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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2010-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
8
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
10
11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
13
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
16
17
18 Temporary note:
19 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
20 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
23
24 \f
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
26
27 ** Configure links against libselinux if it is found.
28 You can disable this by using --without-selinux.
29
30 ---
31 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
32 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
33
34 ---
35 ** There are new configure options:
36 --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
37 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
38 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
39
40 ---
41 ** Emacs can be compiled against Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
42 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
43 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
44 --without-gconf.
45
46 ** There is a new configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
47 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
48 This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
49
50 ---
51 ** New translation of the Emacs Tutorial in Hebrew is available
52 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
53 automatically select it.
54
55 \f
56 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
57
58 ** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
59 command line arguments, and the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable, no
60 longer have any effect. (They were declared obsolete in Emacs 23.)
61
62 ** New command line option `--no-site-lisp' removes site-lisp directories
63 from load-path. -Q now implies this.
64
65 \f
66 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
67
68 ** emacsclient changes
69
70 *** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID can be used to open a
71 client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed. This works like the
72 --parent-id argument to Emacs.
73
74 *** If emacsclient shuts down as a result of Emacs signalling an
75 error, its exit status is 1.
76
77 ** Completion can cycle, depending on completion-cycle-threshold.
78
79 ** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.
80
81 +++
82 ** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
83
84 See the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the Emacs Manual for some
85 initial documentation.
86
87 To turn this on in any given buffer, set the buffer-local variable
88 `bidi-display-reordering' to a non-nil value. The default is nil.
89
90 The buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction', if non-nil,
91 forces each paragraph in the buffer to have its base direction
92 according to the value of this variable. Possible values are
93 `right-to-left' and `left-to-right'. If the value is nil (the
94 default), Emacs determines the base direction of each paragraph from
95 its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
96
97 The function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction' returns the actual
98 value of paragraph base direction at point.
99
100 Reordering of bidirectional text for display in Emacs is a "Full
101 bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional
102 Algorithm.
103
104 Note that some advanced display features, such as overlay strings and
105 `display' text properties, do not yet work correctly when
106 bidirectional text is reordered for display.
107
108 ** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
109 Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.
110
111 ** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
112 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose style. On a Gnome desktop, the default
113 is taken from the desktop settings.
114
115 ** GTK tool bars can be placed on the left/right or top/bottom of the frame.
116 The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this. It takes the values
117 top, left, right or bottom. The Options => Show/Hide menu has entries
118 for this.
119
120 ** ImageMagick support.
121 It is now possible to use the ImageMagick library to load many new
122 image formats in Emacs. By default, Emacs links with the ImageMagick
123 libraries if they are present at build time. To disable this, use
124 the configure option `--without-imagemagick'.
125
126 The new function `imagemagick-types' returns a list of image file
127 extensions that your installation of ImageMagick supports. The
128 function `imagemagick-register-types' enables ImageMagick support for
129 these image types, minus those listed in `imagemagick-types-inhibit'.
130
131 See the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual for more information.
132
133 ** The colors for selected text (the region face) are taken from the GTK
134 theme when Emacs is built with GTK.
135
136 ** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK. You can turn that
137 off by customizing x-gtk-use-system-tooltips.
138
139 ** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is built
140 with Xft. To change font, use X resource faceName, for example:
141 Emacs.pane.menubar.faceName: Courier-12
142 Set faceName to none and use font to use the old X fonts.
143
144 +++
145 ** Enhanced support for characters that have no glyphs in available fonts
146 If a character has no glyphs in any of the available fonts, Emacs by
147 default will display it either as a hexadecimal code in a box or as a
148 thin 1-pixel space. In addition to these two methods, Emacs can
149 display these characters as empty box, as an acronym, or not display
150 them at all. To change how these characters are displayed, customize
151 the variable `glyphless-char-display-control'.
152
153 On character terminals these methods are used for characters that
154 cannot be encoded by the `terminal-coding-system'.
155
156 ** On graphical displays, the mode-line no longer ends in dashes.
157
158 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
159 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
160
161 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up, and
162 optionally when copying files. To this end, copy-file has an extra
163 optional argument, and backup-buffer and friends include the SELinux
164 context in their return values.
