1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 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
7 You can narrow news to the specific version by calling
8 `view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
11 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
12 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
13 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
14 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
17 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.4
19 ** Emacs includes now support for loading image libraries on demand.
20 (Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
21 the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
22 setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
25 ** New translations of the Emacs Tutorial are available in the following
26 languages: Brasilian, Bulgarian, Chinese (both with simplified and
27 traditional characters), French, and Italian. Type `C-u C-h t' to
28 choose one of them in case your language setup doesn't automatically
31 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
32 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
33 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
36 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
38 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with elisp code.
41 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
42 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
46 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
47 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
48 place for game scores to be stored. This may be controlled by the
49 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
50 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
51 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
52 in each user's home directory.
55 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
56 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
60 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
62 The ELisp reference manual in Info format is built as part of the
63 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
64 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
65 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
68 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
71 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
72 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
73 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
74 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
76 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
79 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
82 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
85 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
86 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
89 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
92 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
95 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
96 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
99 * Changes in Emacs 21.4
101 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
103 ** In Outline mode, hide-body no longer hides lines at the top
104 of the file that precede the first header line.
107 ** `set-auto-mode' now gives the interpreter magic line (if present)
108 precedence over the file name. Likewise an <?xml or <!DOCTYPE declaration
109 will give the buffer XML or SGML mode, based on the new var
113 ** New function `looking-back' checks whether a regular expression matches
114 the text before point. Specifying the LIMIT argument bounds how far
115 back the match can start; this is a way to keep it from taking too long.
118 ** New functions `make-progress-reporter', `progress-reporter-update',
119 `progress-reporter-force-update' and `progress-reporter-done' provide
120 a simple and efficient way of printing progress messages to the user.
123 ** In Enriched mode, `set-left-margin' and `set-right-margin' are now
124 by default bound to `C-c [' and `C-c ]' instead of the former `C-c C-l'
128 ** In processing a local variables list, Emacs strips the prefix and
129 suffix are from every line before processing all the lines.
132 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
133 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
135 ** global-whitespace-mode is a new alias for whitespace-global-mode.
138 ** There are now two new regular expression operators, \_< and \_>,
139 for matching the beginning and end of a symbol. A symbol is a
140 non-empty sequence of either word or symbol constituent characters, as
141 specified by the syntax table.
143 ** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
144 You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
145 existing values. For example:
147 emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
149 will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
150 irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
152 ** New features in evaluation commands
155 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
156 the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
158 *** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
159 in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
160 by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
161 function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
162 `eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
164 ** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
167 ** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
168 in the current input method to input a character at point.
170 ** Convenient commands to switch buffers in a cyclic order are C-x <left>
171 (prev-buffer) and C-x <right> (next-buffer).
173 ** Commands winner-redo and winner-undo, from winner.el, are now bound to
174 C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an incompatible change.
176 ** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
177 arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
178 default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
179 `help-default-arg-highlight'.
182 ** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
183 option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
184 except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
185 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
186 overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
188 The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
189 support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
191 `comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
192 read-only and field properties. Hence, it always kill entire
193 lines, including any prompts.
195 `comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
196 read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
197 part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
198 and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
199 not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
200 `kill-region' if read-only are involved: it copies the text to the
201 kill-ring, but does not delete it.
203 ** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
204 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
206 ** Telnet now prompts you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
209 ** New command line option -Q.
211 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
212 the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, the blinking
213 cursor, and the fancy startup screen.
215 ** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
216 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
218 ** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
219 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
220 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
222 ** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
223 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
224 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
225 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it stays at
226 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
227 just put point at the end of the buffer and it stays there. This
228 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior may
231 If you are sure that the file will only change by growing at the end,
232 then you can tail the file more efficiently by using the new minor
233 mode Auto Revert Tail mode. The function `auto-revert-tail-mode'
236 ** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
237 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
238 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
239 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
240 mode only reverts a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
241 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
242 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
243 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
244 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
246 ** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
247 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
248 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
249 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
250 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
252 ** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
253 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to `T' in Buffer Menu
256 ** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
258 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
259 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
260 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
261 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
263 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
264 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
265 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
267 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
268 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
269 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
270 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
271 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
273 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
275 ** Compilation mode enhancements:
278 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
279 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
280 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
281 subprocesses inherit.
283 ** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
285 *** There's a new separate package grep.el.
287 *** M-x grep has been adapted to new compile
289 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
290 can be saved and automatically revisited with the new Grep mode.
292 *** Grep commands now have their own submenu and customization group.
294 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
295 `grep-scroll-output' can be used to override the corresponding
296 compilation mode settings for grep commands.
298 *** New option `grep-highlight-matches' highlightes matches in *grep*
299 buffer. It uses a special feature of some grep programs which accept
300 --color option to output markers around matches. When going to the next
301 match with `next-error' the exact match is highlighted in the source
302 buffer. Otherwise, if `grep-highlight-matches' is nil, the whole
303 source line is highlighted.
305 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
306 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
307 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
308 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
309 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
310 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
313 ** New options `next-error-highlight' and `next-error-highlight-no-select'
314 specify the method of highlighting of the corresponding source line
315 in new face `next-error'.
317 ** A new minor mode `next-error-follow-minor-mode' can be used in
318 compilation-mode, grep-mode, occur-mode, and diff-mode (i.e. all the
319 modes that can use `next-error'). In this mode, cursor motion in the
320 buffer causes automatic display in another window of the corresponding
321 matches, compilation errors, etc. This minor mode can be toggled with
324 ** M-x diff uses diff-mode instead of compilation-mode.
326 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
327 resync points in both windows.
329 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
330 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
331 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
332 using strokes as an input method.
336 *** Gnus now includes Sieve and PGG
337 Sieve is a library for managing Sieve scripts. PGG is a library to handle
340 *** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
341 See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "Oort Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
346 *** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, desktop-save-mode. Variable
347 desktop-enable is obsolete. Customize desktop-save-mode to enable desktop
350 *** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
354 - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
355 - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
356 - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
359 *** New customizable variables:
360 - desktop-save. Determins whether the desktop should be saved when it is
362 - desktop-file-name-format.
363 - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
364 - desktop-locals-to-save.
365 - desktop-globals-to-clear.
366 - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp.
368 *** New command line option --no-desktop
371 - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
372 - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
375 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
376 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
377 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
378 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
379 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
380 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
383 ** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
385 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
386 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
387 % emacsclient -s foo file1
388 % emacsclient -s bar file2
391 ** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
392 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
393 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
394 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
395 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
397 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' may be set to nil to
398 revert to the old behaviour of continuing such lines.
401 ** The buffer boundaries (i.e. first and last line in the buffer) may
402 now be marked with angle bitmaps in the fringes. In addition, up and
403 down arrow bitmaps may be shown at the top and bottom of the left or
404 right fringe if the window can be scrolled in either direction.
406 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
407 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
408 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
410 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
411 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp.
413 Value may also be an alist which specifies the presense and position
414 of each bitmap individually.
416 For example, ((top . left) (t . right)) places the top angle bitmap
417 in left fringe, the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both
418 arrow bitmaps in right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the
419 left fringe, but no arrow bitmaps, use ((top . left) (bottom . left)).
421 ** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
422 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
423 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
424 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
425 keyboard oriented alternative.
427 ** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
428 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
429 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
430 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
431 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
433 ** New commands `scan-buf-next-region' and `scan-buf-previous-region'
434 move to the start of the next (previous, respectively) region with
435 non-nil help-echo property and display any help found there in the
436 echo area, using `display-local-help'.
439 ** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
440 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
441 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
442 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
443 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
444 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
445 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node').
447 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
448 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
451 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
452 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
453 an interactively callable function.
458 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
459 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
460 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
461 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
462 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
464 The following values are supported:
466 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
480 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
483 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
484 your .emacs will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
485 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
487 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
489 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
490 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
491 all identifiers ending in "_t" under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
492 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
494 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
495 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
497 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i. Most
498 SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
499 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
501 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
502 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
503 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
504 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
505 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
508 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
509 called with the -E command line argument to use the operating system
510 credentials to authenticate the user.
512 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
513 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
514 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
516 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
517 Keyword higlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
519 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
520 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
523 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
524 appropriate sql-interactive-mode wrapper for the current setting of
527 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
528 with special modes such as Tar mode.
530 ** Enhancements to apropos commands:
532 *** The apropos commands now accept a list of words to match.
533 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
534 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
537 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
538 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
539 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
540 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
541 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
545 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
546 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
547 the operating system or your X server.
549 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
550 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
551 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
553 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
554 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
556 ** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
557 `insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
559 ** A prefix argument of C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-printifies the
560 list starting after point.
564 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
565 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
566 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
568 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
569 with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
572 *** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
573 of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
576 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
577 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
578 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
579 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
580 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
581 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
584 *** Dired's v command now runs external viewers to view certain
585 types of files. The variable `dired-view-command-alist' controls
586 what external viewers to use and when.
588 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
589 into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
594 *** Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode. The mode toggling
595 command is bound to M-o. A new command dired-mark-omitted, bound to M-O,
596 marks omitted files. The variable dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the
597 mode toggling function instead.
601 *** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
602 with the number appended to the *info* buffer name.
604 *** Regexp isearch (C-M-s and C-M-r) can search through multiple nodes.
605 Failed isearch wraps to the top/final node.
607 *** New search commands: `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S),
608 `Info-search-backward', and `Info-search-next' which repeats the last
609 search without prompting for a new search string.
611 *** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
613 *** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
614 from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
616 *** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
617 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
620 *** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
621 the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
622 arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
624 *** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
625 and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
627 *** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
628 references and following them calls `browse-url'.
631 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
632 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
633 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
635 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
636 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
637 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
638 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
641 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
644 *** Info-index offers completion.
646 ** Support for the SQLite interpreter has been added to sql.el by calling
650 *** The new command bibtex-url browses a URL for the BibTeX entry at
651 point (bound to C-c C-l and mouse-2, RET on clickable fields).
653 *** The new command bibtex-entry-update (bound to C-c C-u) updates
654 an existing BibTeX entry.
656 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
658 *** bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries can take values `plain',
659 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
660 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
661 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
662 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
663 bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil.
665 *** If the new variable bibtex-parse-keys-fast is non-nil,
666 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
668 *** If the new variable bibtex-autoadd-commas is non-nil,
669 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
671 *** The new variable bibtex-autofill-types contains a list of entry
672 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
674 *** The new command bibtex-complete completes word fragment before
675 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
677 *** The new commands bibtex-find-entry and bibtex-find-crossref
678 locate entries and crossref'd entries. Crossref fields are clickable
679 (bound to mouse-2, RET).
681 *** In BibTeX mode the command fill-paragraph (bound to M-q) fills
682 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
684 *** The new command bibtex-validate-globally checks for duplicate keys
685 in multiple BibTeX files. See also the new variables bibtex-files
686 and bibtex-file-path.
688 *** The new command bibtex-find-entry-globally searches BibTeX entries
689 in multiple BibTeX files.
691 *** The new command bibtex-copy-summary-as-kill pushes summary
692 of BibTeX entry to kill ring (bound to C-c C-t).
694 ** When display margins are present in a window, the fringes are now
695 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
696 at the edges of the window.
698 ** A window may now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
699 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
701 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
702 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
703 or when the frame is resized.
705 ** New functions frame-current-scroll-bars and window-current-scroll-bars.
707 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
708 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
711 ** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
712 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
713 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
715 ** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
717 ** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which may
718 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
720 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
721 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
723 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
725 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
726 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
728 ** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
729 Emacs prompts her for confirmation.
731 ** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
733 ** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
734 and other common debugger commands.
738 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
739 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
742 With the more advanced option: `recentf-filename-handler', you can
743 specify a function that transforms filenames handled by recentf. For
744 example, if set to `file-truename', the same file will not be in the
745 recent list with different symbolic links.
747 To follow naming convention, `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-flag'
748 and `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag' respectively replace the
749 misnamed options `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p' and
750 `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The old names remain available as
751 aliases, but have been marked obsolete.
753 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
758 You can now put the init files .emacs and .emacs_SHELL under
759 ~/.emacs.d or directly under ~. Emacs will find them in either place.
761 ** partial-completion-mode now does partial completion on directory names.
763 ** skeleton.el now supports using - to mark the skeleton-point without
764 interregion interaction. @ has reverted to only setting
765 skeleton-positions and no longer sets skeleton-point. Skeletons
766 which used @ to mark skeleton-point independent of _ should now use -
767 instead. The updated skeleton-insert docstring explains these new
768 features along with other details of skeleton construction.
772 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.82. There have been major changes since
773 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
776 ** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
777 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given elisp
778 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
780 ** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
783 ** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
784 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
785 appears between the position information and the major mode.
787 ** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
788 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
791 ** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
792 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
793 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
794 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
798 ** There is a new user option `mail-default-directory' that allows you
799 to specify the value of `default-directory' for mail buffers. This
800 directory is used for auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to
804 ** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
805 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
806 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you can in fact alter the
809 ** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
810 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
812 ** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
816 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
818 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
819 ps-print, provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF fonts.
820 See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
823 ** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
824 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
825 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
827 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
828 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
829 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories are
830 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
831 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
833 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
834 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
835 t, and the status is shown.
837 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
838 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
841 ** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
842 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
843 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
846 ** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
847 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
848 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
849 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
850 automatically according to the locale.)
852 ** Indian support has been updated.
853 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
854 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
855 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
859 ** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
860 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
861 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
862 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
863 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
867 ** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
868 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
869 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
872 ** Many new coding systems are available by loading the `code-pages'
873 library. These include complete versions of most of those in
874 codepage.el, based on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now
875 obsolete and is used only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. windows-1252
876 and windows-1251 are preloaded since the former is so common and the
877 latter is used by GNU locales.
879 ** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
880 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
881 single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
882 turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
883 sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
884 system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
885 interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
886 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
887 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
888 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
889 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
890 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
892 ** New variable `utf-translate-cjk-unicode-range' controls which
893 Unicode characters to translate in `utf-translate-cjk-mode'.
895 ** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
896 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
897 fontset appropriately.
899 ** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
903 ** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
904 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
905 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
906 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
907 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
908 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
909 mule-unicode-... ones.
911 By default this translation happens automatically on encoding.
912 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
913 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
916 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
917 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
918 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
919 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
920 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
922 ** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
923 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
924 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
925 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
927 ** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
928 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
929 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
933 ** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
934 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
935 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
938 ** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
939 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+, Mac and W32).
942 ** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif now pops down when pressing
943 ESC, like they do for Gtk+, Mac and W32.
946 ** The menu item "Open File..." has been split into two items, "New File..."
947 and "Open File...". "Open File..." now opens only existing files. This is
948 to support existing GUI file selection dialogs better.
951 ** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, Mac, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
952 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
955 ** For Gtk+ version 2.4, you can make Emacs use the old file dialog
956 by setting the variable `use-old-gtk-file-dialog' to t. Default is to use
960 ** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
961 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
962 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
966 ** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
967 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
969 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
970 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
971 program files that include other program files.
973 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
974 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
978 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
979 when Emacs visits them.
982 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
984 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
985 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
986 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
988 ** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
989 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
990 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
991 and use the more appropriately result.
994 ** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
995 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
996 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
997 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
999 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
1000 hscrolling scrolls the window when point gets too close to the
1001 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
1002 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
1003 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
1004 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
1006 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
1007 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
1010 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
1012 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
1013 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
1014 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
1015 TeX commands to use at startup.
1016 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
1017 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
1019 *** New major mode doctex-mode for *.dtx files.
1022 ** New display feature: focus follows the mouse from one Emacs window
1023 to another, even within a frame. If you set the variable
1024 mouse-autoselect-window to non-nil value, moving the mouse to a
1025 different Emacs window will select that window (minibuffer window can
1026 be selected only when it is active). The default is nil, so that this
1027 feature is not enabled.
1029 ** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
1030 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
1031 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
1032 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
1033 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
1037 ** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
1038 description various information about a character, including its
1039 encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
1040 widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
1041 clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
1044 ** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
1045 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
1046 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
1047 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
1048 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
1050 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
1051 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
1052 in Indented-Text mode.
1054 ** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
1055 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
1056 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
1058 ** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
1059 `replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
1060 where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
1061 time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
1062 `query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
1063 to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
1064 All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
1065 replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
1066 can be edited for each replacement.
1069 ** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
1070 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
1071 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
1072 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
1073 also disable mouse highlighting.
1075 ** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
1076 shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
1077 variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
1080 ** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
1081 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
1082 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
1083 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
1084 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
1087 ** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
1088 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
1089 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
1093 ** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
1094 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
1095 the mode line of the currently selected window.
1097 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
1098 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
1101 ** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
1102 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
1103 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
1104 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
1105 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
1106 current date and time, current line and column number in the
1110 ** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
1113 ** Emacs can now indicate in the mode-line the presence of new e-mail
1114 in a directory or in a file. See the documentation of the user option
1115 `display-time-mail-directory'.
1118 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
1121 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
1122 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
1123 argument it toggles the mode.
1125 Turning off PC-Selection mode restores the global key bindings
1126 that were replaced by turning on the mode.
1129 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
1130 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
1131 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
1132 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
1133 `inhibit-splash-screen').
1135 ** Changes in support of colors on character terminals
1138 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
1139 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
1140 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
1141 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
1142 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
1143 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
1144 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
1145 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
1146 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
1149 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
1150 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
1151 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
1152 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
1153 all of these colors.
1156 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
1157 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
1158 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
1159 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
1163 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
1166 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
1168 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
1169 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
1170 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
1171 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
1174 ** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
1178 ** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
1179 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
1180 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
1181 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
1184 ** Changes in C-h bindings:
1186 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
1188 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
1191 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
1192 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
1194 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
1195 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
1197 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
1199 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
1200 run by the key sequence.
1202 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
1203 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
1206 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
1207 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
1209 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
1210 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
1212 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
1213 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
1215 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
1216 new-kill-line is on C-k
1219 ** Vertical scrolling is now possible within incremental search.
1220 To enable this feature, customize the new user option
1221 `isearch-allow-scroll'. User written commands which satisfy stringent
1222 constraints can be marked as "scrolling commands". See the Emacs manual
1226 ** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
1227 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
1228 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
1229 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
1232 ** C-y in incremental search now grabs the next line if point is already
1233 at the end of a line.
1236 ** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
1237 Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
1238 and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
1241 ** M-% typed in isearch mode invokes `query-replace' or
1242 `query-replace-regexp' (depending on search mode) with the current
1243 search string used as the string to replace.
1246 ** Isearch no longer adds `isearch-resume' commands to the command
1247 history by default. To enable this feature, customize the new
1248 user option `isearch-resume-in-command-history'.
1251 ** New user option `history-delete-duplicates'.
1252 If set to t when adding a new history element, all previous identical
1253 elements are deleted.
1256 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
1257 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
1258 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
1259 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
1262 ** Occur, Info, and comint-derived modes now support using
1263 M-x font-lock-mode to toggle fontification. The variable
1264 `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable fontification,
1265 remove `turn-on-font-lock' from `Info-mode-hook'.
1268 ** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
1269 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep automatically
1270 detects whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
1271 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
1272 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
1273 command lines to be used than was possible before.
1276 ** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
1277 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
1278 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
1279 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
1280 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
1281 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
1282 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
1285 ** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
1286 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
1287 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
1288 under the "[State]" button.
1290 ** The new customization type `float' specifies numbers with floating
1291 point (no integers are allowed).
1294 ** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
1295 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
1298 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
1300 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
1301 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
1302 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
1303 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
1304 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
1306 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
1307 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
1308 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
1311 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
1314 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
1315 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
1316 Set gud-jdb-use-classpath to nil.
1318 Added Customization Variables
1320 *** gud-jdb-command-name. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
1322 *** gud-jdb-use-classpath. Allows selection of java source file searching
1323 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan gud-jdb-directories for
1324 java sources (previous method).
