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
5961 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
5964 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
5965 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
5966 particular news group. This can be done by:
5968 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
5970 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
5971 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
5972 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
5973 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
5974 for reading and posting).
5976 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
5977 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
5978 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
5979 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
5982 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
5983 default. Here are some of these default settings:
5985 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
5986 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
5987 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
5988 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
5989 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
5991 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
5992 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
5996 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
5997 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
5998 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
5999 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6000 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6003 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6004 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6005 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6006 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6007 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6008 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6010 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6011 of the current buffer.
6013 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6014 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6015 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6017 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6018 style that the Python developers like.
6020 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6021 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6022 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6026 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6027 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6028 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6030 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6031 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6034 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6035 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6037 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6038 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6039 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6040 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6042 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6043 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6045 ** Calendar changes.
6047 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6048 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6049 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6053 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6055 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6057 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6058 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6059 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6060 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6061 It defaults to `letter'.
6062 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6064 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6065 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6066 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6068 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6069 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6072 *** Horizontal layout
6074 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6075 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6076 All are measured in points.
6080 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6081 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6082 All are measured in points.
6086 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6087 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6088 margin above the text.
6090 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6091 framing box is printed around the header.
6093 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6094 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6096 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6097 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6098 `ps-header-font-size'.
6102 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6103 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6104 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6105 elements to this alist.
6107 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6108 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6110 ** hideshow changes.
6112 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6115 *** Support for java-mode added.
6117 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6118 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6120 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6121 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6122 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6124 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6125 robust and a lot faster.
6127 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6129 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6130 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6131 documentation for more details.
6133 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6135 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6136 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6137 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6138 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6139 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6141 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6142 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6143 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6144 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6150 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6151 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6152 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6153 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6154 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6155 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6157 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6159 *** Maximum decoration
6161 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6162 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6163 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6164 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6165 to get the old behavior.
6169 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6171 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6172 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6174 *** Configurable support
6176 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6177 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6178 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6179 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6180 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6181 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6182 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6184 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6185 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6186 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6188 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6190 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6191 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6194 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6196 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6202 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6203 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6204 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6205 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6207 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6209 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6210 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6211 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6213 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6215 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6216 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6217 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6218 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6219 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6220 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6221 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6223 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6224 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6225 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6226 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6227 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6228 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6230 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6232 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6233 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6234 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6235 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6237 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6240 ** Ada mode changes.
6242 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6243 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6244 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6245 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6248 *** There are two new commands:
6249 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6250 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6252 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6253 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6254 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6256 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6257 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6258 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6260 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6261 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6262 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6263 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6265 ** Scheme mode changes.
6267 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6268 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6269 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6270 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6273 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6274 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6275 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6276 variables as buffer-local variables.
6278 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6281 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6283 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6284 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6285 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6286 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6288 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6289 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6292 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6293 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6294 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6295 option takes precedence.
6297 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6298 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6299 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6301 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6302 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6305 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6306 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6308 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6309 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6312 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6313 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6314 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6315 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6316 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6317 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6319 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6320 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6321 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6322 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6324 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6325 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6326 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6327 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6328 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6330 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6331 since it applies only to the current frame.
6333 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6334 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6335 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6337 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6338 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6339 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6340 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6341 instead of just the file you are editing.
6345 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6346 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6347 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6348 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6349 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6352 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6353 knows which kind of label is needed.
6355 C-c ) reftex-reference
6356 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6357 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6359 C-c [ reftex-citation
6360 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6361 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6363 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6364 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6367 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6368 can quickly jump to every section.
6370 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6371 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6372 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6373 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6374 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6376 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6378 *** Info documentation is now available.
6380 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6381 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6383 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6384 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6386 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6387 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6389 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6390 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6391 appropriate functions.
6393 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6394 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6396 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6399 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6400 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6402 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6405 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6406 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6407 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6409 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6410 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6411 prefixed with `ALT'.
6413 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6414 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6415 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6418 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6419 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6420 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6422 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6423 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6425 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6426 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6427 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6429 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6431 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6433 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6436 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6437 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6440 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6443 *** Added support for imenu.
6445 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6446 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6447 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6448 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6450 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6451 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6453 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6455 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6457 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6458 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6459 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6462 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6463 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6465 ** browse-url changes
6467 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6468 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6469 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6470 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6471 customization variables.
6473 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6475 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6476 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6477 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6481 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6482 pops up the Info file for this command.
6484 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6485 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6486 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6489 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6490 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6491 files in the same directory.
6493 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6494 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6495 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6499 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6500 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6502 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6503 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6504 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6505 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6506 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6507 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6508 color when Viper is in insert state.
6509 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6510 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6511 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6515 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6516 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6517 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6518 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6519 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6521 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6523 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6524 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6526 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6527 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6528 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6530 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6531 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6532 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6533 methods and protocols.
6535 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6536 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6537 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6540 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6541 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6542 at least M times and as many as N times.
6544 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6545 in files has changed slightly.
6547 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6548 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6549 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6550 with old time-stamp-format values.
6552 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
6553 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
6554 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
6557 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
6558 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
6559 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
6560 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
6561 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
6562 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
6564 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
6565 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
6566 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
6568 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
6569 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
6570 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
6571 recommended now will continue to work then.
6573 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
6576 ** There are some additional major modes:
6578 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
6579 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
6580 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
6582 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
6583 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
6586 ** New Lisp packages include:
6588 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
6590 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
6591 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
6593 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
6595 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
6598 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
6599 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
6602 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
6603 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
6604 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
6605 strings or comments.
6607 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
6608 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
6609 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
6610 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
6613 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
6614 can visit them by short forms of their names.
6616 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
6617 Emacs Lisp function at point.
6619 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
6621 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
6622 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
6624 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
6626 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
6628 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
6630 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
6631 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
6633 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
6634 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
6635 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
6636 original place after inserting the copy.
6638 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
6641 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
6642 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
6643 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
6645 Enable mouse-drag with:
6646 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
6648 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
6650 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
6651 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
6653 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
6654 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
6658 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
6659 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
6660 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
6661 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
6662 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
6663 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
6664 instance) and vice versa.
6666 To use this package load it using
6667 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
6668 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
6669 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
6670 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
6671 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
6672 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6674 *** Interface to ph.
6676 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6678 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6679 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6682 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6684 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6685 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6686 while the real cursor does not move.
6688 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6689 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6691 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6692 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6696 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6697 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6698 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6699 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6701 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6703 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6705 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6707 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6708 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6709 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6710 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6711 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6713 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6714 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6715 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6716 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6717 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6718 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6720 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6722 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6723 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6724 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6725 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6727 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6728 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6730 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
6731 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
6734 ** Basic Lisp changes
6736 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
6737 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
6739 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
6740 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
6743 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
6745 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
6747 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
6748 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
6750 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
6751 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
6754 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
6756 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
6758 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
6760 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
6761 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
6762 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
6765 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
6766 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
6767 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
6769 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
6770 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
6771 adding one of these suffixes.
6773 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
6774 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
6775 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
6777 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
6778 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
6780 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
6782 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
6783 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
6785 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
6786 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
6788 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
6790 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
6791 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
6793 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
6794 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
6795 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
6796 works using `save-current-buffer'.
6798 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
6799 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
6802 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
6803 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
6804 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
6807 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
6808 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
6811 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
6813 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
6814 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
6815 Then it returns that string.
6817 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
6819 (with-output-to-string
6820 (princ "The buffer is ")
6821 (princ (buffer-name)))
6823 returns "The buffer is foo".
6825 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
6828 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
6829 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
6830 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
6832 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
6833 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
6835 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
6836 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
6837 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
6838 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
6839 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
6840 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
6842 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
6843 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
6844 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
6847 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
6848 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
6849 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
6850 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
6851 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
6853 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
6854 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
6855 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
6856 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
6858 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
6859 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
6861 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
6863 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
6864 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
6865 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
6866 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
6869 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
6870 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
6873 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
6875 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
6876 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
6877 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
6878 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
6879 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
6881 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
6883 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
6884 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
6885 more than the number of characters.
6887 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
6888 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
6889 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
6890 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
6891 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
6892 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
6894 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
6895 and returns a string containing those characters.
6897 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
6898 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
6899 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
6900 character, sref signals an error.
6902 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
6903 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
6904 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
6906 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
6907 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
6908 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
6910 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
6911 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
6912 to a vector of the characters in it.
6914 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
6915 of a string. You call it as follows:
6917 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
6919 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
6920 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
6921 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
6922 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
6923 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
6925 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
6926 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
6928 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
6929 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
6931 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
6932 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
6933 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
6934 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
6936 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
6938 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
6940 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
6941 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
6942 are not included in the resulting value.
6944 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
6945 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
6946 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
6947 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
6949 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
6950 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
6951 character extends across that column), then the padding character
6952 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
6953 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
6954 column START-COLUMN.
6956 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
6957 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
6958 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
6959 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
6960 changed text, before the change.
6962 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
6963 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
6964 one character set for each script, not for each language.
6966 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
6968 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
6970 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
6971 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
6973 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
6974 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
6975 which identify the character within that character set.
6977 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
6978 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
6979 opposite of split-char.
6981 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
6982 of all the characters between BEG and END.
6984 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
6985 of all the characters in a string.
6987 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
6988 and specifying coding systems.
6990 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
6991 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
6992 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
6993 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
6994 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
6995 as what to do about code conversion.)
6997 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
6998 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7000 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7001 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7002 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7004 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7005 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7006 to match against a file name.
7008 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7009 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7010 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7011 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7012 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7013 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7015 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7016 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7018 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7019 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7021 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7022 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7023 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7026 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7027 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7028 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7029 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7030 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7031 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7033 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7034 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7036 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7037 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7038 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7039 start the subprocess.
7041 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7042 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7043 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7044 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7045 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7047 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7048 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7051 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7052 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7053 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7054 connection permanently or until overridden.
7056 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7057 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7058 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7059 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7060 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7061 system for one operation at a time.
7063 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7064 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7066 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7067 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7068 The value is a cons cell,
7069 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7070 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7071 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7072 input to the subprocess.
7074 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7075 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7077 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7078 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7079 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7081 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7082 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7083 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7084 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7087 Thus, instead of writing
7089 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7090 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7092 you would now write this:
7094 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7095 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7099 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7100 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7101 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7102 for a description of them.
7104 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7105 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7107 (defgroup ispell nil
7108 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7111 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7112 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7113 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7114 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7115 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7117 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7118 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7119 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7120 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7121 first-level subgroups.
7123 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7125 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7126 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7130 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7131 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7132 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7133 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7134 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7135 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7137 ** Text property changes
7139 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7142 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7143 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7144 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7145 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7146 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7148 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7149 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7150 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7151 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7153 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7154 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7155 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7157 ** Changes in invisibility features
7159 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7160 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7161 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7162 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7163 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7164 make the overlay visible.
7166 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7167 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7168 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7169 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7170 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7171 t when it should hide it.
7173 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7175 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7176 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7177 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7178 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7179 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7180 Here is an example of how to do this:
7182 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7183 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7184 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7185 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7188 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7191 ;; When done with the overlays:
7192 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7194 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7196 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7198 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7199 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7200 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7201 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7203 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7204 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7205 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7207 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7208 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7210 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7211 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7213 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7214 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7215 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7217 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7218 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7219 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7220 determine the syntax type of the character.
7222 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7223 of the current buffer.
7225 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7226 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7227 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7229 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7230 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7231 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7232 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7233 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7235 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7238 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7239 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7240 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7242 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7243 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7244 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7245 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7246 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7248 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7249 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7250 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7252 ** Changes in face features
7254 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7255 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7257 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7258 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7260 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7261 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7263 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7264 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7266 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7267 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7268 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7269 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7272 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7273 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7275 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7277 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7278 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7279 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7280 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7282 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7285 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7286 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7288 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7289 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7291 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7292 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7294 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7295 character code conversion as well as other things.
7297 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7298 (formerly it did not).
7300 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7301 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7303 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7304 instead of constant strings.
7306 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7307 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7308 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7310 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7311 in the same way as before.
7313 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7314 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7315 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7317 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7318 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7319 else, and returns nil.
7321 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7322 directory cannot be listed.
7324 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7326 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7327 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7328 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7329 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7332 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7333 It is available through the history command M-n.
7335 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7336 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7337 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7338 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7339 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7341 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7342 argument in this way.
7344 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7345 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7346 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7348 ** Echo area features
7350 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7351 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7352 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7353 after the echo area is cleared.
7355 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7356 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7358 ** Keyboard input features
7360 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7361 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7363 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7364 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7367 ** Frame-related changes
7369 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7370 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7371 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7373 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7374 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7375 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7377 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7378 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7379 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7380 in the selected frame.
7382 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7383 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7384 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7386 ** X Windows features
7388 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7389 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7390 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7392 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7393 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7395 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7396 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7397 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7399 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7400 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7402 ** Subprocess features
7404 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7405 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7408 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7409 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7411 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7412 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7414 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7415 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7417 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7418 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7419 goes after the other menu items.
7421 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7422 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7423 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7426 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7427 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7429 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7430 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7433 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7434 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7435 but its hook is still run.
7437 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7438 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7440 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7441 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7442 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7444 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7445 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7446 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7449 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7450 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7452 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7453 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7454 functions like display-time.
7456 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7457 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7459 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7460 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7461 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7463 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7464 if there is an error in compilation.
7466 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7467 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7468 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7469 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7471 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7472 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7473 the *scratch* buffer.
7475 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7476 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7477 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7478 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7480 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7481 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7482 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7484 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7485 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7486 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7487 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7489 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7490 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7491 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7493 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7494 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7495 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7496 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7497 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7500 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7501 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7502 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7503 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7505 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7506 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7507 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7508 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7510 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7512 ** imenu.el changes.
7514 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7515 item from menu created by imenu.
7517 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7518 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7519 select one of those items.
7521 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7523 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7525 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7526 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7528 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7529 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7530 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7532 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7534 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7535 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7537 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7538 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7539 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7540 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7541 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7544 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7545 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7547 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7548 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7549 as in previous Emacs versions.
7551 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7552 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
7553 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
7556 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
7557 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
7558 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
7559 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
7562 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
7563 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
7564 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
7565 line and then executing the macro.
7567 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
7569 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
7570 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
7571 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
7576 *** Font Lock support modes
7578 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
7579 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
7580 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
7581 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
7582 Font Lock mode is enabled.
7584 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
7586 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
7592 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
7593 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
7594 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
7595 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
7596 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
7597 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
7598 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
7600 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
7602 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
7604 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
7606 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7608 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
7611 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
7616 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
7617 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
7618 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
7619 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
7621 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
7622 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
7624 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
7625 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
7628 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
7629 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
7631 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
7633 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
7635 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
7637 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
7640 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
7642 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
7644 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
7646 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
7648 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
7651 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
7653 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
7655 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
7657 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
7659 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
7661 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
7663 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
7665 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
7668 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
7670 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
7673 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7675 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7676 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7678 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7680 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7682 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7684 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7686 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7689 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7691 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7692 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7694 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7695 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7696 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7698 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7699 articles with the `*' command.
7701 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7703 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7705 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7707 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7709 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7710 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7712 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7715 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7717 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7719 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7721 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7723 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7725 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7727 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7729 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7731 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
7733 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
7734 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
7736 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
7739 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
7741 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
7742 buffer to allow easier treatment.
7744 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
7746 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
7748 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
7750 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
7753 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
7755 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
7757 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
7758 cited text to hide is now customizable.
7760 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
7762 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
7764 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
7766 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
7768 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
7770 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
7773 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
7775 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
7776 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
7777 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
7780 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
7783 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
7786 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
7787 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
7790 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
7791 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
7792 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
7793 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
7794 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
7797 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
7799 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
7801 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
7802 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
7803 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
7804 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
7805 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
7807 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
7808 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
7809 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
7811 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
7813 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
7814 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
7815 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
7816 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
7817 chapter of the manual for details.
7819 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
7820 customization variables take effect.
7822 ** Marking with the mouse.
7824 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
7825 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
7826 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
7828 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
7830 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
7832 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
7833 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
7835 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
7836 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
7837 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
7838 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
7839 applications, these problems are significant.
7841 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
7842 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
7843 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
7844 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
7845 other DOS application as a subprocess.
7847 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
7848 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
7850 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
7851 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
7852 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
7853 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
7854 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
7855 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
7857 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
7859 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
7860 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
7861 minibuffer contains.
7863 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
7865 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
7866 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
7867 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
7868 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
7870 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
7871 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
7872 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
7873 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
7875 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
7876 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
7878 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
7879 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
7880 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
7882 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
7883 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
7884 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
7885 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
7887 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
7889 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
7890 to replace the characters it "deletes".
7892 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
7894 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
7895 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
7896 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
7897 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
7898 immediately after the selected one.
7900 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
7901 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
7903 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
7905 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
7906 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
7907 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
7908 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
7911 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
7912 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
7915 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
7916 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
7917 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
7918 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
7919 now that the bug is fixed.
7921 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
7923 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
7924 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
7925 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
7926 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
7928 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
7929 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
7930 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
7931 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
7933 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
7934 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
7935 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
7937 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
7938 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
7939 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
7940 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
7943 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
7944 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
7946 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
7947 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
7948 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
7949 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
7951 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
7952 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
7953 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
7954 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
7955 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
7956 `mail-directory-stream'.)
7958 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
7959 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
7960 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
7961 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
7963 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
7964 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
7965 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
7967 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
7968 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
7969 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
7970 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
7971 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
7972 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
7973 to a limitation in font-lock).
7975 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
7977 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
7978 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
7979 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
7982 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
7983 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
7985 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7987 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
7989 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
7991 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
7993 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
7994 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
7995 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
7996 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
7997 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
7998 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8000 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8003 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8004 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8006 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8011 *** Global Font Lock mode
8013 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8014 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8015 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8016 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8017 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8019 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8021 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8025 *** Local Refontification
8027 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8028 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8029 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8030 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8032 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8033 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8034 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8035 above and below point.
8037 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8041 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8042 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8043 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8044 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8045 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8048 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8050 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8051 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8053 ** hide-show changes.
8055 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8056 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8059 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8060 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8062 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8063 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8064 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8068 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8069 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8071 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8072 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8074 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8076 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8077 pressing both mouse buttons.
8079 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8080 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8083 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8086 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8088 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8089 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8091 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8093 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8095 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8097 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8099 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8101 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8103 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8104 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8105 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8106 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8107 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8109 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8111 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8112 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8113 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8116 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8119 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8121 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8122 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8124 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8125 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8127 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8128 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8129 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8131 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8132 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8135 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8137 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8138 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8139 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8141 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8142 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8143 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8145 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8146 up if too much time passes.
8148 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8150 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8151 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8152 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8155 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8156 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8157 call looks like this:
8159 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8161 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8162 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8163 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8166 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8167 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8170 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8171 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8172 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8173 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8175 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8176 idle for SECS seconds.
8178 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8179 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8180 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8183 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8184 there is no answer within a certain time.
8186 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8188 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8189 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8190 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8192 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8193 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8194 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8195 arguments in between are ignored.
8197 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8198 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8200 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8201 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8202 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8203 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8206 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8207 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8208 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8209 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8210 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8211 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8213 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8214 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8215 systems with limited file name syntax.
8217 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8218 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8219 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8222 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8223 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8224 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8226 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8227 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8228 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8229 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8230 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8232 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8233 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8234 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8236 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8237 marker from its buffer position.
8239 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8240 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8241 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8243 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8244 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8245 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8246 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8247 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8248 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8250 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8251 errors that happen often during editing.
8253 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8254 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8255 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8257 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8258 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8260 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8261 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8262 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8263 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8264 and not get-buffer-window.
8266 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8267 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8268 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8270 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8271 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8272 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8273 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8274 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8275 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8276 over and over for the same text.
8278 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8280 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8281 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8283 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8286 in addition to the normal
8290 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8291 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8292 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8294 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
8296 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8297 Copyright information:
8299 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8301 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8302 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8303 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8304 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8306 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8307 of this document, or of portions of it,
8308 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8309 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8313 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"