165
166 *** The new functions file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
167 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
168
169 *** Tramp offers handlers for file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
170 for remote machines which support SELinux.
171
172 ** The function kill-emacs is now run upon receipt of the signals SIGTERM
173 and SIGHUP, and upon SIGINT in batch mode.
174
175 ** kill-emacs-hook is now also run in batch mode.
176
177 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
178 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) does not signal errors at top/bottom
179 of buffer at first key-press (instead moves to top/bottom of buffer)
180 when a new variable `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
181
182 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
183 scroll a line instead of full screen.
184
185 ** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
186 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.
187
188 ** Trash changes
189
190 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
191 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
192
193 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
194 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
195
196 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
197 for `list-colors-display'.
198
199 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
200 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
201 from a package repository at elpa.gnu.org.
202
203 *** `M-x list-packages' shows a list of packages, which can be
204 selected for installation.
205
206 *** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.
207
208 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded and activated
209 automatically when Emacs starts up. To disable this, set
210 `package-enable-at-startup' to nil. To change which packages are
211 loaded, customize `package-load-list'.
212
213 ** An Emacs Lisp testing tool is now included.
214 Emacs Lisp developers can use this tool to write automated tests for
215 their code. See the ERT info manual for details.
216
217 ** Custom Themes
218
219 *** `M-x customize-themes' lists Custom themes which can be enabled.
220
221 *** New option `custom-theme-load-path' is the load path for themes.
222 Emacs no longer looks for custom themes in `load-path'. The default
223 is to search in `custom-theme-directory', followed by a built-in theme
224 directory named "themes/" in `data-directory'.
225
226 *** New option `custom-safe-themes' records known-safe theme files.
227 If a theme is not in this list, Emacs queries before loading it, and
228 offers to save the theme to `custom-safe-themes' automatically. By
229 default, all themes included in Emacs are treated as safe.
230
231 ** The user option `remote-file-name-inhibit-cache' controls whether
232 the remote file-name cache is used for read access.
233
234 ** The standalone programs lib-src/digest-doc and sorted-doc have been
235 replaced with Lisp commands `doc-file-to-man' and `doc-file-to-info'.
236
237 ** The variable `focus-follows-mouse' now always defaults to nil.
238
239 \f
240 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
241
242 +++
243 ** There is a new command `count-words-region', which does what you expect.
244
245 ** completion-at-point now handles tags and semantic completion.
246
247 ** The default value of `backup-by-copying-when-mismatch' is now t.
248
249 ** The command `just-one-space' (C-SPC), if given a negative argument,
250 also deletes newlines around point.
251
252 ** Deletion changes
253
254 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
255 If non-nil, C-d, [delete], and DEL delete the region if it is active
256 and no prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', these commands
257 kill instead.
258
259 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to C-d and [delete].
260 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region'.
261 The command `delete-char' does not obey `delete-active-region'.
262
263 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
264 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
265 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; you
266 should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
267
268 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
269
270 ** Selection changes.
271
272 The default handling of clipboard and primary selections was changed
273 to conform with modern X applications. In short, most commands for
274 killing and yanking text now use the clipboard, while mouse commands
275 use the primary selection.
276
277 In the following, we provide a list of these changes, followed by a
278 list of steps to get the old behavior back if you prefer that.
279
280 *** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
281 *** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t.
282 Merely selecting text (e.g. with drag-mouse-1) no longer puts it in
283 the kill-ring. The selected text is put in the primary selection, if
284 the system possesses a separate primary selection facility (e.g. X).
285
286 **** `select-active-regions' also accepts a new value, `only'.
287 This means to only set the primary selection for temporarily active
288 regions (usually made by mouse-dragging or shift-selection);
289 "ordinary" active regions, such as those made with C-SPC followed by
290 point motion, do not alter the primary selection.
291
292 *** mouse-2 is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
293 This pastes from the primary selection, ignoring the kill-ring.
294 Previously, mouse-2 was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click'.
295
296 *** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.
297 *** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
298 Thus, commands that kill text or copy it to the kill-ring (such as
299 M-w, C-w, and C-k) also use the clipboard---not the primary selection.
300
301 **** The "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items in the "Edit" menu are now
302 exactly equivalent to, respectively M-w, C-w, and C-y.