1326 *** gud-jdb-directories. List of directories to scan and search for java
1327 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if gud-jdb-use-classpath
1332 *** The STARTTLS elisp wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
1333 instead of the OpenSSL based "starttls" tool. For backwards
1334 compatibility, it prefers "starttls", but you can toggle
1335 `starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
1338 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
1341 ** hide-ifdef-mode now uses overlays rather than selective-display
1342 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
1343 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
1346 ** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
1347 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
1348 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
1349 is only rarely needed.
1353 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
1355 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
1356 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
1357 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
1358 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
1360 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
1362 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
1363 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
1364 refontification takes place.
1367 ** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times. If
1368 you hit M-C-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h (mark-paragraph), or
1369 C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region extends each time, so
1370 you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC, for example.
1371 This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you bind that to
1375 ** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
1376 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
1377 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
1378 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
1379 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
1382 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
1383 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
1384 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
1387 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
1388 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
1389 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
1393 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
1394 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
1395 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
1398 ** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1399 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1403 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
1404 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
1405 affects the initial frame.
1408 ** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
1409 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
1410 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
1414 ** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1415 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1416 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1417 directory listing into a buffer.
1420 ** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
1421 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
1423 ** Unexpected yanking of text due to accidental clicking on the mouse
1424 wheel button (typically mouse-2) during wheel scrolling is now avoided.
1425 This behaviour can be customized via the mouse-wheel-click-event and
1426 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
1429 ** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1430 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1431 may mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1432 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1433 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1434 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1435 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1436 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1439 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
1440 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
1441 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
1442 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
1443 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
1446 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
1447 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
1450 ** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
1451 of the recognized cursor types.
1454 ** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
1455 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
1456 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
1459 ** There is a new calendar package, icalendar.el, that can be used to
1460 convert Emacs diary entries to/from the iCalendar format.
1463 ** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
1464 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
1465 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
1466 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
1467 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
1468 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
1469 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
1470 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
1471 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
1474 ** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
1475 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
1476 count backward from the end of the year.
1479 ** The new Calendar function `calendar-goto-iso-week' (g w)
1480 prompts for a year and a week number, and moves to the first
1481 day of that ISO week.
1484 ** The functions `holiday-easter-etc' and `holiday-advent' now take
1485 arguments, and only report on the specified holiday rather than all.
1486 This makes customization of the variable `christian-holidays' simpler,
1487 but existing customizations may need to be updated.
1489 ** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
1490 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
1491 and `diary-header-line-format'.
1494 ** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed: use
1495 the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
1496 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
1497 appt-issue-message, appt-visible, and appt-msg-window.
1499 ** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
1500 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
1501 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
1502 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
1508 *** The key C-x C-q no longer checks files in or out, it only changes
1509 the read-only state of the buffer (toggle-read-only). We made this
1510 change because we held a poll and found that many users were unhappy
1511 with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this behavior, you
1512 can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your .emacs:
1514 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
1516 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
1519 *** There is a new user option `vc-cvs-global-switches' that allows
1520 you to specify switches that are passed to any CVS command invoked
1521 by VC. These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which
1522 means they are inserted before the command name. For example, this
1523 allows you to specify a compression level using the "-z#" option for
1526 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
1531 *** When comparing directories.
1532 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
1533 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
1534 from one directory to another.
1537 *** When comparing files or buffers.
1538 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
1539 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
1540 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
1543 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
1544 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
1545 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
1550 *** New regular expressions features
1552 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
1553 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
1554 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
1555 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
1556 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
1557 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
1558 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
1559 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
1560 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
1561 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
1562 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
1564 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in Gcc.
1565 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
1566 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
1569 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
1570 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
1571 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
1572 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
1574 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
1575 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
1576 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
1578 *** New language parsing features
1580 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
1581 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
1583 **** The gnucc __attribute__ keyword is now recognised and ignored.
1585 **** New language HTML.
1586 Title and h1, h2, h3 are tagged. Also, tags are generated when name= is
1587 used inside an anchor and whenever id= is used.
1589 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
1590 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
1591 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
1593 **** New language Lua.
1594 All functions are tagged.
1596 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
1597 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
1598 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
1601 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
1603 **** New language PHP.
1604 Tags are functions, classes and defines.
1605 If the --members option is specified to etags, tags are variables also.
1607 **** New default keywords for TeX.
1608 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
1611 *** Honour #line directives.
1612 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
1613 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
1614 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
1615 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
1616 writes tags pointing to the source file.
1618 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
1619 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
1620 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
1621 reads from standard input and marks the produced tags as belonging to
1627 *** Font lock support.
1628 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
1629 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
1630 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
1631 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
1632 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
1633 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
1635 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
1636 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
1637 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
1638 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
1639 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
1640 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
1641 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
1642 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
1643 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
1645 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
1646 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
1647 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
1648 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
1649 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
1650 take the better part of a minute.
1652 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
1653 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
1654 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
1655 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
1656 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
1657 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
1659 **** Support for documentation comments.
1660 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
1661 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
1662 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
1663 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
1665 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
1666 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
1667 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
1668 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1670 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
1671 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
1672 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
1673 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
1676 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
1677 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
1678 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
1679 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
1680 not as configurable as it ought to be.
1682 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
1683 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
1684 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
1685 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
1686 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
1688 *** Support for the AWK language.
1689 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
1690 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
1691 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
1694 **** Indentation Engine
1695 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
1697 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
1698 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
1699 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
1700 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
1701 definition, or structured statement.
1703 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
1704 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
1705 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
1707 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
1708 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
1709 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
1710 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
1713 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
1714 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
1715 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
1716 the AWK language itself.
1718 **** Comment Commands
1719 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
1720 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
1722 **** Movement Commands
1723 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
1724 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
1725 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
1727 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
1728 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
1729 recognise these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
1732 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
1733 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
1734 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
1735 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
1737 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
1738 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
1739 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
1740 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
1741 composition-close, and incomposition.
1743 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
1744 The functions c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forward can be
1745 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
1746 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1748 *** Better control over require-final-newline.
1749 The variable that controls how to handle a final newline when the
1750 buffer is saved, require-final-newline, is now customizable on a
1751 per-mode basis through c-require-final-newline. The default is to set
1752 it to t only in languages that mandate a final newline in source files
1753 (C, C++ and Objective-C).
1755 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
1756 The elements in the syntactic context returned by c-guess-basic-syntax
1757 and stored in c-syntactic-context has been changed somewhat to allow
1758 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
1759 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
1761 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
1765 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
1767 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
1770 This change might affect code that call c-guess-basic-syntax directly,
1771 and custom lineup functions if they use c-syntactic-context. However,
1772 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
1773 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
1775 *** API changes for derived modes.
1776 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
1777 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
1778 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
1779 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
1780 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
1782 **** New language variable system.
1783 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
1785 **** New initialization functions.
1786 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
1787 give better control: c-basic-common-init, c-font-lock-init, and
1788 c-init-language-vars.
1790 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
1791 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
1792 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
1793 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
1795 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
1796 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
1797 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
1798 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
1799 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1801 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
1802 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
1803 its substatement. E.g:
1809 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
1811 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
1812 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
1813 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
1814 variable c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros. A new syntactic symbol
1815 cpp-define-intro has been added to control the initial indentation
1818 **** New lineup function c-lineup-cpp-define.
1819 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
1820 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
1821 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
1822 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
1823 much line c-lineup-dont-change, which was used earlier, but handles
1824 empty lines within the macro better.
1826 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
1827 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
1828 c-context-line-break and c-context-open-line.
1830 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1831 c-backslash-region tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
1832 variable c-backslash-max-column which put a limit on how far out
1833 backslashes can be moved.
1835 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1836 This is controlled by the new variable c-auto-align-backslashes. It
1837 affects c-context-line-break, c-context-open-line and newlines
1838 inserted in auto-newline mode.
1840 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
1841 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
1842 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
1843 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
1844 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
1845 backslash) in the macro.
1847 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
1848 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
1849 the variable c-indent-comment-alist. The indentation behavior based
1850 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
1851 and #endif but indentation to comment-column in most other cases
1852 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
1854 *** New function c-context-open-line.
1855 It's the open-line equivalent of c-context-line-break.
1857 *** New lineup functions
1859 **** c-lineup-string-cont
1860 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
1863 result = prefix + "A message "
1864 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
1866 **** c-lineup-cascaded-calls
1867 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
1869 **** c-lineup-knr-region-comment
1870 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
1871 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
1873 **** c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg
1874 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks. Contributed by Kevin
1877 **** c-lineup-argcont
1878 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
1879 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1881 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
1882 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
1883 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
1884 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
1885 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
1886 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
1888 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
1889 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
1890 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
1891 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
1894 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
1895 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
1896 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
1897 happen when macros are involved.
1899 *** Improved the way c-indent-exp chooses the block to indent.
1900 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
1901 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
1902 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
1903 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
1904 line is left untouched.
1906 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
1907 The function c-toggle-syntactic-indentation can be used to toggle
1908 syntactic indentation.
1910 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
1911 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
1914 ** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
1915 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
1918 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1919 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1920 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1923 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
1924 filling can break lines. We provide two sample predicates,
1925 fill-single-word-nobreak-p and fill-french-nobreak-p.
1928 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1929 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry always
1930 starts a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1933 ** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
1934 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
1935 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
1936 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
1937 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
1938 from the file name or buffer contents.
1941 ** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
1944 ** Lisp mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
1947 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
1950 ** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
1951 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
1952 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
1955 ** F90 mode has new navigation commands `f90-end-of-block',
1956 `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block', `f90-previous-block'.
1958 ** F90 mode now has support for hs-minor-mode (hideshow).
1959 It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
1963 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
1964 to support use of font-lock.
1967 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
1968 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
1972 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
1973 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
1974 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
1977 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
1978 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
1979 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
1980 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
1981 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
1982 candidate is a directory.
1985 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
1986 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
1987 it remains unchanged.
1989 ** Enhanced visual feedback in *Completions* buffer.
1991 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
1992 have in common and where they begin to differ.
1994 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
1995 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
1996 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
1997 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
1998 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
1999 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
2000 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
2001 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
2004 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
2005 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
2006 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
2009 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
2012 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
2013 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
2014 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
2017 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
2018 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
2021 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
2022 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
2023 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
2024 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
2025 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
2026 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
2027 against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
2030 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
2031 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
2032 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
2033 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
2034 sound support for those formats.
2037 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
2038 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
2041 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
2042 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
2043 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
2044 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
2047 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
2048 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in much
2049 the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now adds these
2050 colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu for the
2051 default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground), and uses
2052 some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
2053 `list-colors-display' shows the list of System color names, in case
2054 you wish to use them in other faces.
2057 ** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
2058 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
2059 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
2060 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
2062 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
2063 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
2066 ** vc-annotate-mode enhancements
2068 In vc-annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
2069 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
2070 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
2072 P: annotates the previous revision
2073 N: annotates the next revision
2074 J: annotates the revision at line
2075 A: annotates the revision previous to line
2076 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
2077 L: shows the log of the revision at line
2078 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
2081 ** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
2082 between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
2086 ** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
2087 anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
2088 "checkout", "update" or "commit". That means using cvs diff options
2092 * New modes and packages in Emacs 21.4
2094 ** The new package conf-mode.el handles thousands of configuration files, with
2095 varying syntaxes for comments (;, #, //, /* */ or !), assignment (var = value,
2096 var : value, var value or keyword var value) and sections ([section] or
2097 section { }). Many files under /etc/, or with suffixes like .cf through
2098 .config, .properties (Java), .desktop (KDE/Gnome), .ini and many others are
2101 ** The new package password.el provide a password cache and expiring mechanism.
2103 ** The new package dns-mode.el add syntax highlight of DNS master files.
2104 The key binding C-c C-s (`dns-mode-soa-increment-serial') can be used
2105 to increment the SOA serial.
2107 ** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
2108 source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
2110 ** The library tree-widget.el provides a new widget to display a set
2111 of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
2112 well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
2114 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on Dired
2115 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
2117 ** The thumbs.el package allows you to preview image files as thumbnails
2118 and can be invoked from a Dired buffer.
2120 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
2122 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
2125 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
2126 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
2128 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
2131 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2133 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
2134 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
2135 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
2136 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
2139 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2141 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
2142 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
2143 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
2144 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
2145 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
2146 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
2148 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
2149 rectangle highlighting: Use S-return to start a rectangle, extend it
2150 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
2151 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
2153 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
2154 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
2155 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
2156 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
2157 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
2158 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
2159 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
2161 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
2162 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
2163 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
2165 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
2166 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
2168 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
2169 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
2170 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
2171 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
2173 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
2174 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
2175 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you may customize the
2176 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
2178 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
2179 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
2180 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
2181 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
2183 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
2184 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
2185 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
2186 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
2187 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
2189 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
2190 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
2191 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
2192 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
2193 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
2194 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
2196 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
2197 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
2198 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
2199 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
2200 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
2201 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
2202 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
2203 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
2204 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
2208 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
2209 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
2211 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
2212 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
2213 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
2214 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
2216 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
2219 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
2220 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
2221 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
2222 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
2223 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
2226 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
2227 the keyboard macro ring.
2229 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
2230 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
2232 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
2233 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
2234 this behaviour via the variable kmacro-call-repeat-key and
2235 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
2237 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
2238 C-x C-k SPC steps through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
2239 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
2242 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
2243 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
2244 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
2245 C-c C-i b, and so on.
2247 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2249 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
2250 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
2251 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
2252 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
2253 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
2254 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
2257 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2259 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
2260 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
2261 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
2262 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
2265 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
2267 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
2268 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
2269 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
2270 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
2271 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
2272 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
2273 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
2274 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
2275 `rsync' to do the copying).
2277 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
2281 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
2282 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
2283 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
2284 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
2285 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method may
2286 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
2289 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
2290 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
2291 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
2295 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
2296 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
2297 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
2298 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
2300 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
2303 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
2304 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
2306 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
2307 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
2308 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
2309 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
2310 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
2311 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
2314 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
2315 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
2316 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
2317 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
2320 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
2321 Emacs will still work on terminals that require magic cookies in order
2322 to use standout mode, however they will not be able to display
2323 mode-lines in inverse-video.
2326 ** cplus-md.el has been removed to avoid problems with Custom.
2328 ** New package benchmark.el contains simple support for convenient
2329 timing measurements of code (including the garbage collection component).
2331 ** The new Lisp library fringe.el controls the appearance of fringes.
2333 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
2334 configuration files.
2336 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4
2339 ** read-from-minibuffer now accepts an additional argument KEEP-ALL
2340 saying to put all inputs in the history list, even empty ones.
2343 ** The new variable search-spaces-regexp controls how to search
2344 for spaces in a regular expression. If it is non-nil, it should be a
2345 regular expression, and any series of spaces stands for that regular
2346 expression. If it is nil, spaces stand for themselves.
2348 Spaces inside of constructs such as [..] and *, +, ? are never
2349 replaced with search-spaces-regexp.
2352 ** list-buffers-noselect now takes an additional argument, BUFFER-LIST.
2353 If it is non-nil, it specifies which buffers to list.
2356 ** set-buffer-file-coding-system now takes an additional argument,
2357 NOMODIFY. If it is non-nil, it means don't mark the buffer modified.
2360 ** The new function syntax-after returns the syntax code
2361 of the character after a specified buffer position, taking account
2362 of text properties as well as the character code.
2365 ** The new primitive `get-internal-run-time' returns the processor
2366 run time used by Emacs since start-up.
2369 ** The new function `called-interactively-p' does what many people
2370 have mistakenly believed `interactive-p' did: it returns t if the
2371 calling function was called through `call-interactively'. This should
2372 only be used when you cannot add a new "interactive" argument to the
2376 ** The new function `assoc-string' replaces `assoc-ignore-case' and
2377 `assoc-ignore-representation', which are still available, but have
2378 been declared obsolete.
2381 ** An interactive specification may now use the code letter 'U' to get
2382 the up-event that was discarded in case the last key sequence read for a
2383 previous 'k' or 'K' argument was a down-event; otherwise nil is used.
2385 ** Function `translate-region' accepts also a char-table as TABLE
2389 ** Major mode functions now run the new normal hook
2390 `after-change-major-mode-hook', at their very end, after the mode hooks.
2393 ** `auto-save-file-format' has been renamed to
2394 `buffer-auto-save-file-format' and made into a permanent local.
2397 ** Both the variable and the function `disabled-command-hook' have
2398 been renamed to `disabled-command-function'. The variable
2399 `disabled-command-hook' has been kept as an obsolete alias.
2401 ** Function `compute-motion' now calculates the usable window
2402 width if the WIDTH argument is nil. If the TOPOS argument is nil,
2403 the usable window height and width is used.
2406 ** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
2407 a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
2409 ** If a command sets transient-mark-mode to `only', that
2410 enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
2411 During that following command, the value of transient-mark-mode
2412 is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
2416 ** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
2418 You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
2419 same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
2422 (kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
2424 ** The sentinel is now called when a network process is deleted with
2425 delete-process. The status message passed to the sentinel for a
2426 deleted network process is "deleted". The message passed to the
2427 sentinel when the connection is closed by the remote peer has been
2428 changed to "connection broken by remote peer".
2430 ** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
2431 undo-outer-limit, garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
2432 it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
2435 ** New function quail-find-key returns a list of keys to type in the
2436 current input method to input a character.
2439 ** New functions posn-at-point and posn-at-x-y return
2440 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
2441 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
2443 ** skip-chars-forward and skip-chars-backward now handle
2444 character classes such as [:alpha:], along with individual characters
2447 ** Function pos-visible-in-window-p now returns the pixel coordinates
2448 and partial visiblity state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
2451 ** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
2454 ** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
2455 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
2458 ** file-remote-p now returns an identifier for the remote system,
2459 if the file is indeed remote. (Before, the return value was t in
2463 ** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
2464 supported on text terminals.
2467 ** Support for displaying image slices
2469 *** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) may be used with
2470 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
2472 *** Function insert-image has new optional fourth arg to
2473 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
2475 *** New function insert-sliced-image inserts a given image as a
2476 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
2479 ** New line-height and line-spacing properties for newline characters
2481 A newline may now have line-height and line-spacing text or overlay
2482 properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
2484 If the line-height property value is 0, the newline does not
2485 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
2486 newline glyph is reduced. Also, a line-spacing property on this
2487 newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
2488 slices without adding blank areas between the images.
2490 If the line-height property value is a positive integer, the value
2491 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
2492 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
2494 If the line-height property value is a float, the minimum line height
2495 is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by the
2498 If the line-height property value is a cons (RATIO . FACE), the
2499 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
2500 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
2502 If the line-spacing property value is an positive integer, the value
2503 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
2504 overrides the default frame line-spacing and any buffer local value of
2505 the line-spacing variable.
2507 If the line-spacing property may be a float or cons, the line spacing
2508 is calculated as specified above for the line-height property.
2510 If the line-spacing value is a cons (total . SPACING) where SPACING is
2511 any of the forms described above, the value of SPACING is used as the
2512 total height of the line, i.e. a varying number of pixels are inserted
2513 after each line to make each line exactly that many pixels high.
2515 ** The buffer local line-spacing variable may now have a float value,
2516 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
2519 ** Enhancements to stretch display properties
2521 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
2522 PROPS is a property list now allows pixel based width and height
2523 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
2525 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
2526 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
2529 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
2530 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
2531 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
2532 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
2534 POS ::= left | center | right
2535 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
2538 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
2539 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
2540 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
2541 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
2542 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
2543 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
2544 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
2547 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
2548 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
2549 corresponding area of the window.