303
304 **** Note that on MS-Windows, `x-select-enable-clipboard' was already
305 non-nil by default, as Windows does not support the primary selection
306 between applications.
307
308 *** To return to the previous behavior, do the following:
309
310 **** Change `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t.
311 **** Change `x-select-enable-primary' to t (on X only).
312 **** Change `x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
313 **** Bind `mouse-yank-at-click' to mouse-2.
314
315 *** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.
316
317 ** New command `rectangle-number-lines', bound to `C-x r N', numbers
318 the lines in the current rectangle. With an prefix argument, this
319 prompts for a number to count from and for a format string.
320
321 \f
322 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
323
324 ** The compile.el mode can be used without font-lock-mode.
325 `compilation-parse-errors-function' is now obsolete.
326
327 ** The Landmark game is now invoked with `landmark', not `lm'.
328
329 ** Prolog mode has been completely revamped, with lots of additional
330 functionality such as more intelligent indentation, electricty, support for
331 more variants, including Mercury, and a lot more.
332
333 ** shell-mode can track your cwd by reading it from your prompt.
334 Just set shell-dir-cookie-re to an appropriate regexp.
335
336 ** Modula-2 mode provides auto-indentation.
337
338 ** latex-electric-env-pair-mode keeps \begin..\end matched on the fly.
339
340 ** FIXME: xdg-open for browse-url and reportbug, 2010/08.
341
342 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse 7z archives.
343
344 ** browse-url has gotten a new variable that is used for mailto: URLs,
345 `browse-url-mailto-function', which defaults to `browse-url-mail'.
346
347 ** ERC changes
348
349 *** New vars `erc-autojoin-timing' and `erc-autojoin-delay'.
350 If the value of `erc-autojoin-timing' is 'ident, ERC autojoins after a
351 successful NickServ identification, or after `erc-autojoin-delay'
352 seconds. The default value, 'ident, means to autojoin immediately
353 after connecting.
354
355 *** New variable `erc-coding-system-precedence': If we use `undecided'
356 as the server coding system, this variable will then be consulted.
357 The default is to decode strings that can be decoded as utf-8 as
358 utf-8, and do the normal `undecided' decoding for the rest.
359
360 ** Eshell changes
361
362 *** The default value of eshell-directory-name is a directory named
363 "eshell" in `user-emacs-directory'. If the old "~/.eshell/" directory
364 exists, that is used instead.
365
366 ** In ido-mode, C-v is no longer bound to ido-toggle-vc.
367 The reason is that this interferes with cua-mode.
368
369 ** partial-completion-mode is now obsolete.
370 You can get a comparable behavior with:
371 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
372 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
373
374 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
375
376 ** server can listen on a specific port using the server-port option.
377
378 ** Calendar, Diary, and Appt
379
380 ---
381 *** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt package
382 by adding appt-make-list to diary-hook has been removed. Use appt-activate.
383
384 ---
385 *** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
386 appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
387 appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)
388
389 ---
390 *** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
391 view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries
392
393 ** Customize
394
395 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
396 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
397 To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil.
398
399 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
400 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
401
402 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
403
404 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
405 choose a color via list-colors-display.
406
407 ** Dired-x
408
409 *** dired-jump and dired-jump-other-window called with a prefix argument
410 read a file name from the minibuffer instead of using buffer-file-name.
411
412 ** Directory local variables can apply to file-less buffers.
413 For example, adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to your
414 .dir-locals.el file, will turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers.
415
416 ** SQL Mode enhancements.
417
418 *** Several variables have been marked as safe local variables. The
419 variables `sql-product', `sql-user', `sql-server', `sql-database' and
420 `sql-port' can now be safely used as local variables.
421
422 *** `sql-dialect' is a synonym for `sql-product'.
423
424 *** Added ability to login with a port on MySQL and Postgres.
425 The custom variable `sql-port' can be specified for connection to
426 MySQL or Postgres servers. By default, the port is not listed in
427 either login parameter, but will be added to the command line if set
428 to a non-zero value.
429
430 *** Dynamic selection of product in an SQL interactive session.
431 If you use `sql-product-interactive' to start an SQL interactive
432 session it uses the current value of `sql-product'. Preceding the
433 invocation with C-u will force it to ask for the product before
434 creating the session.
435
436 *** Renaming a SQL interactive buffer when it is created.
437 Prefixing the SQL interactive commands (`sql-sqlite', `sql-postgres',
438 `sql-mysql', etc.) with C-u will force a new interactive session to be
439 started and will prompt for the new name. This will reduce the need
440 for `sql-rename-buffer' is most common use cases.
441
442 *** Command continuation prompts in SQL interactive mode are suppressed.
443 Multiple line commands in SQL interactive mode, generate command
444 continuation prompts which needlessly confuse the output. These
445 prompts are now filtered out from the output. This change impacts
446 multiple line SQL statements entered with C-j between each line,
447 statements yanked into the buffer and statements sent with
448 `sql-send-*' functions.
449
450 *** Custom variables control prompting for login parameters.
451 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params'
452 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
453 connection is established.
454
455 The lists consist of the following five tokens: `user', `password',
456 `database', `server', and `port'. The order in which they appear is
457 the order in which they are prompted. The tokens symbols can be
458 replaced by a sublist starting with the token and followed by a plist
459 which control the prompting for values. The tokens `user',
460 `database', and `server' each can take a property of :default which
461 specifies the value to be used if no value is entered. The
462 `database', `server', and `port' tokens handle the :completion
463 property which restricts the entry to either one of the values in the
464 list or to one of the values returned by the function provided as the
465 property value. The `database' and `server' tokens also accept the
466 :file property whose value is a regexp to identify useful file names.
467
468 (user :default DEF)
469 (database :default DEF
470 :file FILEPAT
471 :completion COMPLETE)
472 (server :default DEF
473 :file FILEPAT
474 :completion COMPLETE)
475
476 The FILEPAT when :file is specified is a regexp that will match valid
477 file names (without the directory portion). Generally these strings
478 will be of the form ".+\.SUF" where SUF is the desired file suffix.
479
480 When :completion is specified, the COMPLETE corresponds to the
481 PREDICATE argument to the `completing-read' function (a list of
482 possible values or a function returning such a list).
483
484 *** Added `sql-connection-alist' to record login parameter values.
485 An alist for recording different username, database and server
486 values. If there are multiple databases that you connect to the
487 parameters needed can be stored in this alist.
488
489 For example, the following might be set in the user's init.el:
490
491 (setq sql-connection-alist
492 '((dev (sql-product 'sqlite)
493 (sql-database "/home/mmaug/dev.db"))
494 (prd (sql-product 'oracle)
495 (sql-user "mmaug")
496 (sql-database "iprd2a"))))
497
498 This defines two connections named "dev" and "prd".
499
500 *** Added `sql-connect' to use predefined connections.
501 Sets the login parameters based on the values in the
502 `sql-connection-alist' and start a SQL interactive session. Any
503 values specified in the connection will not be prompted for.
504
505 In the example above, if the user were to invoke M-x sql-connect, they
506 would be prompted for the connection. The user can respond with
507 either "dev" or "prd". The "dev" connection would connect to the
508 SQLite database without prompting; the "prd" connection would prompt
509 for the users password and then connect to the Oracle database.
510
511 **** Added SQL->Start... submenu when connections are defined.
512 When connections have been defined, there is a submenu available that
513 allows the user to select one to start a SQLi session. The "Start
514 SQLi Session" item moves to the "Start..." submenu when cnnections
515 have been defined.
516
517 **** Added "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
518 When a SQLi session is not started by a connection then
519 `sql-save-connection' will gather the login params specified for the
520 session and save them as a new connection.
521
522 *** List database objects and details.
523 Once a SQL interactive session has been started, you can get a list of
524 the objects in the database and see details of those objects. The
525 objects shown and the details available are product specific.
526
527 **** List all objects.
528 Using `M-x sql-list-all', `C-c C-l a' or selecting "SQL->List all
529 objects" will list all the objects in the database. At a minimum it
530 lists the tables and views in the database. Preceeding the command by
531 universal argument may provide additional details or extend the
532 listing to include other schemas objects. The list will appear in a
533 separate window in view-mode.
534
535 **** List Table details.
536 Using `M-x sql-list-table', `C-c C-l t' or selecting "SQL->List Table
537 details" will ask for the name of a database table or view and display
538 the list of columns in the relation. Preceeding the comand with the
539 universal argument may provide additional details about each column.