2551 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
2552 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
2553 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
2554 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
2555 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
2556 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
2557 these symbols), further occurences of these symbols are interpreted as
2558 the width of the area.
2560 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
2561 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
2563 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
2564 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
2565 header-line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
2567 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
2568 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
2569 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
2570 height) of the specified image.
2572 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
2573 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
2576 ** Normally, the cursor is displayed at the end of any overlay and
2577 text property string that may be present at the current window
2578 position. The cursor may now be placed on any character of such
2579 strings by giving that character a non-nil `cursor' text property.
2581 ** New macro with-local-quit temporarily sets inhibit-quit to nil for use
2582 around potentially blocking or long-running code in timers
2583 and post-command-hooks.
2586 ** New face attribute `min-colors' can be used to tailor the face color
2587 to the number of colors supported by a display, and define the
2588 foreground and background colors accordingly so that they look best on
2589 a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This is now the
2590 preferred method for defining default faces in a way that makes a good
2591 use of the capabilities of the display.
2594 ** Customizable fringe bitmaps
2596 *** New function 'define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to create new
2597 fringe bitmaps, as well as change the built-in fringe bitmaps.
2599 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and use the symbol
2600 identifing the bitmap such as `left-truncation or `continued-line'.
2602 *** New function 'destroy-fringe-bitmap' may be used to destroy a
2603 previously created bitmap, or restore a built-in bitmap.
2605 *** New function 'set-fringe-bitmap-face' can now be used to set a
2606 specific face to be used for a specific fringe bitmap. Normally,
2607 this should be a face derived from the `fringe' face, specifying
2608 the foreground color as the desired color of the bitmap.
2610 *** There are new display properties, left-fringe and right-fringe,
2611 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
2612 bitmap of the display line.
2614 Format is 'display '(left-fringe BITMAP [FACE]), where BITMAP is a
2615 symbol identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or defined with
2616 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
2617 for displaying the bitmap.
2619 *** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns the current fringe
2620 bitmaps in the display line at a given buffer position.
2622 ** Multiple overlay arrows can now be defined and managed via the new
2623 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'. It contains a list of
2624 varibles which contain overlay arrow position markers, including
2625 the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
2627 Each variable on this list may have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
2628 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
2629 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
2630 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
2631 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
2632 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
2635 ** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns line number of current
2636 line in current buffer, or if optional buffer position is given, line
2637 number of corresponding line in current buffer.
2640 ** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
2641 variable `sentence-end-without-space' which contains such characters
2642 that end a sentence without following spaces.
2645 ** The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of
2646 the variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil,
2647 then this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
2648 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
2649 `sentence-end-without-space'.
2652 ** The flags, width, and precision options for %-specifications in function
2653 `format' are now documented. Some flags that were accepted but not
2654 implemented (such as "*") are no longer accepted.
2656 ** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
2657 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
2658 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
2659 if no expansion is done, which may be tested using `eq'.
2662 ** New function `delete-dups' destructively removes `equal' duplicates
2663 from a list. Of several `equal' occurrences of an element in the list,
2664 the first one is kept.
2667 ** `declare' is now a macro. This change was made mostly for
2668 documentation purposes and should have no real effect on Lisp code.
2670 ** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
2671 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
2672 tasks, for example; it can be used by the copyright package to make
2673 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
2676 ** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
2677 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
2678 string. The old behavior is available if you call
2679 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
2681 ** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
2682 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
2683 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
2684 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
2685 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
2689 ** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
2690 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
2691 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
2692 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
2693 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
2696 ** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
2697 :pointer image property.
2700 ** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images may now be
2701 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
2704 ** Images may now have an associated image map via the :map property.
2706 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
2707 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
2708 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((x0 . y0) . (x1 . y1))) specifying the
2709 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
2710 A circle is a cons (circle . ((x0 . y0) . r)) specifying the center
2711 and the radius of the circle; r may be a float or integer.
2712 A polygon is a cons (poly . [x0 y0 x1 y1 ...]) where each pair in the
2713 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
2715 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
2716 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
2717 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
2718 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
2719 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable 'void-area-text-pointer'
2720 for possible pointer shapes.
2722 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
2723 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
2724 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
2726 ** Mouse event enhancements:
2728 *** Mouse clicks on fringes now generates left-fringe or right-fringes
2729 events, rather than a text area click event.
2731 *** Mouse clicks in the left and right marginal areas now includes a
2732 sensible buffer position corresponding to the first character in the
2733 corresponding text row.
2735 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
2738 *** Mouse events now includes buffer position for all event types.
2741 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
2744 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
2748 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types.
2751 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns actual glyph coordinates.
2754 *** Mouse events may now include image object in addition to string object.
2757 *** Mouse events include relative x and y pixel coordinates relative to
2758 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
2761 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
2762 (image or character) clicked on.
2765 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', and
2766 'posn-object-width-height' return the image or string object of a mouse
2767 click, the x and y pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner
2768 of that object, and the total width and height of that object.
2770 ** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
2771 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
2772 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
2773 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
2774 forcing an explicit window update.
2776 ** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
2777 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
2780 ** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
2781 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
2782 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
2783 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
2784 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
2787 ** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
2790 ** If optional third argument APPEND to `add-to-list' is non-nil, a
2791 new element gets added at the end of the list instead of at the
2792 beginning. This change actually occurred in Emacs-21.1, but was not
2795 ** Major modes can define `eldoc-print-current-symbol-info-function'
2796 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
2800 ** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
2801 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
2805 ** The argument to forward-word, backward-word, forward-to-indentation
2806 and backward-to-indentation is now optional, and defaults to 1.
2809 ** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
2810 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
2811 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
2813 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
2814 does that, this value may not be accurate.
2817 ** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
2818 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
2819 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
2823 ** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
2824 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
2827 ** The kill-buffer-hook is now permanent-local.
2830 ** `select-window' takes an optional second argument `norecord', like
2834 ** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
2835 selected window without impacting the order of buffer-list.
2838 ** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
2839 text-properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
2840 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
2843 ** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
2847 ** VC changes for backends:
2848 *** (vc-switches BACKEND OPERATION) is a new function for use by backends.
2849 *** The new `find-version' backend function replaces the `destfile'
2850 parameter of the `checkout' backend function.
2851 Old code still works thanks to a default `find-version' behavior that
2852 uses the old `destfile' parameter.
2855 ** The new macro dynamic-completion-table supports using functions
2856 as a dynamic completion table.
2858 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
2860 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
2861 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
2862 completions. This alist may be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
2863 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
2864 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
2865 entered. dynamic-completion-table then computes the completion.
2868 ** The new macro lazy-completion-table initializes a variable
2869 as a lazy completion table.
2871 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
2873 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
2874 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
2875 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
2876 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
2877 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
2878 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
2881 ** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
2884 ** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
2885 for all (existing and future) frames.
2888 ** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
2891 ** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
2894 ** The macro `with-syntax-table' does not copy the table any more.
2897 ** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
2898 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
2899 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
2900 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
2901 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
2904 ** The function `number-sequence' returns a list of equally-separated
2905 numbers. For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9).
2906 By default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different separation
2907 as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns (1.5 3.5 5.5).
2910 ** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
2911 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
2912 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
2913 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
2916 ** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
2917 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
2920 ** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character,
2921 unless it is followed by a `-' in a character constant (e.g. ?\s-A),
2922 in which case it is still interpreted as the super modifier.
2923 In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
2926 ** New function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the multibyteness
2927 of a string given to a process's filter.
2930 ** New function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns t if
2931 a string given to a process's filter is multibyte.
2934 ** A filter function of a process is called with a multibyte string if
2935 the filter's multibyteness is t. That multibyteness is decided by the
2936 value of `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is
2937 created and can be changed later by `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
2940 ** If a process's coding system is raw-text or no-conversion and its
2941 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
2942 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
2943 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
2944 which was not compatible with the behaviour of file reading.
2947 ** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
2948 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
2951 ** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
2952 on garbage collection.
2955 ** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
2956 it is read from a file without decoding.
2959 ** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
2962 ** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
2963 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
2964 by calling `select-window'.
2967 ** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
2968 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
2969 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
2970 need to have a name.
2972 ** Byte compiler changes:
2975 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
2976 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
2977 Emacs and XEmacs and may sometimes make the result significantly more
2978 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
2979 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
2983 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
2984 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
2985 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
2986 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
2989 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
2990 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
2992 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
2993 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
2994 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
2995 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
2996 macro expansion), but such tests may be nested. Note that `when' and
2997 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
3000 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
3001 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
3004 ** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
3005 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
3006 be inserted is translated through it.
3009 ** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
3010 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
3011 current file redefined it).
3014 ** New Lisp library testcover.el works with edebug to help you determine
3015 whether you've tested all your Lisp code. Function testcover-start
3016 instruments all functions in a given file. Then test your code. Function
3017 testcover-mark-all adds overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to
3018 show where coverage is lacking. Command testcover-next-mark (bind it to
3019 a key!) will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
3021 *** Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely evaluated;
3022 a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same value. The red
3023 splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly complete their evaluation,
3024 such as `error'. The brown splotches are skipped for forms that are expected
3025 to always evaluate to the same value, such as (setq x 14).
3027 *** For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to help
3028 out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a red splotch.
3029 It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does return. The macro 1value
3030 suppresses a brown splotch for its argument. This macro is a no-op except
3031 during test-coverage -- then it signals an error if the argument actually
3032 returns differing values.
3035 ** New function unsafep returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly
3036 do anything dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be
3037 unsafe (calls dangerous function, alters global variable, etc).
3040 ** The new variable `print-continuous-numbering', when non-nil, says
3041 that successive calls to print functions should use the same
3042 numberings for circular structure references. This is only relevant
3043 when `print-circle' is non-nil.
3045 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
3046 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
3049 ** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
3050 the scroll-bar-width frame parameter value is nil.
3053 ** The new function copy-abbrev-table returns a new abbrev table that
3054 is a copy of a given abbrev table.
3057 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
3058 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
3059 can start with this line:
3061 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
3063 ** The option --directory DIR now modifies `load-path' immediately.
3064 Directories are added to the front of `load-path' in the order they
3065 appear on the command line. For example, with this command line:
3067 emacs -batch -L .. -L /tmp --eval "(require 'foo)"
3069 Emacs looks for library `foo' in the parent directory, then in /tmp, then
3070 in the other directories in `load-path'. (-L is short for --directory.)
3073 ** A function's docstring can now hold the function's usage info on
3074 its last line. It should match the regexp "\n\n(fn.*)\\'".
3077 ** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
3078 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
3081 ** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional buffer
3082 argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted it defaults to
3086 ** There is a new Warnings facility; see the functions `warn'
3087 and `display-warning'.
3090 ** The functions all-completions and try-completion now accept lists
3091 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
3092 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
3096 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
3097 much pure storage it will approximately need.
3100 ** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
3101 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
3102 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
3103 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
3106 ** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
3107 of one coding system from another coding system.
3110 ** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
3111 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
3112 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
3113 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
3117 ** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
3118 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
3119 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
3120 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
3121 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
3122 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
3124 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
3125 confirmation as before.
3128 ** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
3130 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
3131 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
3132 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
3133 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
3135 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
3136 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
3137 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
3138 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
3139 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
3140 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
3142 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
3143 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
3144 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
3145 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
3148 ** Per-window fringes settings
3150 Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and position
3153 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
3154 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
3155 `set-window-fringes'.
3157 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
3158 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
3159 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
3160 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
3162 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
3163 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
3164 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
3165 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
3166 an update of the display margins.
3169 ** Per-window vertical scroll-bar settings
3171 Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
3172 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
3174 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
3175 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
3176 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
3177 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
3178 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3179 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3180 of the display margins.
3183 ** The function `set-window-buffer' now has an optional third argument
3184 KEEP-MARGINS which will preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
3185 and scroll-bar settings if non-nil.
3188 ** Renamed hooks to better follow the naming convention:
3189 find-file-hooks to find-file-hook,
3190 find-file-not-found-hooks to find-file-not-found-functions,
3191 write-file-hooks to write-file-functions,
3192 write-contents-hooks to write-contents-functions,
3193 x-lost-selection-hooks to x-lost-selection-functions,
3194 x-sent-selection-hooks to x-sent-selection-functions.
3195 Marked local-write-file-hooks as obsolete (use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook').
3198 ** The new variable `delete-frame-functions' replaces `delete-frame-hook'.
3199 It was renamed to follow the naming conventions for abnormal hooks. The old
3200 name remains available as an alias, but has been marked obsolete.
3203 ** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
3204 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
3205 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
3206 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
3207 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
3210 ** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by lisp code
3211 to override the internal read-file-name function.
3214 ** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
3215 whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
3216 `read-file-name' function.
3219 ** The new function `read-directory-name' can be used instead of
3220 `read-file-name' to read a directory name; when used, completion
3221 will only show directories.
3224 ** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
3225 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
3226 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
3229 ** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
3230 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
3231 (require 'cl) when loaded.
3234 ** The `defmacro' form may contain declarations specifying how to
3235 indent the macro in Lisp mode and how to debug it with Edebug. The
3236 syntax of defmacro has been extended to
3238 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
3240 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
3241 declaration specifiers supported are:
3244 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
3247 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
3248 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro.
3251 ** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
3253 This is an alternative to using defadvice or substitute-key-definition
3254 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
3255 binding and lookup functionality.
3257 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
3258 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
3262 Suppose that minor mode my-mode has defined the commands
3263 my-kill-line and my-kill-word, and it wants C-k (and any other key
3264 bound to kill-line) to run the command my-kill-line instead of
3265 kill-line, and likewise it wants to run my-kill-word instead of
3268 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
3269 command remapping allows you to directly map kill-line into
3270 my-kill-line and kill-word into my-kill-word through the minor mode
3271 map using define-key:
3273 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
3274 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
3276 Now, when my-mode is enabled, and the user enters C-k or M-d,
3277 the commands my-kill-line and my-kill-word are run.
3279 Notice that only one level of remapping is supported. In the above
3280 example, this means that if my-kill-line is remapped to other-kill,
3281 then C-k still runs my-kill-line.
3283 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
3285 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3286 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
3287 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
3288 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
3290 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
3291 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
3293 - key-binding now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
3294 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
3296 - where-is-internal now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
3297 kill-line if my-mode is enabled), and the actual key binding for
3298 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
3299 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
3300 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns C-k for kill-line and
3301 <kill-line> for my-kill-line).
3303 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
3304 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
3305 command was not remapped.
3308 ** New variable emulation-mode-map-alists.
3310 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
3311 keymap alist separate from minor-mode-map-alist by adding their keymap
3315 ** Atomic change groups.
3317 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
3318 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
3319 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
3321 (atomic-change-group
3323 (delete-region x y))
3325 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
3326 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
3327 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
3328 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
3330 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
3331 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
3333 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
3334 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
3335 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
3336 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
3338 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
3339 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
3342 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
3343 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
3344 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
3345 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
3347 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
3348 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
3349 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
3350 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
3351 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
3352 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
3355 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
3356 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
3357 returned values, like this:
3359 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
3360 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
3362 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
3363 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
3364 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
3366 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
3367 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
3368 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
3369 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
3373 ** New variable char-property-alias-alist.
3375 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
3376 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
3377 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
3378 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
3381 ** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
3383 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
3384 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
3385 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
3386 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
3389 ** New function remove-list-of-text-properties.
3391 The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties' is almost the same
3392 as `remove-text-properties'. The only difference is that it takes
3393 a list of property names as argument rather than a property list.
3396 ** New function insert-for-yank.
3398 This function normally works like `insert' but removes the text
3399 properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list. However, if the
3400 inserted text has a `yank-handler' text property on the first
3401 character of the string, the insertion of the text may be modified in
3402 a number of ways. See the description of `yank-handler' below.
3405 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-as-yank.
3407 This function works like `insert-buffer-substring', but removes the
3408 text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list.
3411 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-no-properties.
3413 This function is like insert-buffer-substring, but removes all
3414 text properties from the inserted substring.
3417 ** New `yank-handler' text property may be used to control how
3418 previously killed text on the kill-ring is reinserted.
3420 The value of the yank-handler property must be a list with one to four
3421 elements with the following format:
3422 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
3424 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
3425 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
3426 element on the kill-ring). If a yank-handler property is found,
3427 the normal behaviour of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
3429 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
3430 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
3431 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
3432 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
3433 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
3435 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
3436 yank-excluded-properties is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
3437 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
3438 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
3439 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
3440 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
3441 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
3442 FUNCTION may set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
3444 *** The functions kill-new, kill-append, and kill-region now have an
3445 optional argument to specify the yank-handler text property to put on
3448 *** The function yank-pop will now use a non-nil value of the variable
3449 `yank-undo-function' (instead of delete-region) to undo the previous
3450 yank or yank-pop command (or a call to insert-for-yank). The function
3451 insert-for-yank automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
3452 element of the string argument's yank-handler text property if present.
3455 ** New function display-supports-face-attributes-p may be used to test
3456 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
3458 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
3459 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
3460 defined with defface.
3462 ** The function face-differs-from-default-p now truly checks whether the
3463 given face displays differently from the default face or not (previously
3464 it did only a very cursory check).
3467 ** face-attribute, face-foreground, face-background, and face-stipple now
3468 accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how face
3469 inheritance is used when determining the value of a face attribute.
3472 ** New functions face-attribute-relative-p and merge-face-attribute
3473 help with handling relative face attributes.
3475 ** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face-list is reversed.
3476 If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
3477 faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous releases
3478 of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made so that
3479 :inherit face-lists operate identically to face-lists in text `face'
3483 ** Enhancements to process support
3485 *** Function list-processes now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
3486 only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set are listed.
3488 *** New set-process-query-on-exit-flag and process-query-on-exit-flag
3489 functions. The existing process-kill-without-query function is still
3490 supported, but new code should use the new functions.
3492 *** Function signal-process now accepts a process object or process
3493 name in addition to a process id to identify the signalled process.
3495 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
3496 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
3498 The new functions process-get and process-put are used to access, add,
3499 and modify elements on this property list.
3501 The new low-level functions process-plist and set-process-plist are
3502 used to access and replace the entire property list of a process.
3504 *** Function accept-process-output now has an optional fourth arg
3505 `just-this-one'. If non-nil, only output from the specified process
3506 is handled, suspending output from other processes. If value is an
3507 integer, also inhibit running timers. This feature is generally not
3508 recommended, but may be necessary for specific applications, such as
3511 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
3513 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
3514 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
3515 very poor performance. This behaviour can be remedied to some extent
3516 by setting the new variable process-adaptive-read-buffering to a
3517 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
3518 from such processes, to allowing them to produce more output before
3519 emacs tries to read it.
3522 ** Enhanced networking support.
3524 *** There is a new `make-network-process' function which supports
3525 opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
3526 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
3528 - A server is started using :server t arg.
3529 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
3530 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
3531 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
3532 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
3533 - The process' property list may be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
3534 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
3535 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
3537 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
3538 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
3540 *** Original open-network-stream is now emulated using make-network-process.
3542 *** New function open-network-stream-nowait.
3544 This function initiates a non-blocking connect and returns immediately
3545 without waiting for the connection to be established. It takes the
3546 filter and sentinel functions as arguments; when the non-blocking
3547 connect completes, the sentinel is called with a status string
3548 matching "open" or "failed".
3550 *** New function open-network-stream-server.
3552 This function creates a network server process for a TCP service.
3553 When a client connects to the specified service, a new subprocess
3554 is created to handle the new connection, and the sentinel function
3555 is called for the new process.
3557 *** New functions process-datagram-address and set-process-datagram-address.
3559 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
3560 and set the current address of the remote partner.
3562 *** New function format-network-address.
3564 This function reformats the lisp representation of a network address
3565 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
3566 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
3567 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
3568 string for other formatting options.
3570 *** By default, the function process-contact still returns (HOST SERVICE)
3571 for a network process. Using the new optional KEY arg, the complete list
3572 of network process properties or a specific property can be selected.
3574 Using :local and :remote as the KEY, the address of the local or
3575 remote end-point is returned. An Inet address is represented as a 5
3576 element vector, where the first 4 elements contain the IP address and
3577 the fifth is the port number.
3579 *** Network processes can now be stopped and restarted with
3580 `stop-process' and `continue-process'. For a server process, no
3581 connections are accepted in the stopped state. For a client process,
3582 no input is received in the stopped state.
3584 *** New function network-interface-list.
3586 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
3587 current network addresses.
3589 *** New function network-interface-info.
3591 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
3592 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
3595 ** New function copy-tree.
3598 ** New function substring-no-properties.
3601 ** New function minibuffer-selected-window.
3604 ** New function `call-process-shell-command'.
3606 ** New function `process-file'.
3608 This is similar to `call-process', but obeys file handlers. The file
3609 handler is chosen based on default-directory.
3612 ** The dummy function keys made by easymenu
3613 are now always lower case. If you specify the
3614 menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
3615 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
3617 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for
3618 the bindings that were made with easymenu.
3621 ** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional
3622 argument. If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks
3623 for a function that could be called with `call-interactively',
3624 and does not return t for keyboard macros.
3627 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
3628 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
3630 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
3631 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
3632 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
3635 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
3636 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
3639 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
3640 (function (lambda ()
3642 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
3643 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
3644 (function (lambda ()
3645 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
3648 ** File local variables.
3650 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
3651 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
3654 ** New function window-body-height.
3656 This is like window-height but does not count the mode line
3660 ** New function format-mode-line.
3662 This returns the mode-line or header-line of the selected (or a
3663 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
3666 ** New function safe-plist-get.
3668 This function is like plist-get, but never signals an error for
3669 a malformed property list.
3672 ** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
3674 These functions are like `plist-get' and `plist-put' except that they
3675 compare the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
3678 ** New function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu'
3680 The `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' must not be used (as previously
3681 recommended) for making entries in the tool bar for local keymaps.
3682 Instead, use the function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu', which lets
3683 you specify the map to use as an argument.
3686 ** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
3688 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
3689 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
3690 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
3693 ** You can now make a window as short as one line.
3695 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
3696 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
3697 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
3698 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
3699 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
3702 ** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
3703 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
3704 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
3705 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
3708 ** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
3709 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
3712 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
3713 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
3714 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
3717 ** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
3718 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
3722 ** Indentation of simple and extended loop forms has been added to the
3723 cl-indent package. The new user options
3724 `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation', `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and
3725 `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can be used to customize the
3726 indentation of keywords and forms in loop forms.
3729 ** Indentation of backquoted forms has been made customizable in the
3730 cl-indent package. See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
3733 ** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
3735 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
3736 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
3737 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
3740 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
3742 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
3743 the time it takes to convert the format.
3745 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
3749 ** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
3750 over minor mode keymaps.
3753 ** A hex escape in a string forces the string to be multibyte.
3754 An octal escape makes it unibyte.
3757 ** At the end of a command, point moves out from within invisible
3758 text, in the same way it moves out from within text covered by an
3759 image or composition property.
3761 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
3762 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
3763 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
3764 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
3765 post-command-hook and thus does not care about intermediate states.
3768 ** field-beginning and field-end now accept an additional optional
3772 ** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG. If
3773 non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
3774 it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
3775 Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
3779 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
3782 ** The function insert-string is now obsolete.
3785 ** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
3786 Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
3787 find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
3788 that matches near the end of the file name. More specifically, the
3789 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
3790 In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
3793 ** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
3794 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
3795 bindings of the parent keymap.
3798 ** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
3799 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
3800 (see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
3801 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
3802 depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline
3803 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
3811 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
3812 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
3813 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
3814 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
3817 ** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
3818 called to print the entries' values. It defaults to `princ'.
3820 ** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
3821 (the last prior group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.
3824 ** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
3825 it receives a request from emacsclient.
3828 ** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
3829 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
3830 than 3 levels of nesting.
3833 ** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
3834 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
3838 ** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
3839 properties from surrounding text.
3842 ** The list returned by `(match-data t)' now has the buffer as a final
3843 element, if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data'
3844 accepts such a list for restoring the match state.
3847 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
3849 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
3850 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
3851 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
3854 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
3855 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
3859 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
3860 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
3861 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set
3862 other properties than `face'.
3863 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
3864 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
3867 ** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
3868 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
3869 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
3870 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
3871 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
3874 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
3875 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
3876 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
3879 ** define-minor-mode now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
3880 and simply passes them to defcustom, if applicable.
3883 ** define-derived-mode by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
3884 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
3887 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
3888 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
3889 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
3892 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
3893 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
3894 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
3897 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
3898 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
3899 accepts a float as UID parameter.
3902 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
3905 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
3908 ** The Emacs Lisp byte-compiler now displays the actual line and
3909 character position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form
3910 of its warning and error messages have been brought more in line with
3911 the output of other GNU tools.
3914 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
3917 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
3920 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
3921 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
3924 ** Variable aliases have been implemented:
3926 *** defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3928 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3929 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3930 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3931 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3933 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3934 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3936 *** indirect-variable VARIABLE
3938 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3939 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3940 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3942 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3943 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3946 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
3947 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
3950 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
3951 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
3954 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
3955 hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3958 ** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
3959 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
3960 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
3962 ** Functions y-or-n-p, read-char, read-key-sequence and the like, that
3963 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
3964 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
3966 ** New function x-send-client-message sends a client message when
3969 ** Arguments for remove-overlays are now optional, so that you can remove
3970 all overlays in the buffer by just calling (remove-overlay).
3974 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
3975 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
3976 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
3977 state of your program. It separates the input/output of your program from
3978 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
3979 Emacs 21 such as the display margin for breakpoints, and the toolbar.
3981 Use M-x gdba to start GDB-UI.
3983 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
3984 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
3986 *** The new package bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
3987 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
3990 *** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
3991 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
3993 *** The new package button.el implements simple and fast `clickable buttons'
3994 in emacs buffers. `buttons' are much lighter-weight than the `widgets'
3995 implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that doesn't
3996 require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for such things
3997 as help and apropos buffers.
4000 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
4002 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
4006 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
4008 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
4011 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
4014 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
4017 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
4018 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
4019 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
4020 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
4021 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
4022 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
4023 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
4024 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
4025 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
4026 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
4028 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
4029 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
4031 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
4032 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
4033 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
4034 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behaviour is actually
4035 contrary to the compound text specification.
4038 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
4040 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
4042 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
4045 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
4047 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
4049 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
4050 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
4051 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
4052 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
4053 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
4055 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
4058 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
4059 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
4061 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
4062 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
4063 instead of using default-major-mode.
4065 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
4066 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
4067 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
4068 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
4069 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
4070 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
4071 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
4073 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
4077 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
4079 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
4080 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
4081 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
4083 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
4084 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
4087 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
4089 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
4090 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
4091 charsets in this release.
4093 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
4095 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
4097 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
4098 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
4101 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
4102 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
4103 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
4104 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
4105 necessary changes to unexec.
4107 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
4108 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
4110 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
4111 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
4113 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
4114 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
4116 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
4117 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
4118 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
4119 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
4120 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
4122 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
4123 new display features described below.
4126 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
4128 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
4130 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
4131 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
4132 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
4133 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
4136 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
4138 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
4139 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
4140 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
4141 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
4144 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
4145 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
4146 under Lisp changes, below.
4148 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
4150 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
4151 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
4152 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
4153 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
4154 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
4155 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
4158 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
4159 supported on character terminals.
4161 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
4162 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
4163 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
4164 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
4166 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
4170 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
4171 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
4172 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
4173 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
4176 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
4178 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
4179 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
4180 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
4181 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
4183 - User option: max-mini-window-height
4185 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
4186 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
4187 specifies a number of lines.
4191 - User option: resize-mini-windows
4193 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
4194 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
4195 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
4198 Default is `grow-only'.
4202 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
4203 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
4205 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
4207 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
4208 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
4211 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
4213 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
4214 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
4215 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
4217 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
4219 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
4220 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
4221 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
4222 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
4223 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
4226 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
4227 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
4228 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
4229 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
4230 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
4231 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
4233 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
4234 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
4235 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
4236 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
4237 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
4238 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
4240 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
4241 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
4242 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
4243 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
4244 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
4246 ** Tool bar support.
4248 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
4249 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
4250 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
4251 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
4252 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
4255 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
4256 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
4260 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
4261 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
4262 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
4264 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
4265 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
4266 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
4267 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
4269 ** Automatic Hscrolling
4271 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
4272 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
4275 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
4276 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
4277 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
4278 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
4279 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
4281 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
4282 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
4283 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
4284 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
4285 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
4286 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
4288 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
4289 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
4290 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
4291 customizing face `fringe'.
4293 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
4294 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
4295 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
4296 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
4297 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
4298 the window to be partially obscured.)
4300 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
4301 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
4302 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
4303 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
4305 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
4307 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
4308 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
4309 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
4310 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
4311 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
4314 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
4316 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
4318 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
4320 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
4321 `*') toggles the status.
4323 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
4325 ** Hourglass pointer
4327 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
4328 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
4332 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
4333 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
4334 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
4337 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
4339 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
4340 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
4341 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
4344 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
4345 have to do anything to activate it.
4347 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
4349 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
4350 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
4352 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
4353 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
4354 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
4355 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
4356 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
4357 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
4358 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
4359 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
4361 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
4362 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
4363 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
4364 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
4365 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
4366 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
4368 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
4369 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
4371 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
4372 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
4375 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
4376 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
4377 beginning and end of the buffer.
4379 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
4380 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
4383 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
4384 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
4386 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
4387 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
4390 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
4391 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
4394 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
4396 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
4397 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
4398 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
4400 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
4401 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
4402 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
4404 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
4407 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
4409 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
4410 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
4411 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
4412 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
4413 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
4416 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
4417 all frames except the selected one.
4419 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
4420 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
4422 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
4423 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
4424 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
4425 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
4426 `Info-use-header-line'.
4428 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
4429 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
4430 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
4432 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
4434 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
4435 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
4438 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
4439 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
4440 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
4441 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
4443 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
4445 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
4446 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
4447 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
4448 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
4450 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
4451 point in a pop-up window.
4453 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
4454 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
4455 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
4457 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
4458 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
4460 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
4461 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
4462 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
4463 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
4465 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
4467 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
4468 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
4470 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
4471 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
4472 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
4474 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
4475 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
4478 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
4479 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
4480 file that is already visited under a different name.
4482 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
4483 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
4485 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
4486 and displays information about that.
4488 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
4489 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
4491 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
4492 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
4493 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
4494 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
4495 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
4496 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
4498 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
4499 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
4501 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
4502 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
4503 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
4504 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
4505 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
4506 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
4507 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
4509 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
4510 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
4512 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
4513 system for keyboard input.
4515 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
4516 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
4517 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
4518 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
4519 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
4520 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
4521 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
4522 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
4523 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
4525 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
4526 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
4528 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
4529 displays all characters in that character set.
4531 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
4532 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
4534 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
4535 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
4536 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
4538 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
4539 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
4540 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
4541 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
4542 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
4543 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
4546 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
4547 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
4550 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
4551 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
4552 Lisp Coding Convention".
4554 new command old-binding
4555 --- ------- -----------
4556 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
4557 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
4558 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
4560 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
4561 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
4562 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
4564 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
4565 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
4566 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
4567 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
4568 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
4569 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
4571 ** There are new Leim input methods.
4572 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
4573 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
4576 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
4577 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
4578 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
4579 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
4580 "`", you must type "=q".
4582 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
4583 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
4584 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
4585 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
4586 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
4589 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
4590 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
4591 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
4592 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
4594 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
4595 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
4596 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
4597 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
4599 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
4600 on the display using several methods
4602 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
4603 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
4604 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
4606 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
4607 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
4609 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
4611 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
4612 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
4614 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
4615 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
4616 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
4617 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
4619 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
4620 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
4621 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
4623 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
4624 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
4626 ** New X resources recognized
4628 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
4629 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
4630 is useful for debugging X problems.
4634 emacs.synchronous: true
4636 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
4637 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
4638 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
4639 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
4640 visual class names are
4649 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
4650 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
4653 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
4654 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
4655 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
4660 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
4662 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
4663 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
4664 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
4665 resource values are `true' or `on'.
4669 emacs.privateColormap: true
4671 ** Faces and frame parameters.
4673 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
4674 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
4675 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
4676 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
4677 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
4678 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
4679 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
4681 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
4682 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
4683 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
4684 `default' face and vice versa.
4688 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
4690 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
4692 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
4693 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
4694 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
4695 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
4697 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
4698 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
4699 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
4701 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
4704 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
4706 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
4707 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
4708 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
4709 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
4711 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
4713 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
4715 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
4717 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
4720 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
4723 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
4725 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
4726 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
4727 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
4729 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
4730 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
4732 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
4733 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
4734 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
4736 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
4738 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
4739 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
4740 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
4741 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
4743 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
4744 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
4745 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
4746 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
4748 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
4749 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
4750 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
4753 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
4755 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
4756 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
4757 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
4759 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
4760 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
4761 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
4762 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
4763 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
4764 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
4766 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
4768 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
4769 notably at the end of lines.
4771 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
4772 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
4774 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
4776 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
4777 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
4779 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
4780 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
4781 after each match to get the replacement text.
4783 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
4784 you edit the replacement string.
4786 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
4787 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
4788 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
4790 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
4792 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
4793 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
4795 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
4796 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
4797 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
4798 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
4801 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
4802 read mail from the menu etc.
4804 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
4805 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
4806 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
4807 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
4809 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
4810 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
4812 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
4813 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
4814 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
4815 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
4816 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
4819 ** Customize changes
4821 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
4822 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
4823 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
4824 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
4825 earlier versions of Emacs.
4827 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
4828 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
4831 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
4832 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
4833 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
4834 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
4837 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
4838 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
4839 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
4840 already in your init file.
4842 ** New features in evaluation commands
4844 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
4845 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
4846 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
4847 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
4848 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
4850 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
4851 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
4852 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
4853 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
4856 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
4857 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
4859 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
4860 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
4862 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
4863 code when called with a prefix argument.
4867 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
4868 current user setups (although it's believed that these
4869 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
4870 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
4871 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
4872 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
4875 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
4876 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
4877 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
4880 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
4881 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
4882 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
4883 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
4885 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
4886 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
4888 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
4889 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
4891 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
4892 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
4893 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
4894 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
4896 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
4897 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
4898 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
4899 earlier statement. An example:
4901 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
4903 res += a[i]->offset;
4906 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
4907 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
4908 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
4909 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
4912 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
4915 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
4916 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
4917 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
4918 documentation or other natural language text.
4920 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
4921 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
4922 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
4923 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
4924 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
4925 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
4926 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
4928 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
4929 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
4930 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
4931 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
4933 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
4934 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
4935 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
4936 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
4939 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
4940 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
4941 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
4942 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
4943 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
4944 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
4945 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
4946 is reported afterwards.
4948 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
4949 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
4950 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
4952 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
4953 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
4954 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
4955 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
4956 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
4957 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
4960 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
4961 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
4962 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
4963 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
4964 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
4967 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
4968 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
4969 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
4970 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
4971 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
4972 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
4974 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
4975 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
4976 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
4977 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
4978 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
4979 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
4980 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
4981 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
4983 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
4984 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
4985 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
4986 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
4989 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
4990 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
4991 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
4992 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
4993 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
4994 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
4995 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
4996 function documentation for more info.
4998 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
4999 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
5000 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
5001 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
5002 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
5003 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
5004 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
5005 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
5007 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
5009 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
5010 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
5012 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
5013 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
5014 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
5015 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
5016 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
5019 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
5020 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
5021 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
5024 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
5025 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
5026 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
5027 chapter about this in the manual.
5029 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
5030 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
5031 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
5032 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
5033 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
5035 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
5036 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
5037 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
5039 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
5040 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
5042 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
5043 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
5044 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
5047 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
5048 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
5049 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
5050 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
5053 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
5054 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
5055 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
5056 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
5057 they were before the filling.
5059 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
5060 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
5061 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
5064 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
5065 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
5066 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
5067 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
5070 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
5071 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
5072 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
5073 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
5074 Thanks to Eric Eide.
5076 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
5077 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
5078 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
5080 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
5082 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
5083 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
5084 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
5085 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
5087 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
5088 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
5089 the column specified by comment-column.
5091 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
5092 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
5093 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
5094 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
5095 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
5096 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
5098 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
5099 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
5102 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
5104 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
5105 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
5106 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
5107 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
5110 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
5114 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
5115 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
5116 is, delete only empty directories.
5118 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
5119 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
5120 copy directories recursively.
5122 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
5123 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
5124 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
5126 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
5127 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
5130 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
5131 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
5132 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
5133 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
5134 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
5136 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
5139 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
5140 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
5141 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
5142 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
5146 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
5147 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
5148 internationalization and mail-fetching.
5150 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
5151 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
5153 If you used procmail like in
5155 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
5156 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
5157 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
5158 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
5160 this now has changed to
5163 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
5166 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
5167 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
5169 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
5170 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
5171 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
5172 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
5174 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
5175 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
5176 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
5178 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
5179 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
5180 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
5181 now just a compatibility layer.
5183 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
5186 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
5187 called to position point.
5189 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
5190 summary buffers and NOV files.
5192 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
5193 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
5195 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
5196 subtly different manner.
5198 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
5199 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
5200 ever-changing layouts.
5202 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
5204 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
5206 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
5208 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
5212 -------------------------
5216 C-c C-c q @quotation
5218 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
5221 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
5223 ** Changes in Outline mode.
5225 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
5226 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
5227 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
5229 ** Changes to Emacs Server
5231 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
5232 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
5233 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
5234 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
5235 buffers to kill, as before.
5237 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
5238 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
5241 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
5242 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
5244 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
5246 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
5247 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
5248 use. Default is 1000.
5250 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
5251 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
5253 ** Changes to hideshow.el
5255 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
5257 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
5258 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
5259 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
5260 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
5262 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
5263 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
5264 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
5267 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
5268 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
5269 the normal block-hiding function.
5271 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
5273 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
5274 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
5275 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
5276 for `hs-minor-mode'.
5278 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
5279 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
5281 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
5283 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
5284 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
5285 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
5287 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
5290 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
5293 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
5294 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
5295 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
5296 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
5297 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
5298 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
5300 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
5302 ** Changes to cmuscheme
5304 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
5305 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
5307 ** Changes in Font Lock
5309 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
5310 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
5312 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
5313 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
5315 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
5316 the face used for each string/comment.
5318 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
5319 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
5321 ** Changes to Shell mode
5323 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
5324 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
5325 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
5326 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
5328 ** Comint (subshell) changes
5330 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
5331 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
5333 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
5334 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
5335 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
5336 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
5337 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
5338 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
5340 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
5341 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
5342 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
5343 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
5344 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
5345 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
5346 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
5347 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
5349 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
5350 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
5352 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
5353 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
5354 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
5356 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
5357 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
5358 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
5360 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
5361 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
5362 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
5364 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
5365 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
5366 argument, it appends to the file.
5368 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
5369 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
5372 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
5375 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
5376 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
5377 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
5379 ** Changes to Rmail mode
5381 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
5382 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
5383 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
5384 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
5385 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
5388 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
5389 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
5390 regexp matching your mail addresses.
5392 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
5393 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
5394 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
5395 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
5396 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
5398 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
5401 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
5402 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
5405 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
5406 in which folder to put messages automatically.
5408 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
5409 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
5410 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
5412 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
5413 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
5415 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
5416 use the -f option when sending mail.
5418 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
5419 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
5420 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
5421 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
5422 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
5423 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
5425 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
5426 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
5427 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
5429 ** Changes to TeX mode
5431 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
5434 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
5436 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
5438 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
5440 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5442 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
5443 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
5444 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
5445 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
5446 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
5447 can be edited from that buffer.
5449 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
5450 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
5451 `A' to use all marked entries).
5453 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
5454 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
5456 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
5457 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
5458 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
5461 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
5462 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
5463 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
5464 in column 1 are always made leaves.
5466 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
5467 has the following new features:
5469 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
5470 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
5471 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
5472 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
5474 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
5475 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
5476 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
5477 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
5478 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
5481 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
5486 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
5487 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
5488 spell-checks the current buffer.
5490 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
5493 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
5494 correction is made and re-checked.
5496 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
5498 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
5501 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
5504 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
5507 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
5509 ** Makefile mode changes
5511 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
5513 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
5514 Fontlock mode is active.
5518 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
5519 so that searches can be resumed.
5521 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
5522 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
5523 that started the search.
5525 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
5526 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
5528 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
5530 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
5531 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
5532 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
5533 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
5534 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
5535 `secondary-selection'.
5537 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
5538 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
5539 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
5540 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
5541 usual snappy response.
5543 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
5544 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
5545 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
5546 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
5550 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
5551 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
5552 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
5553 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
5554 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
5555 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
5556 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
5557 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
5558 file is registered in that backend.
5560 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
5561 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
5562 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
5563 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
5564 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
5565 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
5567 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
5568 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
5569 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
5570 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
5571 where it doesn't make sense.)
5573 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
5574 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
5575 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
5579 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
5580 checks are always done now.
5582 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
5585 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
5586 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
5587 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
5589 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
5590 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
5591 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
5592 the working file (``merge news'').
5594 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
5595 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
5598 *** Multiple Backends
5600 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
5601 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
5602 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
5603 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
5606 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
5607 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
5608 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
5609 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
5611 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
5612 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
5613 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
5614 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
5615 current revision number from the more remote backend.
5617 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
5618 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
5619 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
5620 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
5622 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
5623 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
5624 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
5625 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
5629 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
5630 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
5631 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
5632 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
5633 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
5634 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
5635 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
5637 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
5638 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
5639 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
5640 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
5641 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
5642 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
5643 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
5644 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
5645 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
5646 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
5647 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
5650 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
5651 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
5652 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
5653 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
5654 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
5655 entire directory tree.
5657 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
5658 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
5659 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
5660 "watched" by other developers.)
5662 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
5663 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
5664 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
5665 starting at the given directory.
5667 *** Lisp Changes in VC
5669 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
5670 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
5671 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
5672 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
5673 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
5674 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
5675 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
5676 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
5677 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
5679 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
5680 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
5681 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
5682 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
5684 ** New modes and packages
5686 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
5687 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
5688 the default is not applicable.
5690 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
5691 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
5692 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
5696 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
5697 drawn, like this: | \ /
5701 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
5702 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
5703 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
5704 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
5705 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
5708 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
5709 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
5711 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
5714 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
5715 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
5716 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
5717 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
5719 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
5720 also do without the mouse.
5722 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
5723 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
5724 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
5725 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
5726 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
5728 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
5730 lines straight-lines
5732 poly-lines straight poly-lines
5734 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
5735 spray-can setting size for spraying
5736 vaporize line vaporize lines
5737 erase characters erase rectangles
5739 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
5740 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
5741 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
5744 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
5745 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
5746 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
5747 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
5749 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
5752 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
5753 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
5754 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
5755 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
5756 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
5757 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
5758 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
5759 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
5760 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
5762 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
5763 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
5764 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
5765 on certain projects.
5767 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
5768 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
5770 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
5772 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
5773 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
5774 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
5775 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
5776 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
5777 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
5778 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
5779 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
5781 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
5784 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
5785 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
5787 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
5788 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
5790 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
5791 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
5792 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
5793 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
5794 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
5796 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
5797 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
5798 separate Texinfo file.
5800 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
5801 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
5802 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
5803 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
5804 enter check-in log messages.
5806 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
5807 without invoking external programs.
5809 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
5810 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
5811 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
5812 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
5813 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
5815 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
5816 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
5818 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
5819 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
5821 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
5822 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
5823 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
5824 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
5825 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
5828 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
5829 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
5830 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
5831 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
5833 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
5834 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
5835 actually modifying content of a buffer.
5837 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
5840 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
5842 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
5844 ; comment (until end of line)
5848 $A default non-terminal
5849 $"C" default terminal
5850 $?C? default special
5851 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
5852 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
5853 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
5854 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
5855 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
5856 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
5857 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
5858 C+ one or more occurrences of C
5859 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
5860 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
5861 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
5862 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
5863 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
5864 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
5865 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
5867 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
5869 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
5870 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
5871 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
5872 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
5873 equal signs of assignments.
5875 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
5876 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
5878 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
5879 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
5880 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
5882 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
5884 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
5885 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
5886 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
5887 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
5888 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
5889 which answers different needs.
5891 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
5892 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
5893 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
5894 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
5895 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
5898 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
5899 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
5901 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
5903 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
5904 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
5905 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
5907 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
5909 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
5910 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
5911 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
5912 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
5913 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
5914 and background colors.
5916 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
5919 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
5922 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
5924 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
5926 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
5927 whitespace in a file.
5929 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
5930 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
5931 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
5932 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
5933 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
5934 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
5935 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
5937 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
5939 Here is an example of columns:
5942 dog pineapple car EXTRA
5943 porcupine strawberry airplane
5945 Doing the following settings:
5947 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
5948 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
5949 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
5950 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
5953 Selecting the lines above and typing:
5955 M-x delimit-columns-region
5959 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
5960 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
5961 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
5963 delim-col has the following options:
5965 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
5968 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
5969 between each column.
5971 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
5974 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
5977 delim-col has the following commands:
5979 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
5980 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
5982 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
5983 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
5984 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
5985 recent file list can be displayed:
5987 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
5988 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
5989 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
5991 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
5992 dynamically change the menu appearance.
5994 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
5997 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
5998 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
5999 specific to Message mode.
6001 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
6002 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
6003 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
6005 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
6006 interface to access directory servers using different directory
6007 protocols. It has a separate manual.
6009 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
6010 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
6012 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
6014 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
6015 minibuffer with completion.
6017 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
6018 with the diary features.
6020 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
6021 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
6023 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
6026 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
6027 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
6028 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
6029 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
6031 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
6032 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
6035 ** Changes in sort.el
6037 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
6038 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
6039 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
6042 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
6044 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
6045 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
6046 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
6048 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
6049 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
6051 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
6052 output ^M at the end of lines.
6054 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
6055 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
6057 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
6058 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
6061 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
6064 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
6065 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
6068 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
6069 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
6070 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
6071 nil -- just delete one character.
6073 Default value is `untabify'.
6075 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
6077 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
6078 symbol, not double-quoted.
6080 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
6081 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
6082 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
6083 moved to lisp/obsolete.
6085 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
6086 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
6087 `auto-compression-mode' command.
6089 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
6090 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
6091 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
6093 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
6094 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
6096 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
6097 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
6099 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
6100 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
6102 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
6103 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
6104 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
6105 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
6106 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
6107 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
6109 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
6110 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
6112 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
6114 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
6115 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
6117 ** Shell script mode changes.
6119 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
6120 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
6121 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
6125 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
6127 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
6128 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
6129 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
6130 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
6131 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
6133 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
6134 declarations when given the --declarations option.
6136 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
6137 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
6139 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
6140 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
6141 `template' keywords.
6143 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
6144 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
6146 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
6149 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
6151 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
6153 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
6156 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
6158 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
6159 variables are tagged.
6161 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
6163 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
6166 ** Changes in etags.el
6168 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
6169 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
6170 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
6172 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
6173 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
6175 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
6176 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
6177 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
6178 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
6180 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
6182 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
6183 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
6185 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
6187 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
6188 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
6189 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
6191 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
6192 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
6194 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
6195 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
6197 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
6198 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
6199 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
6200 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
6201 point will go to the beginning of the file.
6203 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
6204 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
6205 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
6207 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
6208 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
6209 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
6211 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
6212 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
6213 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
6215 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
6217 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
6219 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
6220 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
6221 expression from that list, are not checked.
6223 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
6224 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
6225 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
6226 the buffer, just like for the local files.
6228 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
6230 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
6231 displays local abbrevs, only.
6233 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
6234 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
6236 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
6237 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
6238 is measured in pixels.
6240 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
6241 to be visited as images.
6243 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
6244 were added to compile.el.
6246 ** Withdrawn packages
6248 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
6249 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
6251 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
6253 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
6256 * Incompatible Lisp changes
6258 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
6259 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
6260 See the sections below for details.
6262 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
6263 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
6264 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
6265 to remove the properties of the copy.
6267 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
6268 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
6269 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
6270 these properties are active.
6272 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
6273 ranges may affect some code.
6275 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
6276 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
6277 make a difference to some code.
6279 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
6280 operates on the minibuffer.
6282 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
6283 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
6284 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
6285 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
6286 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
6287 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
6288 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
6289 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
6290 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
6291 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
6292 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
6293 the buffer as multibyte characters.
6295 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
6296 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
6297 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
6299 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
6300 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
6301 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
6303 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
6304 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
6305 such as `mapconcat'.
6307 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
6310 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
6311 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
6312 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
6313 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
6314 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
6315 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
6316 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
6317 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
6319 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
6320 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
6321 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
6322 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
6323 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
6324 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
6325 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
6326 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
6327 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
6328 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
6331 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
6332 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
6334 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
6336 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
6337 allows the animated display of strings.
6339 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
6340 interactive form of a function.
6342 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
6343 between custom options. Example:
6345 (defcustom default-input-method nil
6346 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
6347 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
6348 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
6350 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
6351 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
6353 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
6354 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
6355 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
6357 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
6358 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
6359 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
6360 (signal or normal termination).
6362 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
6363 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
6365 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
6366 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
6368 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
6369 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
6371 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
6373 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
6374 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
6377 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
6379 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
6380 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
6381 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
6382 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
6383 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
6386 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
6387 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
6390 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
6391 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
6393 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
6394 with the more general `:mask' property.
6396 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
6398 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
6401 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
6402 is running in batch mode. For example,
6404 (message "%s" (read t))
6406 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
6409 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
6410 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
6412 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
6413 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
6416 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
6419 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
6421 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
6422 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
6424 - Function: remq ELT LIST
6426 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
6427 comparison is done with `eq'.
6429 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
6431 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
6432 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
6433 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
6435 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
6436 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
6437 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
6439 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
6440 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
6442 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
6443 function was declared obsolete.
6445 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
6446 retained as an alias).
6448 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
6449 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
6450 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
6452 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
6454 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
6456 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
6457 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
6458 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
6459 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
6460 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
6461 means never include the minibuffer window.
6463 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
6465 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
6467 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
6469 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
6470 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
6471 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
6472 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
6475 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
6476 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
6477 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
6478 minibuffer even if it is active.
6480 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
6481 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
6482 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
6483 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
6484 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
6485 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
6487 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
6488 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
6489 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
6490 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
6491 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
6492 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
6493 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
6495 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
6496 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
6497 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
6499 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
6500 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
6501 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
6502 Default value is nil.
6504 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
6507 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
6508 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
6509 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
6511 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
6512 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
6513 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
6515 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
6516 list of a primitive.
6518 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
6520 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
6521 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
6522 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
6523 than replacing the local map.
6525 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
6526 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
6527 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
6530 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
6532 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
6533 as promised long ago.
6535 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
6537 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
6538 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
6539 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
6542 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
6544 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
6545 regular expressions.
6547 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
6549 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
6553 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
6555 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
6559 matches string STRING literally.
6562 matches character CHAR literally.
6565 matches any character except a newline.
6568 matches any character
6571 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
6572 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
6578 matches any character not in SET
6581 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
6582 in the text being matched
6585 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
6588 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
6589 string being matched against.
6592 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
6593 string being matched against.
6596 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
6597 buffer being matched against.
6600 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
6601 buffer being matched against.
6604 matches the empty string, but only at point.
6607 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
6611 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
6614 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
6617 `(not word-boundary)'
6618 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
6622 matches 0 through 9.
6625 matches ASCII control characters.
6628 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
6631 matches space and tab only.
6634 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
6638 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
6642 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6643 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6646 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6647 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6650 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
6653 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
6656 matches anything lower-case.
6659 matches anything upper-case.
6662 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6663 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
6666 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
6669 matches anything that has word syntax.
6672 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
6673 of the following symbols.
6675 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
6676 `punctuation' (\\s.)
6679 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
6680 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
6681 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
6682 `string-quote' (\\s\")
6683 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
6685 `character-quote' (\\s/)
6686 `comment-start' (\\s<)
6687 `comment-end' (\\s>)
6689 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
6690 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
6692 `(category CATEGORY)'
6693 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
6694 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
6696 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
6698 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
6699 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
6703 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
6705 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
6706 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
6707 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
6708 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
6709 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
6710 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
6711 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
6712 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
6713 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
6714 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
6715 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
6724 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
6728 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
6735 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
6736 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
6738 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6739 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
6741 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6742 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
6743 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
6745 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6746 another name for `submatch'.
6748 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6749 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
6750 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
6753 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
6754 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
6755 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
6756 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
6757 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
6759 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
6760 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
6762 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
6763 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
6766 like `zero-or-more'.
6769 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
6772 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
6774 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
6775 matches one or more occurrences of A.
6781 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
6784 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
6786 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
6787 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
6793 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
6796 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
6799 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
6802 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
6805 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
6809 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
6811 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
6813 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
6814 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
6815 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
6816 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
6818 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
6819 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
6820 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
6821 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
6823 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
6824 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
6825 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
6827 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
6828 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
6829 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
6830 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
6831 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
6832 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
6833 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
6836 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
6838 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
6839 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
6840 character set as previously.
6842 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
6843 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
6844 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
6846 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
6847 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
6848 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
6849 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
6851 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
6852 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
6854 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
6855 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
6858 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
6859 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
6861 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
6862 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
6863 buffers and strings.
6865 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
6866 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
6867 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
6868 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
6869 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
6870 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
6871 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
6874 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
6875 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
6876 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
6878 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
6879 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
6880 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
6881 may differ between buffer and string text.
6883 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
6884 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
6886 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
6887 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
6888 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
6889 `composition' from STRING.
6891 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
6892 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
6894 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
6897 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
6898 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
6900 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
6901 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
6902 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
6903 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
6905 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
6906 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
6907 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
6908 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
6909 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
6910 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
6912 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
6913 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
6914 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
6916 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
6917 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
6918 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
6920 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
6921 have been introduced.
6923 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
6924 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
6925 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
6926 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
6927 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
6928 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
6929 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
6930 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
6931 their multibyte equivalent.
6933 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
6934 that offset in the file before writing.
6936 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
6937 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
6939 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
6940 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
6941 from which the command was issued.
6943 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
6944 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
6945 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
6946 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
6949 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
6950 to `window-buffer-height'.
6952 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
6954 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
6955 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
6956 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
6958 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
6961 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
6962 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
6964 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
6965 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
6966 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
6968 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
6969 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
6970 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
6971 is currently displayed in some window.
6973 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
6974 argument function's results.
6976 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
6977 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
6978 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
6979 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
6982 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
6983 header in the list of headers passed to it.
6985 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
6986 ignores differences in case and text representation.
6988 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
6989 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
6992 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
6993 nil don't display a cursor
6994 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
6995 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
6996 others display a box cursor.
6998 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
6999 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
7000 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
7001 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
7003 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
7004 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
7005 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
7006 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
7010 (string-to-syntax "()")
7013 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
7016 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
7017 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
7024 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
7029 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
7034 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
7041 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
7042 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
7045 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
7046 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
7047 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
7048 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
7050 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
7052 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
7053 for a regexp in a string.
7055 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
7056 `mouse-position-function'.
7058 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
7059 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
7061 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
7062 Keywords are now always considered constants.
7064 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
7067 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
7068 returned by function `recent-keys'.
7070 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
7071 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
7072 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
7073 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
7076 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
7077 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
7079 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
7080 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
7081 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
7082 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
7085 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
7086 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
7087 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
7088 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
7090 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
7091 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
7092 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
7094 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
7095 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
7098 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
7100 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
7101 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
7102 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
7105 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
7106 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
7107 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
7108 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
7109 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
7111 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
7112 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
7114 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
7115 instead of being optional.
7117 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
7118 modify read-only text.
7120 ** New functions and variables for locales.
7122 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
7123 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
7124 time functions like strftime. The new variables
7125 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
7126 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
7128 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
7129 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
7130 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
7131 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
7132 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
7133 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
7134 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
7136 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
7137 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
7138 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
7141 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
7142 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
7144 ** New function `propertize'
7146 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
7147 strings with text properties.
7149 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
7151 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
7152 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
7153 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
7154 specified value of that property. Example:
7156 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
7158 ** push and pop macros.
7160 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
7161 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
7162 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
7164 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
7165 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
7166 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
7168 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
7170 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
7171 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
7173 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
7174 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
7175 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
7176 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
7178 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
7179 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
7180 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
7181 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
7183 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
7184 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
7185 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
7188 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
7189 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
7190 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
7191 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
7192 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
7194 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
7196 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
7197 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7198 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7199 [:alpha:] matches letters.
7200 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7201 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7202 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
7203 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
7204 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
7205 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
7206 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7207 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
7208 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
7209 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
7210 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
7212 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
7214 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
7216 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
7218 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
7219 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
7223 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
7224 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
7225 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
7229 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
7230 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
7232 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
7234 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
7235 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
7236 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
7237 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
7238 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
7240 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
7242 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
7243 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
7244 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
7248 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
7249 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
7250 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
7251 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
7252 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
7254 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
7256 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
7258 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
7260 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
7262 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
7264 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
7267 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
7269 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
7271 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
7273 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
7275 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
7277 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
7279 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
7281 Returns the size of TABLE.
7283 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
7285 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
7287 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
7289 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
7291 - Function: clrhash TABLE
7295 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
7297 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
7300 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
7302 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
7303 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
7305 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
7307 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
7309 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
7311 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
7312 arguments KEY and VALUE.
7314 - Function: sxhash OBJ
7316 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
7318 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
7320 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
7321 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
7322 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
7323 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
7324 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
7326 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
7328 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
7329 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
7330 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
7332 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
7333 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
7335 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
7336 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
7338 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
7339 (sxhash (upcase a)))
7341 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
7342 'case-fold-string-hash))
7344 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
7346 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
7348 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
7349 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
7350 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
7352 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
7354 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
7355 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
7357 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
7358 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
7359 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
7360 is too short to reach that column.
7362 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
7363 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
7364 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
7365 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
7367 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
7368 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
7369 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
7371 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
7372 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
7374 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
7375 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
7377 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
7378 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
7379 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
7380 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
7381 temporary-file-directory instead.
7383 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
7384 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
7385 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
7386 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
7388 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
7389 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
7391 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
7393 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
7394 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
7395 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
7397 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
7399 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
7400 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
7401 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
7402 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
7403 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
7404 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
7406 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
7407 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
7408 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
7409 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
7411 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
7413 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
7414 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
7415 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
7418 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
7419 string where arguments appear in the result string.
7423 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
7425 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
7426 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
7429 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
7431 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
7433 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
7434 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
7437 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
7439 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
7440 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
7445 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
7446 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
7448 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
7449 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
7450 to enable sound support.
7452 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
7453 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
7454 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
7455 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
7456 sound to play, before playing the sound.
7458 The following sound properties are supported:
7462 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
7463 searched relative to `data-directory'.
7467 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
7468 may be present, but not both.
7472 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
7473 0..1. This property is optional.
7477 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
7478 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
7480 Other properties are ignored.
7482 An alternative interface is called as
7483 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
7485 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
7487 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
7490 ** Changes to garbage collection
7492 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
7493 of live and free strings.
7495 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
7496 strings that have been consed so far.
7499 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
7502 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
7505 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
7506 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
7507 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
7509 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
7511 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
7513 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
7516 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
7518 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
7520 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
7521 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
7522 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
7523 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
7524 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
7526 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
7529 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
7531 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
7532 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
7533 or omitted means use the selected frame.
7535 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
7536 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
7538 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
7541 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
7545 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
7547 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
7548 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
7550 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
7551 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
7552 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
7553 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
7554 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
7555 just display it black instead.
7557 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
7560 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
7564 ** New face implementation.
7566 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
7567 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
7571 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
7573 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
7575 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
7576 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
7578 3. Font height in 1/10pt
7580 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
7582 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
7584 6. Foreground color.
7586 7. Background color.
7588 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
7590 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
7592 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
7594 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
7596 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
7599 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
7600 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
7602 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
7603 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
7604 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
7605 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
7606 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
7607 attributes mentioned above.
7609 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
7610 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
7613 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
7614 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
7619 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
7620 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
7621 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
7622 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
7623 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
7624 results in a fully-specified face.
7626 *** Face realization.
7628 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
7629 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
7630 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
7631 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
7632 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
7633 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
7635 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
7636 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
7637 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
7638 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
7640 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
7641 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
7642 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
7643 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
7644 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
7646 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
7647 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
7648 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
7649 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
7650 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
7653 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
7654 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
7655 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
7656 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
7658 **** Clearing face caches.
7660 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
7661 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
7666 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
7667 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
7668 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
7670 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
7671 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
7672 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
7673 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
7674 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
7676 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
7677 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
7678 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
7680 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
7682 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
7683 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
7684 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
7685 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
7686 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
7687 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
7688 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
7690 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
7691 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
7694 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
7695 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
7698 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
7701 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
7706 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
7707 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
7710 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
7711 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
7712 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
7713 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
7714 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
7717 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
7719 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
7721 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
7723 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
7725 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
7726 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
7727 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
7729 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
7730 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
7731 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
7732 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
7733 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
7734 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
7735 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
7736 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
7737 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
7738 of the face font sort order.
7740 - Function: x-font-family-list
7742 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
7743 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
7744 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
7745 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
7747 - Variable: font-list-limit
7749 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
7750 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
7751 matching font. The default is currently 100.
7753 *** Setting face attributes.
7755 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
7756 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
7757 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
7760 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
7761 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
7763 The following attributes are recognized:
7767 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
7768 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
7769 and `?' are allowed.
7773 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
7774 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
7775 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
7776 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
7780 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
7781 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
7782 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
7783 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
7787 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
7788 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
7789 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
7793 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
7794 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
7797 `:foreground', `:background'
7799 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
7803 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
7804 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
7805 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
7810 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
7811 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
7812 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
7817 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
7818 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
7819 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
7820 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
7824 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
7825 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
7826 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
7827 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
7828 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
7829 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
7830 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
7831 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
7832 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
7833 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
7834 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
7835 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
7836 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
7837 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
7838 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
7839 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
7844 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
7845 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
7849 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
7850 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
7851 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
7852 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
7853 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
7854 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
7856 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
7857 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
7861 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
7862 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
7863 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
7866 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
7867 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
7868 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
7870 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
7875 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
7876 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
7877 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
7879 *** Face attributes and X resources
7881 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
7884 Face attribute X resource class
7885 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
7886 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
7887 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
7888 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
7889 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
7890 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
7891 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
7892 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
7893 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
7894 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
7895 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
7896 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
7897 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
7898 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
7899 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
7900 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
7901 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
7902 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
7903 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
7904 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
7906 *** Text property `face'.
7908 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
7909 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
7910 specification can be
7912 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
7914 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
7915 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
7916 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
7917 for face attribute names.
7919 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
7920 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
7921 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
7923 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
7925 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
7926 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
7927 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
7928 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
7929 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
7930 used to clear the mapping table.
7932 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
7934 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
7935 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
7936 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
7937 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
7938 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
7939 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
7940 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
7941 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
7942 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
7943 modify their color-related behavior.
7945 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
7948 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
7950 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
7951 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
7952 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
7953 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
7954 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
7955 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
7956 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
7957 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
7958 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
7960 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
7961 display can display image files.
7963 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
7965 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
7966 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
7967 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
7968 `Inviolable' option.
7970 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
7971 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
7972 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
7974 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
7976 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
7977 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
7978 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
7980 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
7981 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
7982 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
7983 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
7984 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
7985 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
7986 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
7989 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
7990 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
7991 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
7993 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
7995 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
7997 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
7999 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
8000 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
8001 constrained position if that is different.
8003 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
8004 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
8005 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
8006 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
8007 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
8008 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
8009 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
8010 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
8011 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
8013 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
8014 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
8015 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
8016 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
8017 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
8019 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
8020 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
8022 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
8024 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
8026 Delete the field surrounding POS.
8027 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
8028 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
8030 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
8032 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
8033 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
8034 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
8035 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
8036 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
8038 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
8040 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
8041 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
8042 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
8043 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
8044 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
8046 - Function: field-string &optional POS
8048 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
8049 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
8050 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
8052 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
8054 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
8055 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
8056 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
8060 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
8061 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
8062 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
8063 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
8065 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
8066 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
8067 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
8068 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
8071 IMAGE is an image specification.
8073 *** Image specifications
8075 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
8076 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
8077 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
8078 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
8079 described below are ignored.
8081 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
8085 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
8086 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
8087 to use for its ascent.
8089 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
8090 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
8092 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
8093 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
8094 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
8095 overlays that apply to the image.
8099 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
8100 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
8101 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
8105 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
8110 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
8112 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
8113 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
8115 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
8116 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
8117 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
8118 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
8119 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
8120 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
8121 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
8122 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
8125 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
8127 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
8129 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
8130 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
8131 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
8132 of the factors' absolute values.
8134 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
8140 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
8146 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
8151 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
8152 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
8153 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
8154 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
8155 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
8156 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
8157 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
8160 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
8161 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
8166 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
8167 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
8168 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
8169 may be present in the image specification.
8173 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
8174 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
8175 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
8176 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
8178 *** Supported image types
8180 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
8182 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
8183 properties supported are:
8187 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
8188 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
8192 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
8193 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
8195 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
8196 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
8197 instead of a `:file' property.
8201 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
8205 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
8211 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
8212 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
8214 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
8216 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
8219 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
8220 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
8223 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
8225 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
8226 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
8227 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
8228 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
8230 Additional image properties supported are:
8232 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
8234 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
8235 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
8238 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
8239 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
8241 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
8242 to display compressed images.
8244 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
8246 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
8247 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
8252 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
8253 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
8257 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
8258 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
8260 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
8262 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
8263 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
8266 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
8268 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
8269 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
8272 **** GIF, image type `gif'
8274 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
8275 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
8277 Additional image properties supported are:
8281 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
8282 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
8285 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
8286 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
8287 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
8290 (defun show-anim (file max)
8291 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
8292 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
8294 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
8297 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
8300 (goto-char (point-min))
8301 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
8302 (insert-image img "x"))
8303 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
8305 **** PNG, image type `png'
8307 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
8308 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
8311 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
8313 Additional image properties supported are:
8317 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
8318 integer. This is a required property.
8322 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
8323 must be a integer. This is an required property.
8327 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
8328 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
8329 files. This is an required property.
8331 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
8336 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
8337 which are supported in the current configuration.
8339 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
8340 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
8341 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
8342 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
8343 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
8345 *** Simplified image API, image.el
8347 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
8348 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
8349 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
8350 define an image based on available image types. The functions
8351 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
8356 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
8359 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
8360 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
8361 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
8362 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
8363 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
8364 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
8365 of the display margins.
8367 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
8368 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
8369 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
8370 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
8375 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
8376 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
8377 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
8378 that have a `help-echo' property.
8380 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
8381 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
8382 the window in which the help was found.
8384 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
8385 `help-echo' text property was found.
8387 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
8388 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
8390 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
8391 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
8394 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
8395 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
8397 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
8398 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
8399 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
8400 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
8401 used as help string.
8403 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
8404 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
8405 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
8407 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
8409 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
8410 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
8412 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
8413 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
8414 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
8415 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
8418 (global-set-key [A-down]
8421 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
8422 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
8423 (global-set-key [A-up]
8426 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
8427 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
8429 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
8431 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
8432 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
8433 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
8434 is called with one argument, POS.
8436 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
8437 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
8438 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
8439 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
8440 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
8442 ** Tool bar support.
8444 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
8445 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
8446 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
8447 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
8448 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
8449 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
8451 *** Tool bar item definitions
8453 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
8454 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
8455 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
8457 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
8458 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
8459 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
8460 property (see below).
8462 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
8463 binding are currently ignored.
8465 The following properties are recognized:
8469 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
8474 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
8478 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
8479 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
8480 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
8482 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
8484 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
8485 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
8489 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
8490 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
8491 meaning of each of the four elements:
8493 Index Use when item is
8494 ----------------------------------------
8495 0 enabled and selected
8496 1 enabled and deselected
8497 2 disabled and selected
8498 3 disabled and deselected
8500 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
8501 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
8503 `:help HELP-STRING'.
8505 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
8506 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
8508 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
8509 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
8510 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
8513 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
8514 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
8515 buffer-locally to override the global map.
8517 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
8519 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
8520 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
8521 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
8523 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
8524 raised when the mouse moves over them.
8526 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
8527 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
8528 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
8529 vertical margins . Default is 1.
8531 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
8532 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
8534 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
8536 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
8539 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
8540 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
8541 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
8543 is the original tool bar item definition, then
8545 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
8547 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
8550 ** Mode line changes.
8552 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
8554 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
8555 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
8556 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
8558 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
8559 a `local-map' text property.
8561 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
8562 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
8564 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
8565 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
8566 `local-map' property.
8568 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
8569 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
8572 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
8573 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
8575 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
8576 variable mode-line-format to nil.
8578 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
8580 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
8581 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
8582 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
8583 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
8586 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
8589 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
8590 position in the header-line.
8592 ** Text property `display'
8594 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
8595 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
8596 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
8597 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
8598 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
8600 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
8602 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
8603 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
8605 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
8606 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
8607 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
8608 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
8609 simpler form STRING as property value.
8611 *** Variable width and height spaces
8613 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
8614 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
8615 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
8616 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
8617 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
8618 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
8619 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
8621 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
8622 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
8623 properties described below.
8625 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
8626 characters having the `display' property.
8630 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
8631 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
8633 - :relative-width FACTOR
8635 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
8636 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
8637 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
8638 width of that character by FACTOR.
8642 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
8643 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
8645 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
8649 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
8652 - :relative-height FACTOR
8654 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
8655 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
8659 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
8660 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
8661 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
8664 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
8668 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
8669 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
8670 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
8671 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
8672 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
8673 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
8674 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
8675 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
8676 as display specification.
8678 *** Other display properties
8680 - (space-width FACTOR)
8682 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
8683 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
8688 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
8690 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
8691 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
8692 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
8693 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
8694 a font is available counts as a step.
8696 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
8697 as tall as the frame's default font.
8699 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
8700 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
8702 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
8703 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
8707 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
8708 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
8709 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
8710 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
8711 `height' subproperty.
8713 *** Conditional display properties
8715 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
8716 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
8717 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
8718 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
8719 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
8720 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
8721 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
8722 different when object is a string.
8724 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
8727 ** New menu separator types.
8729 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
8730 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
8731 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
8732 to specify other menu separator types.
8734 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
8736 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
8739 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
8741 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
8743 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
8745 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
8747 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
8749 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
8751 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
8753 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
8755 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
8757 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
8758 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
8760 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
8762 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
8764 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
8766 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
8768 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
8770 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
8772 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
8774 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
8776 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
8778 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
8780 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
8782 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
8784 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
8786 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
8788 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
8789 the corresponding single-line separators.
8791 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
8793 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
8794 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
8795 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
8796 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
8797 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
8798 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
8799 default foreground is black.
8801 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
8802 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
8803 `ScrollBarBackground').
8805 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
8806 settings for scroll bar colors.
8808 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
8809 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
8811 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
8812 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
8813 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
8814 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
8815 the original window start.
8817 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
8818 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
8819 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
8821 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
8823 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
8824 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
8825 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
8826 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
8828 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
8829 fixed-width and fixed-height.
8831 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
8833 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
8834 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
8835 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
8836 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
8837 temporarily to nil, for example
8839 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
8840 (enlarge-window 10))
8842 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
8843 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
8845 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
8846 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
8847 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
8848 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
8849 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
8850 support a vertical-bar cursor).
8854 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
8856 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
8859 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
8861 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
8863 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
8864 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
8865 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
8866 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
8867 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
8869 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
8873 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
8875 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
8879 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
8881 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
8882 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
8884 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
8886 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
8888 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
8889 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
8890 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
8892 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
8893 is the one that is used.
8895 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
8896 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
8897 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
8898 separate from the command's regular output.
8899 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
8900 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
8901 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
8904 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
8905 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
8906 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
8907 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
8909 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
8910 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
8911 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
8912 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
8914 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
8915 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
8916 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
8917 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
8919 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
8920 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
8921 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
8922 they never ignore case.
8924 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
8925 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
8926 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
8927 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
8928 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
8929 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
8930 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
8932 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
8933 the same format that was used in the file before.
8935 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
8936 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
8938 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
8939 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
8940 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
8942 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
8943 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
8944 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
8945 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
8946 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
8947 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
8948 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
8950 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
8951 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
8952 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
8953 format. You can now customize these variables.
8955 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
8956 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
8957 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
8958 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
8960 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
8961 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
8962 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
8964 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
8965 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
8966 doesn't have any effect.
8968 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
8971 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
8972 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
8973 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
8975 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
8976 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
8977 `auto-show-mode' command.
8979 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
8980 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
8981 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
8982 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
8983 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
8985 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
8986 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
8988 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
8989 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
8990 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
8992 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
8993 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
8994 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
8995 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
8997 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
8999 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
9000 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
9001 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
9002 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
9003 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
9005 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
9006 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
9008 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
9009 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
9010 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
9011 `?' on other systems.
9013 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
9014 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
9017 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
9018 current codepage when it starts.
9022 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
9023 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
9024 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
9025 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
9026 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
9027 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
9031 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
9032 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
9034 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
9035 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
9036 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
9037 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
9038 buffer-file-coding-system.
9040 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
9041 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
9044 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
9045 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
9046 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
9047 list of possible coding systems.
9051 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
9052 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
9053 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
9054 docstring for details.
9056 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
9057 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
9058 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
9059 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
9060 lineup functions use this feature currently.
9062 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
9063 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
9065 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
9066 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
9068 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
9069 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
9070 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
9071 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
9074 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
9075 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
9077 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
9078 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
9079 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
9080 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
9082 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
9083 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
9084 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
9085 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
9086 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
9088 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
9090 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
9092 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
9093 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
9095 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
9097 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
9098 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
9099 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
9100 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
9101 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
9105 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
9106 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
9107 Gnus manual for the full story.
9109 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
9110 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
9111 group, which is created automatically.
9113 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
9116 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
9118 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
9119 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
9121 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
9124 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
9126 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
9127 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
9129 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
9131 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
9132 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
9134 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
9135 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
9137 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
9138 control over simplification.
9140 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
9142 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
9145 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
9147 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
9149 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
9150 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
9151 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
9153 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
9154 `a' forces normal posting method.
9156 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
9159 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
9162 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
9163 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
9165 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
9168 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
9170 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
9172 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
9173 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
9175 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
9176 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
9178 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
9180 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
9183 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
9184 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
9186 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
9187 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
9189 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
9191 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
9193 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
9195 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
9197 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
9198 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
9199 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
9201 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
9202 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
9203 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
9204 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
9205 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
9207 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
9208 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
9209 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
9210 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
9212 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
9213 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
9214 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
9217 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
9219 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
9220 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
9222 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
9223 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
9224 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
9225 removed from the label.
9227 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
9228 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
9230 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
9231 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
9233 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
9234 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
9237 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
9239 ** New/deleted modes and packages
9241 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
9242 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
9244 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
9245 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
9246 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
9248 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
9249 changes with a special face.
9251 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
9252 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
9253 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
9255 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
9257 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
9258 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
9259 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
9260 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
9261 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
9263 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
9264 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
9265 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
9267 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
9268 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
9269 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
9270 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
9271 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
9272 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
9273 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
9274 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
9275 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
9277 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
9278 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
9279 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
9280 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
9281 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
9284 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
9285 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
9286 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
9287 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
9288 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
9289 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
9291 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
9292 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
9293 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
9294 was not documented clearly before.
9296 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
9297 This includes Tetris and Snake.
9299 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
9301 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
9302 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
9303 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
9304 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
9306 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
9307 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
9308 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
9310 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
9312 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
9313 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
9315 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
9316 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
9319 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
9320 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
9321 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
9322 file names and attributes are returned.
9324 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
9325 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
9326 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
9327 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
9330 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
9331 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
9333 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
9335 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
9336 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
9337 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
9340 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
9341 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
9344 The new function process-running-child-p
9345 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
9346 terminal to its own child process.
9348 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
9349 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
9350 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
9351 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
9353 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
9354 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
9356 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
9357 :included is an alias for :visible.
9359 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
9360 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
9361 to move or copy menu entries.
9363 ** Multibyte editing changes
9365 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
9366 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
9367 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
9368 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
9369 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
9370 (setq char (sref str idx)
9371 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
9372 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
9374 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
9375 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
9376 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
9378 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
9379 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
9380 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
9382 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
9384 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
9385 across the boundary.
9387 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
9388 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
9389 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
9390 contains 8-bit characters.
9391 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
9392 contains invalid characters.
9394 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
9395 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
9396 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
9397 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
9400 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
9401 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
9402 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
9403 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
9405 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
9406 compose Thai characters in a string.
9408 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
9409 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
9410 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
9411 menus should always use the third argument.
9413 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
9414 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
9415 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
9416 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
9418 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
9419 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
9420 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
9421 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
9423 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
9424 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
9425 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
9428 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
9430 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
9431 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
9432 requested feature cannot be loaded.
9434 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
9435 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
9436 means to clear out that attribute.
9438 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
9439 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
9441 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
9442 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
9443 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
9444 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
9446 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
9447 the gap of the current buffer.
9449 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
9450 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
9453 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
9454 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
9455 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
9456 it back in after any modifications have been made.
9458 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
9460 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
9461 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
9462 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
9463 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
9464 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
9466 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
9467 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
9468 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
9469 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
9470 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
9472 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
9473 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
9474 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
9476 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
9477 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
9478 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
9479 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
9480 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
9483 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
9484 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
9485 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
9486 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
9488 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
9490 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
9491 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
9492 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
9493 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
9495 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
9496 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
9497 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
9498 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
9499 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
9500 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
9501 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
9504 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
9507 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
9508 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
9509 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
9510 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
9511 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
9513 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
9514 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
9515 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
9516 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
9518 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
9519 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
9520 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
9521 something that most users not do.
9523 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
9524 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
9525 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
9528 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
9531 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
9532 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
9533 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
9534 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
9537 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
9538 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
9539 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
9540 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
9541 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
9544 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
9545 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
9546 to be confused by TeX commands.
9548 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
9549 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
9550 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
9551 of various alternative replacements and actions.
9553 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
9554 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
9555 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
9556 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
9557 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
9559 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
9560 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
9562 ** Changes in input method usage.
9564 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
9565 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
9568 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
9570 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
9571 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
9573 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
9574 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
9576 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
9578 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
9580 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
9581 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
9583 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
9584 given in the following case:
9585 o When you are using a complex input method.
9586 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
9588 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
9589 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
9590 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
9591 setting it to t is helpful.
9593 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
9595 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
9597 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
9598 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
9599 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
9600 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
9603 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
9604 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
9605 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
9608 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
9610 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
9612 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
9613 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
9615 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
9616 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
9617 its owner and group.
9619 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
9620 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
9622 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
9623 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
9625 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
9626 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
9627 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
9628 by the left edge of the rectangle.
9630 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
9631 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
9632 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
9633 for writing keyboard macros.
9635 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
9636 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
9637 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
9638 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
9639 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
9642 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
9644 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
9645 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
9648 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
9649 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
9650 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
9651 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
9653 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
9654 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
9655 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
9657 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
9658 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
9659 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
9660 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
9662 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
9663 failure if the command produces no output.
9665 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
9666 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
9669 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
9670 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
9671 function and variable names.
9673 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
9674 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
9675 file-coding-system-alist.
9677 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
9678 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
9679 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
9680 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
9681 according to the current fontset.
9683 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
9685 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
9686 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
9687 nonascii-insert-offset.
9689 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
9690 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
9691 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
9692 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
9694 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
9695 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
9697 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
9698 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
9700 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
9701 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
9704 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
9705 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
9707 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
9708 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
9709 all variables that have documentation.
9711 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
9712 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
9713 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
9714 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
9715 it should show; the default is 20.
9717 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
9718 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
9721 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
9722 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
9723 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
9724 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
9725 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
9726 Newly added options are included as well.
9728 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
9729 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
9730 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
9732 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
9735 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
9736 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
9738 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
9739 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
9742 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
9743 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
9746 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
9747 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
9748 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
9749 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
9752 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
9754 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
9755 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
9756 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
9758 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
9759 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
9760 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
9765 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
9766 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
9768 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
9769 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
9771 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
9772 read and post multi-lingual articles.
9774 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
9775 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
9776 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
9777 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
9778 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
9779 made invisible again.
9781 ** Mail reading and sending changes
9783 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
9784 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
9785 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
9788 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
9789 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
9790 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
9791 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
9792 rmail-default-body-file.
9794 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
9795 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
9796 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
9798 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
9799 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
9800 is evaluated to insert the signature.
9802 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
9803 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
9804 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
9805 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
9806 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
9807 especially interested in trying feedmail.
9809 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
9810 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
9811 provided by feedmail are:
9813 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
9814 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
9815 there is also a queue for draft messages
9817 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
9818 be prompted for confirmation
9820 **** does smart filling of address headers
9822 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
9823 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
9824 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
9826 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
9827 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
9828 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
9829 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
9833 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
9834 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
9836 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
9837 run Dired on the directory name at point.
9839 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
9840 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
9841 for a specified regexp.
9845 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
9848 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
9849 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
9852 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
9853 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
9854 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
9855 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
9857 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
9858 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
9859 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
9860 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
9861 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
9863 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
9864 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
9865 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
9866 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
9867 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
9869 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
9870 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
9871 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
9872 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
9874 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
9875 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
9876 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
9878 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
9879 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
9880 session to resolve them.
9882 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
9883 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
9884 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
9887 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
9888 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
9889 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
9890 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
9891 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
9892 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
9895 ** Changes in Font Lock
9897 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
9898 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
9899 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
9900 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
9901 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
9903 ** Frame name display changes
9905 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
9906 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
9907 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
9908 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
9910 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
9911 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
9914 ** Comint (subshell) changes
9916 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
9917 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
9918 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
9920 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
9922 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
9923 that is, the line after the last line you got.
9924 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
9926 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
9927 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
9930 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
9931 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
9932 previously sent input.
9934 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
9935 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
9936 as the search string.
9938 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
9939 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
9943 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
9944 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
9945 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
9948 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
9949 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
9950 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
9951 style is still the default however.
9953 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
9955 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
9956 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
9957 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
9959 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
9960 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
9962 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
9963 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
9965 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
9966 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
9968 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
9969 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
9971 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
9972 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
9973 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
9974 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
9976 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
9978 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
9979 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
9980 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
9982 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
9983 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
9984 expanding dynamically.
9986 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
9987 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
9989 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
9990 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
9991 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
9992 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
9994 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
9996 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
9998 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
9999 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
10000 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
10001 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
10002 against the first word in the title.
10004 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
10005 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
10006 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
10007 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
10008 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
10009 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
10011 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
10012 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
10013 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
10014 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
10016 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
10018 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
10019 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
10020 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
10021 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
10022 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
10023 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
10025 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
10026 Editing group once the package is loaded.
10028 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
10029 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
10030 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
10032 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
10033 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
10037 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
10038 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
10039 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
10041 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
10042 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
10043 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
10044 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
10047 o URLs are automatically skipped
10048 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
10050 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
10052 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
10054 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
10055 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
10056 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
10057 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
10059 *** New recursive parser.
10061 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
10062 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
10063 recursive parser scans the individual files.
10065 *** Parsing only part of a document.
10067 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
10068 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
10069 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
10071 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
10073 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
10075 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
10077 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
10079 *** Using multiple selection buffers
10081 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
10082 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
10084 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
10086 *** References to external documents.
10088 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
10089 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
10090 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
10091 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
10092 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
10093 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
10094 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
10096 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
10098 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
10099 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
10101 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
10102 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
10104 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
10106 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
10107 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
10109 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
10111 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
10112 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
10113 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
10114 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
10115 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
10116 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
10119 *** Support for the varioref package
10121 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
10125 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
10126 and citations are created. These hooks are
10127 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
10128 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
10130 *** Citations outside LaTeX
10132 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
10133 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
10135 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
10137 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
10138 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
10141 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
10143 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
10144 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
10145 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
10146 directories that contain the same file name.
10148 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
10149 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
10150 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
10151 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
10152 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
10153 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
10154 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
10157 ** New modes and packages
10159 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
10160 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
10161 it, but some do not.
10163 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
10166 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
10167 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
10168 around in a buffer.
10170 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
10172 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
10173 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
10174 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
10175 established system of notation similar to Chess.
10177 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
10178 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
10179 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
10181 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
10182 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
10183 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
10184 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
10185 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
10188 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
10189 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
10191 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
10192 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
10193 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
10194 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
10196 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
10198 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
10199 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
10200 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
10201 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
10202 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
10203 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
10204 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
10205 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
10206 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
10207 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
10208 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
10210 Platform-specific modes:
10212 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
10213 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
10214 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
10215 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
10216 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
10217 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
10218 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
10219 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
10220 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
10222 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
10224 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
10225 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
10226 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
10227 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
10229 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
10230 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
10231 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
10233 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
10234 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
10235 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
10236 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
10238 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
10239 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
10240 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
10243 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
10244 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
10245 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
10246 current input method for reading this one event.
10248 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
10249 now control whether to output certain characters as
10250 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
10251 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
10252 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
10253 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
10255 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
10257 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
10258 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
10260 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
10261 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
10262 always increases point by 1.
10264 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
10265 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
10267 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
10269 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
10270 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
10271 default value changed. For example,
10273 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
10278 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
10281 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
10282 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
10283 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
10284 `:version' in the top level group.
10286 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
10288 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
10289 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
10291 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
10292 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
10293 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
10296 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
10297 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
10300 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
10301 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
10302 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
10304 ** Frame-local variables.
10306 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
10307 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
10308 local bindings for that variable.
10310 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
10311 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
10312 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
10315 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
10316 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
10317 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
10318 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
10320 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
10321 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
10322 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
10323 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
10325 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
10326 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
10327 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
10328 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
10329 See the documentation in sregex.el.
10331 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
10332 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
10333 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
10334 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
10336 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
10337 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
10339 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
10340 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
10341 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
10343 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
10344 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
10345 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
10346 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
10348 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
10349 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
10352 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
10353 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
10354 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
10355 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
10356 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
10358 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
10359 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
10360 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
10361 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
10363 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
10364 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
10365 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
10366 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
10367 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
10369 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
10370 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
10371 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
10372 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
10374 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
10375 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
10376 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
10378 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
10379 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
10380 was directed to display this buffer.
10382 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
10383 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
10384 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
10385 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
10386 set-window-configuration.
10388 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
10389 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
10390 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
10391 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
10393 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
10394 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
10395 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
10397 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
10398 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
10399 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
10401 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
10402 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
10404 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
10405 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
10407 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
10408 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
10409 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
10411 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
10412 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
10413 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
10414 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
10418 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
10419 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
10422 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
10423 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
10424 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
10425 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
10426 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
10428 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
10430 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
10431 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
10432 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
10433 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
10436 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
10437 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
10438 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
10439 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
10440 The supported properties include
10442 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
10444 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
10445 item should appear in the menu.
10447 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
10448 which will be REAL-BINDING.
10449 It should return a binding to use instead.
10451 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
10452 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
10453 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
10454 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
10455 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
10458 This means that the command normally has no
10459 keyboard equivalent.
10460 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
10461 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
10462 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
10463 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
10464 value says whether this button is currently selected.
10466 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
10467 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
10469 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
10473 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
10474 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
10475 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
10476 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
10478 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
10480 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
10481 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
10482 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
10483 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
10484 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
10485 forward, away from the user.
10487 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
10489 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
10490 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
10491 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
10492 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
10493 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
10495 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
10497 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
10498 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
10499 that were dragged and dropped.
10501 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
10503 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
10505 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
10506 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
10507 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
10509 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
10510 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
10511 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
10513 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
10514 in Emacs 19 and before.
10516 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
10517 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
10519 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
10520 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
10521 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
10522 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
10524 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
10525 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
10526 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
10527 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
10528 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
10530 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
10531 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
10532 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
10533 consistent with the new representation.
10535 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
10536 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
10537 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
10538 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
10540 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
10541 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
10542 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
10544 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
10545 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
10546 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
10548 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
10549 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
10550 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
10552 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
10553 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
10555 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
10556 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
10558 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
10559 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
10560 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
10561 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
10563 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
10564 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
10566 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
10567 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
10568 buffer or string being searched.
10570 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
10571 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
10572 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
10573 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
10574 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
10575 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
10576 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
10578 *** Structure of coding system changed.
10580 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
10581 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
10582 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
10583 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
10584 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
10585 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
10586 define-coding-system-alias.
10588 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
10589 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
10590 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
10591 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
10592 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
10593 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
10594 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
10597 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
10598 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
10599 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
10600 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
10602 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
10603 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
10604 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
10605 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
10607 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
10608 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
10609 This function requires a user interaction.
10611 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
10612 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
10613 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
10614 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
10615 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
10616 select-safe-coding-system.
10618 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
10619 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
10620 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
10623 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
10624 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
10625 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
10627 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
10628 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
10629 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
10630 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
10632 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
10633 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
10634 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
10637 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
10638 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
10640 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
10641 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
10642 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
10643 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
10644 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
10645 range of characters.
10647 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
10648 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
10650 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
10651 in the current buffer at position POS.
10653 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
10654 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
10655 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
10656 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
10657 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
10658 binding input-method-function to nil.
10660 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
10661 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
10662 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
10663 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
10664 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
10666 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
10667 subsequent events of a key sequence.
10669 *** You can customize any language environment by using
10670 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
10672 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
10673 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
10674 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
10675 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
10676 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
10678 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
10680 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
10681 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
10682 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
10685 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
10686 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
10688 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
10689 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
10690 in your .emacs file.)
10692 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
10693 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
10695 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
10696 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
10698 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
10699 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
10702 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
10703 delete the character before point, as usual.
10705 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
10706 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
10707 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
10709 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
10710 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
10711 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
10712 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
10713 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
10716 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
10717 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
10718 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
10719 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
10720 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
10722 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
10723 and is an alias for it.
10725 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
10726 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
10728 ** Scrolling changes
10730 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
10731 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
10733 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
10734 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
10737 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
10738 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
10739 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
10740 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
10742 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
10743 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
10744 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
10745 recenters the window.
10747 ** International character set support (MULE)
10749 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
10750 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
10751 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
10752 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
10753 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
10754 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
10756 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
10757 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
10758 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
10759 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
10760 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
10762 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
10763 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
10764 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
10765 language, to make it possible to type them.
10767 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
10768 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
10770 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
10771 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
10773 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
10775 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
10777 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
10778 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
10779 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
10780 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
10781 characters for their work until they want to change.
10785 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
10786 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
10787 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
10788 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
10789 support several input methods.
10791 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
10792 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
10795 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
10796 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
10797 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
10798 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
10799 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
10802 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
10803 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
10804 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
10805 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
10806 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
10808 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
10809 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
10810 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
10811 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
10813 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
10814 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
10815 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
10816 the first guess is wrong.
10818 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
10819 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
10821 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
10822 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
10823 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
10824 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
10826 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
10827 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
10828 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
10829 translate automatically to and from either one.
10831 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
10833 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
10834 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
10835 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
10838 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
10839 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
10840 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
10841 multibyte characters in that buffer.
10843 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
10844 character conversion as well.
10846 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
10848 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
10849 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
10850 requires using many fonts.
10852 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
10853 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
10855 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
10856 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
10857 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
10858 you would use a font.
10860 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
10861 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
10862 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
10864 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
10865 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
10868 *** Defining fontsets.
10870 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
10871 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
10872 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
10874 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
10875 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
10876 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
10877 standard fontset are created automatically.
10879 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
10880 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
10881 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
10882 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
10883 name is `fontset-startup'.
10885 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
10886 The resource value should have this form:
10887 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
10888 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
10889 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
10890 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
10891 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
10892 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
10893 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
10894 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
10895 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
10897 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
10898 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
10899 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
10901 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
10902 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
10903 following resource,
10904 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
10905 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
10906 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
10907 Here is the substitution rule:
10908 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
10909 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
10910 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
10911 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
10912 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
10914 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
10915 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
10916 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
10918 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
10919 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
10920 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
10921 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
10924 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
10925 defaults for a particular choice of language.
10927 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
10928 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
10929 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
10930 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
10931 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
10932 system for new files that you create.
10934 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
10935 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
10936 whole Emacs session.
10938 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
10939 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
10940 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
10942 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
10943 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
10944 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
10945 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
10946 coding systems that Emacs supports.
10948 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
10949 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
10950 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
10951 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
10952 is used for *the immediately following command*.
10954 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
10955 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
10957 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
10958 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
10960 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
10961 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
10963 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
10964 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
10965 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
10966 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
10969 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
10970 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
10971 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
10972 translated into that character code.
10974 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
10975 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
10977 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
10979 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
10980 the coding system for keyboard input.
10982 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
10983 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
10984 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
10986 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
10988 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
10989 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
10990 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
10991 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
10992 designed to work with terminals.
10994 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
10995 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
10996 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
10997 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
10998 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
10999 in the corresponding buffer.
11001 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
11003 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
11004 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
11005 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
11007 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
11008 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
11009 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
11012 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
11013 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
11015 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
11016 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
11017 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
11018 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
11020 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
11021 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
11022 related information.
11024 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
11025 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
11028 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
11029 information about the support for a particular language.
11030 You specify the language as an argument.
11032 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
11033 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
11036 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
11037 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
11038 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
11039 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
11041 A alternativnyj (Russian)
11043 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
11044 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
11045 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
11046 E euc-japan (Japanese)
11047 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
11048 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
11049 K euc-korea (Korean)
11052 S shift_jis (Japanese)
11055 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
11056 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
11057 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
11058 v viqr (Vietnamese)
11061 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
11062 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
11063 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
11064 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
11066 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
11067 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
11069 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
11070 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
11071 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
11072 Rmail files themselves.
11074 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
11075 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
11077 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
11080 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
11081 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
11082 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
11083 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
11084 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
11086 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
11087 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
11088 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
11091 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
11092 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
11093 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
11094 without any conversion.
11096 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
11097 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
11098 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
11099 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
11101 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
11102 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
11104 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
11105 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
11107 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
11108 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
11110 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
11111 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
11112 in the buffer before point.
11114 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
11115 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
11118 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
11119 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
11121 ** File locking works with NFS now.
11123 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
11124 in the same directory as FILENAME.
11126 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
11127 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
11128 can become a bottleneck.
11130 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
11131 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
11132 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
11133 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
11134 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
11135 so useful that the change is worth while.
11137 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
11138 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
11139 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
11140 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
11142 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
11143 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
11146 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
11147 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
11148 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
11150 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
11151 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
11152 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
11154 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
11155 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
11156 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
11158 ** Changes in View mode.
11160 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
11161 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
11163 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
11164 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
11166 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
11169 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
11170 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
11172 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
11173 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
11174 not just the selected window.
11176 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
11177 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
11178 turns View mode on or off.
11180 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
11181 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
11182 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
11184 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
11185 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
11187 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
11188 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
11189 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
11190 which version to compare with.
11192 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
11193 blocks if a match is inside the block.
11195 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
11196 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
11197 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
11198 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
11200 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
11201 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
11202 blocks, all of them or none.
11204 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
11205 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
11206 confirmation first.
11208 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
11209 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
11210 However, the mode will not be changed if
11211 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
11212 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
11213 not suitable for ordinary files, or
11214 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
11216 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
11218 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
11219 these commands do not change the major mode.
11221 ** M-x occur changes.
11223 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
11224 it performs a case-sensitive search.
11226 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
11227 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
11228 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
11230 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
11231 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
11232 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
11233 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
11234 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
11236 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
11237 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
11238 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
11239 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
11241 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
11242 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
11243 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
11245 ** Outline mode changes.
11247 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
11249 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
11251 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
11252 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
11253 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
11254 was already active.
11256 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
11257 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
11258 get confused by it.
11260 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
11261 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
11263 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
11265 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
11266 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
11267 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
11268 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
11270 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
11271 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
11272 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
11274 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
11275 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
11278 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
11279 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
11280 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
11281 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
11283 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
11284 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
11285 can be. The default value is 30.
11287 ** Changes in Mail mode.
11289 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
11290 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
11291 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
11292 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
11293 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
11296 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
11297 compose-mail-other-frame.
11299 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
11300 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
11301 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
11302 buffer that shows the original message.
11304 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
11305 with separator lines around the contents.
11307 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
11308 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
11309 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
11310 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
11312 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
11314 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
11315 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
11316 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
11317 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
11319 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
11320 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
11323 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
11324 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
11327 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
11328 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
11329 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
11330 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
11332 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
11333 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
11334 be taken to be magic.
11336 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
11337 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
11338 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
11340 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
11341 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
11343 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
11344 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
11346 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
11348 new key dired.el binding old key
11349 ------- ---------------- -------
11350 * c dired-change-marks c
11352 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
11353 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
11354 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
11356 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
11357 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
11358 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
11359 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
11360 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
11361 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
11365 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
11366 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
11367 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
11368 each time you run it.
11370 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
11371 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
11373 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
11374 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
11375 means to move in the opposite direction.
11377 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
11378 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
11380 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
11381 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
11382 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
11383 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
11388 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
11390 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
11393 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
11394 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
11396 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
11399 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
11401 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
11403 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
11405 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
11406 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
11407 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
11409 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
11411 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
11413 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
11414 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
11416 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
11417 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
11418 used to pick articles.
11420 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
11421 another have been added.
11423 `M-x gnus-change-server'
11425 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
11426 generating lines in buffers.
11428 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
11431 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
11433 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
11435 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
11437 *** Scores can be decayed.
11439 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
11441 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
11442 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
11444 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
11447 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
11449 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
11450 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
11452 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
11454 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
11455 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
11457 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
11458 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
11460 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
11463 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
11464 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
11466 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
11468 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
11470 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
11472 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
11474 Use the `Y c' command.
11476 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
11478 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
11480 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
11482 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
11483 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
11485 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
11487 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
11489 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
11490 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
11492 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
11494 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
11495 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
11496 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
11497 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
11500 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
11501 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
11502 particular news group. This can be done by:
11504 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
11506 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
11507 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
11508 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
11509 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
11510 for reading and posting).
11512 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
11513 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
11514 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
11515 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
11518 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
11519 default. Here are some of these default settings:
11521 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
11522 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
11523 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
11524 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
11525 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
11527 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
11528 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
11530 ** CC mode changes.
11532 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
11533 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
11534 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
11535 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
11536 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
11539 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
11540 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
11541 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
11542 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
11543 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
11544 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
11546 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
11547 of the current buffer.
11549 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
11550 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
11551 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
11553 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
11554 style that the Python developers like.
11556 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
11557 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
11558 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
11560 ** VC Changes [new]
11562 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
11563 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
11564 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
11566 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
11567 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
11570 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
11571 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
11573 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
11574 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
11575 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
11576 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
11578 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
11579 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
11581 ** Calendar changes.
11583 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
11584 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
11585 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
11586 following/previous years.
11588 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
11589 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
11590 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
11591 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
11592 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
11593 supposed attribute of God.
11595 ** ps-print changes
11597 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
11600 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
11602 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
11603 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
11604 printer system has this behavior, set variable
11605 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
11607 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
11608 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
11609 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
11611 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
11612 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
11614 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
11615 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
11616 printing for your printer.
11618 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
11619 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
11621 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
11622 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
11624 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
11625 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
11626 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
11627 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
11628 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
11629 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
11630 The default value is nil.
11632 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
11633 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
11635 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
11636 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
11637 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
11638 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
11639 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
11640 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
11641 color). The default is 0 ("black").
11643 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
11644 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
11646 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
11647 The default is 0 ("black").
11649 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
11650 The default is 0 ("black").
11652 border-width Specify the border width.
11653 The default is 0.4.
11655 Any other property is ignored.
11657 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
11658 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
11661 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
11662 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
11663 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
11664 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
11665 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
11666 controlling headers.
11668 *** Color management (subgroup)
11670 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
11673 *** Face Management (subgroup)
11675 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
11676 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
11677 background should be used. Valid values are:
11679 t always use face background color.
11680 nil never use face background color.
11681 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
11683 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
11685 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
11688 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
11689 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
11691 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
11694 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
11695 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
11696 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
11698 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
11702 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
11706 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
11710 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
11714 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
11716 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
11718 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
11721 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
11722 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
11723 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
11725 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
11726 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11727 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11728 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11729 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11733 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11734 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11735 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11738 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11739 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11740 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
11741 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
11742 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
11743 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11744 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11745 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11746 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
11747 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
11748 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
11751 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11753 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
11756 *** Printer management (subgroup)
11758 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
11759 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
11760 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
11761 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
11764 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
11765 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
11766 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
11768 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
11769 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
11772 *** Page settings (subgroup)
11774 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
11775 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
11776 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
11777 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
11778 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
11779 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
11782 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
11783 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
11784 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
11786 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
11787 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
11788 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
11789 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
11790 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
11791 its TO, are ignored.
11793 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
11794 pages. Valid values are:
11796 nil print all pages.
11798 `even-page' print only even pages.
11800 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
11802 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
11803 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
11804 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
11805 print only the even sheet of paper.
11807 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
11808 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
11809 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
11810 only the odd sheet of paper.
11812 Any other value is treated as nil.
11814 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
11815 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
11816 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
11818 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
11820 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
11821 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
11823 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
11824 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
11825 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
11826 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
11827 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
11828 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
11829 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
11831 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
11832 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
11833 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
11834 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
11835 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
11836 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
11837 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
11839 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
11841 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
11842 messages should be sent.
11844 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
11845 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
11846 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
11848 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
11850 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
11851 points for line numbers.
11853 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
11854 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
11856 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
11857 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
11858 to 2, the printing will look like:
11870 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
11871 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
11874 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
11875 zebra stripe is to be printed.
11877 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
11879 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
11880 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
11881 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
11882 3, the output will look like:
11896 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
11897 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
11899 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
11900 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
11903 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
11904 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
11907 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
11909 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
11910 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
11912 ** hideshow changes.
11914 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
11917 *** Support for java-mode added.
11919 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
11920 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
11922 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
11923 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
11924 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
11926 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
11927 robust and a lot faster.
11929 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
11931 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
11932 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
11933 documentation for more details.
11935 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
11937 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
11938 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
11939 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
11940 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
11941 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
11943 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
11944 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
11945 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
11946 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
11952 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
11953 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
11954 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
11955 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
11956 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
11957 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
11959 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
11961 *** Maximum decoration
11963 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
11964 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
11965 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
11966 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
11967 to get the old behavior.
11971 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
11973 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
11974 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
11976 *** Configurable support
11978 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
11979 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
11980 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
11981 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
11982 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
11983 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
11984 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
11986 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
11987 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
11988 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
11990 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
11992 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
11993 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
11996 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
11998 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
12004 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
12005 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
12006 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
12007 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
12009 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
12011 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
12012 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
12013 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
12015 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
12017 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
12018 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
12019 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
12020 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
12021 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
12022 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
12023 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
12025 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
12026 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
12027 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
12028 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
12029 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
12030 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
12032 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
12034 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
12035 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
12036 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
12037 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
12039 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
12042 ** Ada mode changes.
12044 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
12045 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
12046 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
12047 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
12050 *** There are two new commands:
12051 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
12052 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
12054 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
12055 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
12056 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
12058 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
12059 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
12060 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
12062 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
12063 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
12064 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
12065 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
12067 ** Scheme mode changes.
12069 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
12070 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
12071 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
12072 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
12075 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
12076 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
12077 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
12078 variables as buffer-local variables.
12080 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
12081 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
12083 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
12085 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
12086 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
12087 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
12088 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
12090 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
12091 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
12094 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
12095 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
12096 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
12097 option takes precedence.
12099 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
12100 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
12101 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
12103 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
12104 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
12107 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
12108 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
12110 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
12111 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
12114 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
12115 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
12116 these register values no longer become completely useless.
12117 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
12118 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
12119 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
12121 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
12122 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
12123 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
12124 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
12126 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
12127 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
12128 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
12129 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
12130 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
12132 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
12133 since it applies only to the current frame.
12135 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
12136 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
12137 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
12139 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
12140 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
12141 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
12142 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
12143 instead of just the file you are editing.
12147 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
12148 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
12149 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
12150 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
12151 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
12154 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
12155 knows which kind of label is needed.
12157 C-c ) reftex-reference
12158 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
12159 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
12161 C-c [ reftex-citation
12162 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
12163 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
12165 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
12166 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
12169 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
12170 can quickly jump to every section.
12172 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
12173 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
12174 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
12175 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
12176 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
12178 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
12180 *** Info documentation is now available.
12182 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
12183 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
12185 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
12186 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
12188 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
12189 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
12191 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
12192 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
12193 appropriate functions.
12195 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
12196 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
12198 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
12201 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
12202 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
12204 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
12205 shall be delimited.
12207 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
12208 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
12209 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
12211 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
12212 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
12213 prefixed with `ALT'.
12215 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
12216 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
12217 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
12220 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
12221 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
12222 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
12224 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
12225 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
12227 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
12228 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
12229 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
12231 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
12233 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
12235 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
12236 from alien sources.
12238 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
12239 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
12242 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
12245 *** Added support for imenu.
12247 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
12248 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
12249 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
12250 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
12252 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
12253 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
12255 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
12257 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
12259 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
12260 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
12261 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
12264 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
12265 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
12267 ** browse-url changes
12269 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
12270 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
12271 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
12272 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
12273 customization variables.
12275 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
12277 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
12278 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
12279 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
12281 ** Changes in Ediff
12283 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
12284 pops up the Info file for this command.
12286 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
12287 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
12288 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
12291 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
12292 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
12293 files in the same directory.
12295 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
12296 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
12297 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
12299 ** Changes in Viper
12301 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
12302 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
12304 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
12305 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
12306 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
12307 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
12308 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
12309 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
12310 color when Viper is in insert state.
12311 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
12312 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
12313 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
12317 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
12318 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
12319 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
12320 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
12321 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
12323 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
12325 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
12326 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
12328 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
12329 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
12330 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
12332 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
12333 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
12334 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
12335 methods and protocols.
12337 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
12338 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
12339 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
12342 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
12343 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
12344 at least M times and as many as N times.
12346 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
12347 in files has changed slightly.
12349 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
12350 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
12351 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
12352 with old time-stamp-format values.
12354 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
12355 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
12356 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
12359 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
12360 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
12361 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
12362 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
12363 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
12364 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
12366 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
12367 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
12368 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
12370 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
12371 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
12372 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
12373 recommended now will continue to work then.
12375 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
12378 ** There are some additional major modes:
12380 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
12381 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
12382 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
12384 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
12385 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
12388 ** New Lisp packages include:
12390 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
12392 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
12393 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
12395 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
12397 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
12400 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
12401 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
12404 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
12405 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
12406 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
12407 strings or comments.
12409 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
12410 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
12411 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
12412 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
12415 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
12416 can visit them by short forms of their names.
12418 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
12419 Emacs Lisp function at point.
12421 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
12423 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
12424 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
12426 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
12428 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
12430 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
12432 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
12433 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
12435 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
12436 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
12437 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
12438 original place after inserting the copy.
12440 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
12443 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
12444 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
12445 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
12447 Enable mouse-drag with:
12448 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
12450 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
12452 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
12453 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
12455 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
12456 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
12460 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
12461 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
12462 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
12463 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
12464 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
12465 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
12466 instance) and vice versa.
12468 To use this package load it using
12469 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
12470 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
12471 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
12472 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
12473 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
12474 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
12476 *** Interface to ph.
12478 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
12480 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
12481 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
12484 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
12486 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
12487 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
12488 while the real cursor does not move.
12490 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
12491 for visiting your favorite web sites.
12493 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
12494 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
12498 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
12499 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
12500 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
12501 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
12503 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
12505 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
12507 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
12509 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
12510 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
12511 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
12512 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
12513 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
12515 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
12516 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
12517 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
12518 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
12519 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
12520 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
12522 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
12524 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
12525 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
12526 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
12527 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
12529 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
12530 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
12532 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
12533 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
12536 ** Basic Lisp changes
12538 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
12539 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
12541 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
12542 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
12545 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
12547 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
12549 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
12550 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
12552 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
12553 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
12556 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
12558 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
12560 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
12562 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
12563 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
12564 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
12567 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
12568 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
12569 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
12571 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
12572 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
12573 adding one of these suffixes.
12575 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
12576 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
12577 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
12579 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
12580 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
12582 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
12584 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
12585 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
12587 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
12588 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
12590 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
12592 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
12593 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
12595 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
12596 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
12597 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
12598 works using `save-current-buffer'.
12600 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
12601 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
12604 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
12605 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
12606 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
12609 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
12610 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
12613 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
12615 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
12616 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
12617 Then it returns that string.
12619 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
12621 (with-output-to-string
12622 (princ "The buffer is ")
12623 (princ (buffer-name)))
12625 returns "The buffer is foo".
12627 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
12630 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
12631 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
12632 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
12634 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
12635 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
12637 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
12638 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
12639 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
12640 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
12641 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
12642 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
12644 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
12645 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
12646 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
12649 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
12650 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
12651 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
12652 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
12653 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
12655 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
12656 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
12657 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
12658 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
12660 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
12661 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
12663 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
12665 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
12666 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
12667 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
12668 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
12671 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
12672 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
12675 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
12677 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
12678 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
12679 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
12680 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
12681 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
12683 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
12685 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
12686 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
12687 more than the number of characters.
12689 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
12690 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
12691 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
12692 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
12693 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
12694 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
12696 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
12697 and returns a string containing those characters.
12699 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
12700 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
12701 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
12702 character, sref signals an error.
12704 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
12705 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
12706 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
12708 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
12709 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
12710 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
12712 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
12713 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
12714 to a vector of the characters in it.
12716 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
12717 of a string. You call it as follows:
12719 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
12721 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
12722 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
12723 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
12724 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
12725 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
12727 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
12728 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
12730 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
12731 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
12733 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
12734 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
12735 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
12736 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
12738 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
12740 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
12742 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
12743 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
12744 are not included in the resulting value.
12746 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
12747 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
12748 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
12749 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
12751 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
12752 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
12753 character extends across that column), then the padding character
12754 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
12755 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
12756 column START-COLUMN.
12758 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
12759 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
12760 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
12761 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
12762 changed text, before the change.
12764 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
12765 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
12766 one character set for each script, not for each language.
12768 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
12770 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
12772 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
12773 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
12775 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
12776 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
12777 which identify the character within that character set.
12779 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
12780 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
12781 opposite of split-char.
12783 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
12784 of all the characters between BEG and END.
12786 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
12787 of all the characters in a string.
12789 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
12790 and specifying coding systems.
12792 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
12793 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
12794 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
12795 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
12796 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
12797 as what to do about code conversion.)
12799 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
12800 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
12802 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
12803 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
12804 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
12806 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
12807 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
12808 to match against a file name.
12810 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
12811 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
12812 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
12813 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
12814 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
12815 specifies the coding system for encoding.
12817 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
12818 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
12820 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
12821 the coding system to use for network sockets.
12823 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
12824 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
12825 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
12828 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
12829 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
12830 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
12831 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
12832 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
12833 specifies the coding system for encoding.
12835 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
12836 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
12838 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
12839 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
12840 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
12841 start the subprocess.
12843 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
12844 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
12845 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
12846 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
12847 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
12849 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
12850 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
12853 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
12854 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
12855 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
12856 connection permanently or until overridden.
12858 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
12859 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
12860 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
12861 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
12862 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
12863 system for one operation at a time.
12865 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
12866 files, subprocesses or network connections.
12868 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
12869 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
12870 The value is a cons cell,
12871 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
12872 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
12873 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
12874 input to the subprocess.
12876 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
12877 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
12879 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
12880 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
12881 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
12883 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
12884 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
12885 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
12886 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
12889 Thus, instead of writing
12891 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
12892 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
12894 you would now write this:
12896 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
12897 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
12901 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
12902 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
12903 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
12904 for a description of them.
12906 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
12907 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
12909 (defgroup ispell nil
12910 "Spell checking using Ispell."
12913 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
12914 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
12915 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
12916 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
12917 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
12919 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
12920 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
12921 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
12922 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
12923 first-level subgroups.
12925 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
12927 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
12928 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
12932 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
12933 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
12934 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
12935 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
12936 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
12937 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
12939 ** Text property changes
12941 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
12944 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
12945 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
12946 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
12947 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
12948 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
12950 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
12951 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
12952 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
12953 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
12955 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
12956 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
12957 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
12959 ** Changes in invisibility features
12961 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
12962 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
12963 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
12964 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
12965 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
12966 make the overlay visible.
12968 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
12969 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
12970 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
12971 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
12972 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
12973 t when it should hide it.
12975 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
12977 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
12978 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
12979 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
12980 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
12981 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
12982 Here is an example of how to do this:
12984 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
12985 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
12986 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
12987 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
12990 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
12993 ;; When done with the overlays:
12994 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
12995 ;; Or respectively:
12996 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
12998 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
13000 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
13001 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
13002 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
13003 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
13005 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
13006 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
13007 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
13009 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
13010 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
13012 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
13013 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
13015 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
13016 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
13017 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
13019 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
13020 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
13021 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
13022 determine the syntax type of the character.
13024 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
13025 of the current buffer.
13027 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
13028 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
13029 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
13031 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
13032 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
13033 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
13034 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
13035 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
13037 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
13040 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
13041 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
13042 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
13044 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
13045 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
13046 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
13047 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
13048 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
13050 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
13051 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
13052 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
13054 ** Changes in face features
13056 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
13057 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
13059 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
13060 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
13062 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
13063 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
13065 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
13066 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
13068 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
13069 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
13070 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
13071 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
13074 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
13075 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
13077 ** Changes in file-handling functions
13079 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
13080 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
13081 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
13082 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
13084 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
13087 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
13088 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
13090 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
13091 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
13093 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
13094 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
13096 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
13097 character code conversion as well as other things.
13099 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
13100 (formerly it did not).
13102 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
13103 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
13105 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
13106 instead of constant strings.
13108 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
13109 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
13110 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
13112 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
13113 in the same way as before.
13115 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
13116 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
13117 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
13119 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
13120 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
13121 else, and returns nil.
13123 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
13124 directory cannot be listed.
13126 ** Changes in minibuffer input
13128 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
13129 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
13130 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
13131 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
13134 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
13135 It is available through the history command M-n.
13137 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
13138 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
13139 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
13140 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
13141 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
13143 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
13144 argument in this way.
13146 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
13147 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
13148 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
13150 ** Echo area features
13152 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
13153 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
13154 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
13155 after the echo area is cleared.
13157 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
13158 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
13160 ** Keyboard input features
13162 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
13163 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
13165 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
13166 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
13167 by keyboard macros.
13169 ** Frame-related changes
13171 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
13172 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
13173 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
13175 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
13176 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
13177 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
13179 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
13180 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
13181 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
13182 in the selected frame.
13184 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
13185 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
13186 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
13188 ** X Windows features
13190 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
13191 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
13192 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
13194 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
13195 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
13197 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
13198 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
13199 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
13201 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
13202 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
13204 ** Subprocess features
13206 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
13207 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
13210 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
13211 and returns the output from the command as a string.
13213 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
13214 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
13216 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
13217 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
13219 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
13220 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
13221 goes after the other menu items.
13223 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
13224 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
13225 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
13228 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
13229 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
13231 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
13232 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
13235 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
13236 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
13237 but its hook is still run.
13239 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
13240 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
13242 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
13243 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
13244 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
13246 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
13247 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
13248 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
13251 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
13252 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
13254 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
13255 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
13256 functions like display-time.
13258 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
13259 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
13261 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
13262 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
13263 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
13265 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
13266 if there is an error in compilation.
13268 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
13269 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
13270 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
13271 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
13273 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
13274 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
13275 the *scratch* buffer.
13277 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
13278 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
13279 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
13280 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
13282 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
13283 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
13284 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
13286 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
13287 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
13288 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
13289 and compose-mail-other-frame.
13291 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
13292 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
13293 full name of the specified user will be returned.
13295 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
13296 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
13297 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
13298 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
13299 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
13302 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
13303 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
13304 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
13305 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
13307 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
13308 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
13309 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
13310 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
13312 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
13314 ** imenu.el changes.
13316 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
13317 item from menu created by imenu.
13319 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
13320 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
13321 select one of those items.
13323 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
13325 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
13326 Copyright information:
13328 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
13330 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
13331 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
13332 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
13333 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
13335 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
13336 of this document, or of portions of it,
13337 under the above conditions, provided also that they
13338 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
13342 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
13345 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793