540 The list will appear in a separate window in view-mode.
541
542 *** Added option `sql-send-terminator'.
543 When set makes sure that each command sent with `sql-send-*' commands
544 are properly terminated and submitted to the SQL processor.
545
546 *** Added option `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
547 When set commands sent to Oracle's SQL*Plus are scanned for strings
548 starting with an ampersand and the user is asked for replacement text.
549 In general, the SQL*Plus option SCAN should always be set OFF under
550 SQL interactive mode and this option used in its place.
551
552 *** SQL interactive mode will replace tabs with spaces.
553 This prevents the comand interpretter for MySQL and Postgres from
554 listing object name completions when being sent text via
555 `sql-send-*' functions.
556
557 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
558
559 ** sregex.el is now obsolete, since rx.el is a strict superset.
560
561 ** s-region.el is now declared obsolete, superceded by shift-select-mode
562 enabled by default in 23.1.
563
564 ** gdb-mi
565
566 *** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
567 supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
568 threads simultaneously.
569
570 ** D-Bus
571
572 *** It is possible now, to access alternative buses than the default
573 system or session bus.
574
575 *** dbus-register-{service,method,property}
576 The -method and -property functions do not automatically register
577 names anymore.
578
579 The new function dbus-register-service registers a service known name
580 on a D-Bus without simultaneously registering a property or a method.
581
582 ** Tramp
583
584 *** There exists a new inline access method "ksu" (kerberized su).
585
586 *** The following access methods are discontinued: "ssh1_old",
587 "ssh2_old", "scp1_old", "scp2_old" and "fish".
588
589 ** VC and related modes
590
591 *** Support for pulling on distributed version control systems.
592 The vc-pull command runs a "pull" operation, if it is supported.
593 This updates the current branch from upstream. A prefix argument
594 means to prompt the user for specifics, e.g. a pull location.
595
596 **** vc-update is now an alias for vc-update.
597
598 **** Currently supported by Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
599
600 *** Support for merging on distributed version control systems.
601 The vc-merge command now runs a "merge" operation, if it is supported.
602 This merges another branch into the current one. This command prompts
603 the user for specifics, e.g. a merge source.
604
605 **** Currently supported by Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
606
607 ** Miscellaneous
608
609 ---
610 *** `copyright-fix-years' can optionally convert consecutive years to ranges.
611
612 \f
613 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
614
615 ** New global minor modes electric-pair-mode, electric-indent-mode,
616 and electric-layout-mode.
617
618 ** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.
619
620 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
621 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
622 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
623 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
624 secrets.
625
626 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
627 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
628
629 \f
630 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
631
632 ** `compose-mail' now accepts an optional 8th arg, RETURN-ACTION, and
633 passes it to the mail user agent function. This argument specifies an
634 action for returning to the caller after finishing with the mail.
635 This is currently used by Rmail to delete a mail window.
636
637 ** For mouse click input events in the text area, the Y pixel
638 coordinate in the POSITION list now counts from the top of the text
639 area, excluding any header line. Previously, it counted from the top
640 of the header line.
641
642 ** Remove obsolete name `e' (use `float-e' instead).
643
644 ** A backquote not followed by a space is now always treated as new-style.
645
646 ** Test for special mode-class was moved from view-file to view-buffer.
647 FIXME: This only says what was changed, but not what are the
648 programmer-visible consequences.
649
650 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function now turns the mode
651 ON unconditionally.
652
653 ** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
654 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and
655 `initial-frame-alist'. With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame'
656 checks the value of the variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to
657 determine whether to create a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively.
658 If the alist entries are added, they override the value of
659 `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
660
661 ** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
662 similar to the ones created by shift-selection. In previous Emacs
663 versions, these regions were delineated by `mouse-drag-overlay', which
664 has now been removed.
665
666 ** cl.el no longer provides `cl-19'.
667
668 ** The following functions and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
669 have been removed:
670 comint-kill-output, decompose-composite-char, outline-visible,
671 internal-find-face, internal-get-face, frame-update-faces,
672 frame-update-face-colors, x-frob-font-weight, x-frob-font-slant,
673 x-make-font-bold, x-make-font-demibold, x-make-font-unbold
674 x-make-font-italic, x-make-font-oblique, x-make-font-unitalic
675 x-make-font-bold-italic, mldrag-drag-mode-line, mldrag-drag-vertical-line,
676 iswitchb-default-keybindings, char-bytes, isearch-return-char,
677 make-local-hook
678
679 ** The following variables and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
680 have been removed:
681 checkdoc-minor-keymap, vc-header-alist, directory-sep-char,
682 font-lock-defaults-alist
683
684 ** The following files, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1, have been removed:
685 sc.el, x-menu.el, rnews.el, rnewspost.el
686
687 ** FIXME finder-inf.el changes.
688
689 \f
690 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
691
692 ** Removed the stack-trace-on-error variable.
693 Also the debugger can now "continue" from an error, which means it will jump
694 to the error handler as if the debugger had not been invoked instead of
695 jumping all the way to the top-level.
696
697 ** New function `read-char-choice' reads a restricted set of characters,
698 discarding any inputs not inside the set.
699
700 ** `image-library-alist' is renamed to `dynamic-library-alist'.
701 The variable is now used to load all kind of supported dynamic libraries,
702 not just image libraries. The previous name is still available as an
703 obsolete alias.
704
705 ** New variable syntax-propertize-function to set syntax-table properties.
706 Replaces font-lock-syntactic-keywords which are now obsolete.
707 This allows syntax-table properties to be set independently from font-lock:
708 just call syntax-propertize to make sure the text is propertized.
709 Together with this new variable come a new hook
710 syntax-propertize-extend-region-functions, as well as two helper functions:
711 syntax-propertize-via-font-lock to reuse old font-lock-syntactic-keywords
712 as-is; and syntax-propertize-rules which provides a new way to specify
713 syntactic rules.
714
715 ** New hook post-self-insert-hook run at the end of self-insert-command.
716
717 +++
718 ** Syntax tables support a new "comment style c" additionally to style b.
719 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
720 ** prog-mode is a new major-mode meant to be the parent of programming mode.
721 ** define-minor-mode accepts a new keyword :variable.
722
723 ** `delete-file' and `delete-directory' now accept optional arg TRASH.
724 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
725 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
726 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
727
728 ** buffer-substring-filters is obsoleted by filter-buffer-substring-functions.
729
730 ** New completion style `substring'.
731
732 ** `facemenu-read-color' is now an alias for `read-color'.
733 The command `read-color' now requires a match for a color name or RGB
734 triplet, instead of signalling an error if the user provides a invalid
735 input.
736
737 ** Tool-bars can display separators.
738 Tool-bar separators are handled like menu separators in menu-bar maps,
739 i.e. via menu entries of the form `(menu-item "--")'.
740
741 ** Image API
742
743 *** When the image type is one of listed in `image-animated-types'
744 and the number of sub-images in the image is more than one, then the
745 new function `create-animated-image' creates an animated image where
746 sub-images are displayed successively with the duration defined by
747 `image-animate-max-time' and the delay between sub-images defined
748 by the Graphic Control Extension of the image.
749
750 *** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.
751
752 ** XML and HTML parsing
753
754 *** If Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support (which is the default),
755 two new Emacs Lisp-level functions are defined:
756 `libxml-parse-html-region' (which will parse "real world" HTML)
757 and `libxml-parse-xml-region' (which parses XML). Both return an
758 Emacs Lisp parse tree.
759
760 FIXME: These should be front-ended by xml.el.
761
762 ** FIXME GnuTLS
763
764 ** Isearch
765
766 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
767
768 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
769 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
770 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
771 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
772 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
773 displayed with a "spinning bar".
774
775 \f
776 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
777
778 ** New configure.bat option --enable-checking builds emacs with extra
779 runtime checks.
780
781 ** New configure.bat option --distfiles to specify files to be
782 included in binary distribution
783
784 ** New make target `dist' to create binary disttribution for Windows
785 platform
786
787 \f
788 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
789 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
790
791 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
792 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
793 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
794 (at your option) any later version.
795
796 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
797 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
798 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
799 GNU General Public License for more details.
800
801 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
802 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
803
804 \f
805 Local variables:
806 mode: outline
807 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
808 end: