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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
8
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 23.
10
11 See files NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18, and NEWS.1-17
12 for changes in older Emacs versions.
13
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
16
17
18 Temporary note:
19 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
20 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
23
24 \f
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.2
26
27 ** New configure options for Emacs developers
28 These are not new features; only the configure flags are new.
29
30 *** --enable-profiling builds Emacs with profiling enabled.
31 This might not work on all platforms.
32
33 *** --enable-checking[=OPTIONS] builds emacs with extra runtime checks.
34
35 * Changes in Emacs 23.2
36
37 ** Unibyte sessions are declared obsolete.
38 I.e. the use of the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE, or command line
39 arguments --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
40 is deprecated. Similarly for custom-izing enable-multibyte-characters, or
41 setting default-enable-multibyte-characters.
42
43 ** The default value of `trash-directory' has changed to nil, which
44 means that `move-file-to-trash' trashes files according to
45 freedesktop.org specifications, the same method used by the Gnome,
46 KDE, and XFCE desktops. (This change has no effect on Windows, which
47 uses `system-move-file-to-trash' for trashing.)
48
49 +++
50 ** Emacs frames can be maximized.
51 The command line arguments -mm/--maximized and the value maximized to the
52 frame parameter fullscreen makes the Emacs frame maximized.
53
54 +++
55 ** New frame parameter sticky makes Emacs frames sticky in virtual desktops.
56
57 ** The pointer now becomes invisible when typing.
58 Customize make-pointer-invisible to turn it off.
59
60 ---
61 ** On MS-Windows, `display-time' now displays the system load average
62 as well as the time, as it does on GNU and Unix.
63
64 ** Killing a buffer with a running process now asks a confirmation.
65 You can remove this query in two ways: either removing
66 `process-kill-buffer-query-function' from `kill-buffer-query-functions' or
67 setting the appropriate process flag with `set-process-query-on-exit-flag'.
68
69 +++
70 ** If `select-active-regions' is t, any active region automatically
71 becomes the primary selection (for interaction with other window
72 applications). If you enable this, you might want to bind
73 `mouse-yank-primary' to Mouse-2.
74
75 ** The variable `load-in-progress' won't get corrupted by binding it
76 with `let'. In certain situations, loading an Emacs Lisp file from
77 source while in the midst of loading another file (e.g., with
78 `require' or `autoload') could cause the value of `load-in-progress'
79 to be corrupted once the outer load completed. Most code doesn't care
80 about this, but some (like c-mode) may check it.
81
82 ** When `save-interprogram-paste-before-kill' is non-nil, emacs will not
83 clobber the the interprogram paste when something is killed in it by
84 saving the former in the `kill-ring' before the latter.
85
86 ** When `kill-do-not-save-duplicates' is non-nil, identical subsequent
87 kills are not duplicated in the `kill-ring'.
88
89 ** File-local variable changes
90
91 *** Specifying a minor mode as a local variables enables that mode,
92 unconditionally. The previous behavior, toggling the mode, was
93 neither reliable nor generally desirable.
94
95 *** New commands for adding and removing file-local variables:
96 `add-file-local-variable', `delete-file-local-variable',
97 `add-file-local-variable-prop-line', and
98 `delete-file-local-variable-prop-line'.
99
100 *** New commands for adding and removing directory-local variables,
101 and copying them to and from file-local variable lists:
102 `add-dir-local-variable', `delete-dir-local-variable',
103 `copy-dir-locals-to-file-locals',
104 `copy-dir-locals-to-file-locals-prop-line' and
105 `copy-file-locals-to-dir-locals'.
106
107 ** New coding system `utf-8-hfs' is available in
108 international/ucs-normalize.el. It is suitable for
109 default-file-name-coding-system on Mac OS X.
110
111 \f
112 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.2
113
114 +++
115 ** The default value for `blink-matching-paren-distance' has been increased.
116
117 \f
118 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.2
119
120 ** .calc.el and .abbrev_defs obey user-emacs-directory.
121
122 ** Calc graphing commands (`g f' etc.) now work on MS-Windows,
123 if you have the native Windows port of Gnuplot version 3.8 or later
124 installed.
125
126 ** FIXME mail-user-agent change
127 This probably affects a lot of documentation.
128
129 ** FIXME gdb-mi
130
131 ** Info
132
133 *** The new command `Info-virtual-index' bound to "I" displays a menu of
134 matched topics found in the index.
135
136 *** The new command `info-finder' replaces finder.el with a virtual Info
137 manual that generates an Info file which gives the same information
138 through a menu structure.
139
140 +++
141 ** New connection methods in Tramp.
142 The new connection method "rsyncc" has been introduced. On systems
143 which support GVFS-Fuse, Tramp offers also the new connection methods
144 "dav", "davs", "obex" and "synce".
145
146 +++
147 ** Autorevert Tail mode
148 Autorevert Tail mode works now for remote files.
149
150 ** VC and related modes
151
152 *** When a file is not found, VC will not try to check it out of RCS anymore.
153
154 *** vc-git changes
155
156 **** The new variable vc-git-add-signoff can be used to add a
157 Signed-off-by line when committing.
158
159 **** vc-dir displays the stash status
160
161 *** log-edit-strip-single-file-name controls whether or not single filenames
162 are stripped when copying text from the ChangeLog to the *VC-Log* buffer.
163
164 ** Calendar and diary
165
166 ---
167 *** The command `calendar-current-date' accepts an optional argument
168 giving an offset from today.
169
170 ** Desktop
171
172 ---
173 *** The default value for `desktop-buffers-not-to-save' is nil.
174 This means Desktop will try restoring all buffers, when you restart
175 your Emacs session. Also, `desktop-buffers-not-to-save' is only
176 effective for buffers that have no associated file. If you want to
177 exempt buffers that do correspond to files, customize the value of
178 `desktop-files-not-to-save' instead.
179
180 ** Miscellaneous
181
182 *** The new command `async-shell-command' bound globally to `M-&' executes
183 the command asynchronously without the need to manually add ampersand to
184 the end of the command. Its output appears in the buffer `*Async Shell
185 Command*'.
186
187 ---
188 *** Elint now uses compilation-mode, and recognizes more built-in
189 functions and variables.
190
191 \f
192 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.2
193
194 ** js.el is a new major mode for JavaScript files.
195
196 \f
197 * Lisp changes in Emacs 23.2
198
199 ** All the default-FOO variables that hold the default value of the FOO
200 variable, are now declared obsolete.
201
202 ** read-key is a function halfway between read-event and read-key-sequence.
203 It reads a single key, but obeys input and escape sequence decoding.
204
205 ** start-process-shell-command start-file-process-shell-command only
206 take a single `command' argument any more.
207
208 ** The variable `process-file-side-effects' shall be bound to nil, if
209 a `process-file' call does not change a remote file. By this, file
210 name handlers like Tramp can apply optimizations.
211
212 ** Hash tables have a new printed representation that is readable.
213 The feature `hashtable-print-readable' identifies this new
214 functionality.
215
216 ** Functions performing Unicode normalization are added. They are:
217 ucs-normalize-NFD-region, ucs-normalize-NFD-string,
218 ucs-normalize-NFC-region, ucs-normalize-NFC-string,
219 ucs-normalize-NFKD-region, ucs-normalize-NFKD-string,
220 ucs-normalize-NFKC-region, ucs-normalize-NFKC-string,
221 ucs-normalize-HFS-NFD-region, ucs-normalize-HFS-NFD-string,
222 ucs-normalize-HFS-NFC-region, ucs-normalize-HFS-NFC-string.
223
224 ** completion-annotate-function specifies how to compute annotations
225 for completions displayed in *Completions*.
226
227 ** Face aliases can now be marked as obsolete, using the macro
228 `define-obsolete-face-alias'.
229
230 \f
231 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.1
232
233 ** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+, rather than Lucid.
234 The configure option `--with-gtk' has been removed. Gtk is now the
235 default toolkit, but you can use --with-x-toolkit=gtk if necessary.
236
237 ** New font code.
238 Fonts are handled by new code capable of dealing with multiple font
239 backends. This uses the freetype and fontconfig libraries.
240
241 *** Emacs now accepts font names supplied in the fontconfig format
242 (e.g. "monospace-12:bold") and GTK format (e.g. "Monospace Bold 12").
243
244 *** Added support for local fonts (fonts installed on the machine
245 where Emacs is running).
246
247 *** Added support for the Xft library for antialiasing.
248
249 *** Added support for the otf library for complex text layout by
250 OpenType fonts.
251
252 *** Added support for the m17n library for text shaping.
253
254 ** Changes to image support
255
256 *** configure now checks for libgif before libungif when searching for
257 a GIF library.
258
259 *** Emacs now supports the SVG image format through librsvg2.
260
261 *** Emacs now supports multi-page TIFF images.
262
263 ** New NeXTSTEP-based port
264 This provides support for GNUstep (via the GNUstep libraries) and Mac
265 OS X (via the Cocoa libraries).
266
267 Specify --with-ns to configure for this. By default, a self-contained
268 app will be built (containing all lisp). To install/share lisp with
269 other emacsen (e.g. X11 build) use --disable-ns-self-contained. See
270 nextstep/README and nextstep/INSTALL in the Emacs source directory.
271
272 ** Mac OS X is no longer supported via Carbon.
273 Use the NeXTSTEP port, described above.
274
275 ** The new configuration option "--with-dbus" enables D-Bus language
276 bindings for Emacs.
277
278 ** Support for many obsolete platforms has been removed.
279 See the list at the end of etc/MACHINES for details.
280
281 *** Support for systems without alloca has been removed.
282
283 *** Support for Sun windows has been removed.
284
285 *** The `emacstool' utility has been removed.
286
287 ** The following platforms will be removed in a future Emacs version:
288 If you are still using Emacs on one of these platforms, please email
289 emacs-devel@gnu.org to inform the Emacs developers.
290
291 *** Old GNU/Linux systems based on libc version 5.
292
293 *** Old FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD systems based on the COFF
294 executable format.
295
296 *** Solaris versions 2.6 and below.
297
298 *** Solaris on IBM RS6000 machines.
299
300 *** UNIX System V (the original SysV, not later platforms based on it).
301
302 *** Unixware on non-x86 machines.
303
304 *** Platforms not supporting shared libraries (i.e., requiring the
305 NO_SHARED_LIBS compilation flag).
306
307 ** The configure options `--with-gcc', `--without-gcc' have been removed.
308 Configure will use gcc by default. Set the CC environment variable if
309 you need control over which C compiler is used.
310
311 ** The refcards are now shipped as PDF files.
312
313 ** The manuals are now licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License v1.3,
314 or any later version.
315
316 ** Emacs 23 comes with a new set of default icons.
317 Various resolutions are available as etc/images/icons/hicolor/*/apps/emacs.png.
318 The Emacs 22 icon is available as `emacs22.png' in the same location.
319 \f
320 * Changes in Emacs 23.1
321
322 ** Improved X Window System support
323
324 *** Emacs now supports using both X displays and ttys in one session.
325 With an Emacs server active (M-x server-start), `emacsclient -t'
326 creates a tty frame connected to the running emacs server. You can
327 use any number of different ttys. `emacsclient -c' creates a new X11
328 frame on the current $DISPLAY (or a tty frame if $DISPLAY is not set).
329 There may be problems if a display exits unexpectedly and Emacs is compiled
330 with Gtk+, see etc/PROBLEMS.
331
332 You can test for the presence of this feature in your Lisp code by
333 testing for the `multi-tty' feature.
334
335 *** Emacs starts in the background, as a daemon, when given the
336 --daemon command line argument. It disconnects from the terminal and
337 starts the server. Clients can connect and create graphical or
338 terminal frames using emacsclient.
339
340 **** emacsclient starts emacs in daemon mode and connects to it when
341 --alternate-editor="" is used (or when the evironment variable
342 ALTERNATE_EDITOR is set to "") and emacsclient cannot connect to an
343 emacs server.
344
345 *** The new command close-display-connection closes a connection to a
346 remote display. There are some bugs for Gtk+. See etc/PROBLEMS.
347
348 *** Emacs now supports the XEmbed specification.
349 You can embed Emacs in another application on X11. The new command line
350 option --parent-id is used to pass the parent window id to Emacs. See
351 http://standards.freedesktop.org/xembed-spec/xembed-spec-latest.html
352 for details about XEmbed.
353
354 *** Emacs can now set the frame opacity.
355 The opacity of a frame can be controlled by setting the `alpha' frame
356 parameter. This only takes effect on a compositing window manager for
357 the X Window System, such as Compiz, Beryl and Compiz Fusion, on Mac
358 OS X, or on Windows 2000 and later versions of Windows.
359
360 The alpha parameter should be an integer between 0 (transparent) and
361 100 (opaque), or a float number between 0.0 and 1.0. It can also be a
362 cons cell (ACTIVE . INACTIVE), where ACTIVE is the opacity of an
363 active frame and INACTIVE is the opacity of non-active frames.
364
365 The variable `frame-alpha-lower-limit' defines a lower bound for the
366 opacity; the default is 20.
367
368 ** Internationalization changes
369
370 *** The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.
371 (It has about four times the code space, which should be plenty).
372
373 The internal encoding used for buffers and strings is now
374 Unicode-based and called `utf-8-emacs' (`emacs-internal' is an alias
375 for this). This encoding is backward-compatible with Unicode's UTF-8
376 encoding. The internal encoding previously used by Emacs,
377 `emacs-mule', is still available for reading and writing files.
378
379 During byte-compilation, Emacs 23 uses `utf-8-emacs' to write files.
380 As a result, byte-compiled files containing non-ASCII characters can't
381 be read by earlier versions of Emacs. Files compiled by Emacs 20, 21,
382 or 22 are loaded correctly as `emacs-mule' (whether or not they
383 contain multibyte characters). This takes somewhat more time, so it
384 may be worth recompiling existing .elc files which don't need to be
385 shared with older Emacsen.
386
387 *** There are new coding systems/aliases; see M-x list-coding-systems.
388
389 *** There is a new charset implementation with many new charsets.
390 See M-x list-character-sets. New charsets can be defined conveniently
391 as tables of unicodes.
392
393 *** There are new language environments for Chinese-GBK,
394 Chinese-GB18030, Khmer, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu,
395 Sinhala, and TaiViet.
396
397 *** The minor modes unify-8859-on-encoding-mode and
398 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode are obsolete.
399
400 *** `ucs-insert' is bound to `C-x 8 RET' and in addition to hex numbers
401 accepts numbers in hash notation (e.g. #o21430 for octal, or #10r8984 for
402 decimal). It also accepts Unicode character names with completion.
403
404 *** The `cyrillic-translit' input method supports many new characters.
405 Common typographical characters available from Unicode were added to
406 `cyrillic-translit': punctuation marks, accented characters, fractions,
407 and others.
408
409 ** Emacs now supports serial port access on GNU/Linux, Unix, and
410 Windows. The new command `serial-term' starts an interactive terminal
411 on a serial port. The serial port can be configured at runtime with
412 the mode-line mouse menu.
413
414 ** Menu Bar changes
415
416 *** In the Options menu, the "Set Default Font" item applies the
417 selected font to the `default' face on all frames, not just the
418 current frame. Furthermore, if Emacs is compiled with both GTK and
419 Fontconfig support, the "Set Default Font" item uses the GTK font
420 selection dialog instead of an Emacs pop-up menu.
421
422 *** The font setting chosen by "Set Default Font" is saved if the
423 "Save Options" item is used.
424
425 *** The Tools menu contains a new Encryption/Decryption submenu.
426 This contains commands provided by EasyPG, the newly-included
427 interface to GnuPG (see New Modes and Packages).
428
429 *** In the Options menu, the "Truncate Long Lines in the Buffer" entry
430 has been replaced with a submenu offering three different ways to
431 handle long lines: truncation, continuation at the window edge, and
432 the new word wrapping behavior (see Editing Changes, below).
433
434 *** Improvements to menus for major and minor modes
435 More major and minor modes now have a mode specific menu, and existing
436 mode menus have been improved to include more functionality.
437
438 ** Mode-line changes
439
440 *** The mode-line displays a `@', instead of `-', if the
441 default-directory for the current buffer is on a remote machine.
442
443 *** The mode-line displays a mode menu when mouse-1 is clicked on a
444 minor mode, in the same way as it already did for major modes.
445
446 *** The `mode-line-emphasis' face is used to highlight certain
447 mode-line information (e.g. waiting for a VC command to finish).
448
449 *** The mode-line tooltips have been improved to provide more details.
450
451 *** The VC, line/colum number and minor mode indicators on the mode
452 line are now interactive: mouse-1 can be used on them to pop up a menu.
453
454 ** File deletion can make use of the Recycle Bin or system Trash folder.
455 Set `delete-by-moving-to-trash' non-nil to use this. Deleted files
456 and directories will then be sent to the Recycle Bin on Windows, and
457 to `trash-directory' on other systems.
458
459 ** Directory-local variables can now be defined.
460 By default, Emacs looks in .dir-locals.el for directory-local
461 variables. For more information, see `dir-locals-set-directory-class'
462 and `dir-locals-set-class-variables'.
463
464 ** Emacs can now use `auth-source' for authentication.
465 `smtpmail' and `url' (Tramp and Gnus also) use `auth-source' to obtain
466 login names and passwords. The match, if found, is reported
467 in *Messages* with the password blanked out.
468
469 ** `where-is-preferred-modifier' can specify your favorite modifier.
470
471 \f
472 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.1
473
474 ** The option `inhibit-startup-screen' (with aliases to old names
475 `inhibit-splash-screen' and `inhibit-startup-message') doesn't inhibit
476 display of the initial message in the *scratch* buffer. If you don't
477 want to display the initial message in the *scratch* buffer at startup,
478 you can set the option `initial-scratch-message' to nil.
479
480 ** New user option `initial-buffer-choice' specifies what to display
481 after starting Emacs: startup screen, *scratch* buffer, visiting a
482 file or directory.
483
484 ** New alias `argv' for `command-line-args-left'
485 This is a convenience alias, so that one can write `(pop argv)'
486 inside of --eval command line arguments in order to access
487 following arguments.
488
489 ** The abbrev file is no longer read at startup in batch mode.
490
491 ** Emacs now supports invocation by an X session manager.
492 It can save a session and restore it later. See the documentation of
493 the functions `emacs-session-save' and `emacs-session-restore'.
494 (Actually, this feature was introduced with Emacs 22, but it was not
495 documented.)
496 \f
497 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
498
499 ** In Dired, `dired-flag-garbage-files' is rebound from `&' to `%&'
500 on the regexp command prefix map.
501
502 ** In Dired-x, all command guesses for ! are now added to the default
503 list accessible by M-n instead of pushing all guesses temporarily into
504 the history list.
505
506 ** In Isearch mode, a special case of typing `C-w' at the beginning of
507 the minibuffer that toggles word search (i.e. using key sequences
508 `C-s RET C-w' or `C-s M-e C-w') is obsolete. You can use the global key
509 `M-s w' to start word search, or type `M-s w' in Isearch mode to
510 toggle word search. To start nonincremental word search you can now use
511 `M-s w RET' and `M-s w C-r RET' instead of `C-s RET C-w' and `C-r RET C-w'.
512
513 ** In Info, `Info-search' is unbound from `M-s' to allow using `M-s w'
514 for word search as well as other search commands from the global prefix
515 key `M-s'. `Info-search' is still bound to `s', and also incremental
516 search commands `C-s', `C-M-s', `C-r', `C-M-r' are available for searching
517 through multiple Info nodes, together with their nonincremental versions
518 `C-s RET', `C-r RET', `C-M-s RET', `C-M-r RET', `M-s w RET'.
519
520 ** In Text mode, `center-line' and `center-paragraph' are rebound from
521 `M-s' and `M-S' to global keys `M-o M-s' and `M-o M-S' on the global
522 prefix map `M-o', which is intended for such formatting commands.
523
524 ** The following input methods were removed in Emacs 22.2, but this was
525 not advertised: danish-alt-postfix, esperanto-alt-postfix,
526 finnish-alt-postfix, german-alt-postfix, icelandic-alt-postfix,
527 norwegian-alt-postfix, scandinavian-alt-postfix, spanish-alt-postfix,
528 and swedish-alt-postfix. Use the versions without "alt-", which are
529 identical.
530
531 \f
532 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
533
534 ** The C-n and C-p line-motion commands now move by screen lines,
535 taking continued lines and variable-width characters into account.
536 Setting `line-move-visual' to nil reverts this to the previous
537 behavior (i.e., motion by logical lines based on buffer contents
538 alone).
539
540 ** C-x C-c now invokes `save-buffers-kill-terminal', and C-z now
541 invokes `suspend-frame'. These changes are for compatibility with the
542 new multi-tty support (see `Improved X Window System support' above).
543
544 ** Mark changes
545
546 *** Transient Mark mode is now on by default.
547
548 *** mark-even-if-inactive now defaults to t
549
550 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, C-SPC C-SPC pushes a mark without
551 activating it.
552
553 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-q now fills the region if the
554 region is active. Otherwise, it fills the current paragraph.
555
556 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-$ now checks spelling of the
557 region if the region is active. Otherwise, it checks spelling of the
558 word at point.
559
560 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, TAB now indents the region if the
561 region is active.
562
563 *** The variable `use-empty-active-region' controls whether an empty
564 active region in Transient Mark mode should make commands operate on
565 that empty region.
566
567 ** Temporarily active regions
568
569 *** The new variable shift-select-mode, non-nil by default, controls
570 shift-selection. When Shift Select mode is on, shift-translated
571 motion keys (e.g. S-left and S-down) activate and extend a temporary
572 region, similar to mouse-selection.
573
574 *** Temporarily active regions, created using shift-selection or
575 mouse-selection, are not necessarily deactivated in the next command.
576 They are only deactivated after point motion commands that are not
577 shift-translated, or after commands that would ordinarily deactivate
578 the mark in Transient Mark mode (e.g., any command that modifies the
579 buffer).
580
581 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
582
583 *** Emacs may ask for confirmation before opening a non-existent file
584 or buffer. By default, Emacs requests confirmation if you type RET
585 immediately after TAB, and the resulting input is not an existing file
586 or buffer; this usually happens when the minibuffer input did not
587 complete far enough and you entered RET by mistake. In that case,
588 Emacs puts the message "[Confirm]" in the minibuffer; type RET again
589 to create the file or buffer.
590
591 The new variable confirm-nonexistent-file-or-buffer determines whether
592 Emacs asks for confirmation. The default value is `after-completion'.
593 If you change it to t, Emacs always asks for confirmation; if you
594 change it to nil, Emacs never asks for confirmation.
595
596 *** The rules for performing completion have been changed.
597 When generating completion alternatives, Emacs now takes the
598 minibuffer text after point, if any, into account: this text is
599 treated as a substring of the remaining part of the completion
600 alternative (i.e., the part not matched by the minibuffer text before
601 point). If no completion alternatives are found this way, Emacs
602 attempts to perform partial-completion. If still no completion
603 alternatives are found, we fall back on the Emacs 22 rules for
604 performing completion.
605
606 The new variable `completion-styles' can be customized to choose your
607 favorite completion style.
608
609 *** When M-n in the minibuffer reaches the end of the list of defaults,
610 it adds the completion list to the end, so next M-n continues putting
611 completion items to the minibuffer. The same principle applies to
612 incremental search commands as well: C-s or C-M-s starts searching
613 the default values and after the end of defaults they continue
614 searching minibuffer completion items.
615
616 *** Minibuffer input of shell commands now comes with completion.
617
618 *** In the `C-x d' (Dired) prompt, typing M-n gives the visited file
619 name of the current buffer.
620
621 *** In the M-! (shell-command) prompt, M-n provides some default commands.
622 These are guessed using the file extension of the current file, based
623 on the file-handlers specified in the operating system's `mailcap'
624 file. The ! command in Dired (dired-do-shell-command) works
625 similarly, using the file displayed on the current line.
626
627 *** A list of regexp default values is available via M-n for `occur',
628 `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many'. This list includes the active
629 region in transient-mark-mode, the word under the cursor, the last Isearch
630 regexp, the last Isearch string and the last replacement regexp.
631
632 *** When enable-recursive-minibuffers is non-nil, operations which use
633 switch-to-buffer (such as C-x b and C-x C-f) do not fail any more when
634 used in a minibuffer or a dedicated window. Instead, they fallback on
635 using pop-to-buffer, which will use some other window. This change
636 has no effect when enable-recursive-minibuffers is nil (the default).
637
638 *** Isearch started in the minibuffer searches in the minibuffer history.
639 Reverse Isearch commands (C-r, C-M-r) search in previous minibuffer
640 history elements, and forward Isearch commands (C-s, C-M-s) search in
641 next history elements. When the reverse search reaches the first history
642 element, it wraps to the last history element, and the forward search
643 wraps to the first history element. When the search is terminated, the
644 history element containing the search string becomes the current.
645
646 *** The variable read-file-name-completion-ignore-case overrides
647 completion-ignore-case for file name completion.
648
649 *** The variable read-buffer-completion-ignore-case overrides
650 completion-ignore-case for buffer name completion.
651
652 *** The new command `minibuffer-force-complete' chooses one of the
653 possible completions, rather than stopping at the common prefix.
654
655 *** If `completion-auto-help' is `lazy', Emacs shows the completions
656 buffer only on the second attempt to complete. This was already
657 supported in `partial-completion-mode'.
658
659 ** Face changes
660
661 *** S-down-mouse-1 now pops up a menu for changing the font and text
662 size of the default face in the current buffer. The face is changed
663 via face remapping (see Lisp changes, below).
664
665 *** New commands to change the default face size in the current buffer.
666 To increase it, type `C-x C-+' or `C-x C-='. To decrease it, type
667 `C-x C--'. To restore the default (global) face size, type `C-x C-0'.
668 These work via Text Scale mode, a new minor mode.
669
670 The final key in the above commands may be repeated without the
671 leading `C-x', e.g. `C-x C-= C-= C-=' increases the face height by
672 three steps. Each step scales the height of the default face by the
673 value of the variable `text-scale-mode-step'.
674
675 *** The commands buffer-face-mode and buffer-face-set can be used to
676 remap the default face in the current buffer. See "Buffer Face mode",
677 under New Modes and Packages.
678
679 ** Primary selection changes
680
681 *** You can disable kill ring commands from accessing the primary
682 selection by setting `x-select-enable-primary' to nil.
683
684 ** Continuation lines can now be wrapped at word boundaries
685 (word-wrapping). This is controlled by the new per-buffer variable
686 `word-wrap'. Word wrapping does not take place if continuation lines
687 are not shown, e.g. if truncate-lines is non-nil. The most convenient
688 way to enable word-wrapping is using the new minor mode Visual Line
689 mode; in addition to setting `word-wrap' to t, this rebinds some
690 editing commands to work on screen lines rather than text lines. See
691 New Modes and Packages, below.
692
693 ** Window management changes
694
695 *** truncate-partial-width-windows now accepts integer values, which
696 specify a minimum window width for partial-width windows, below which
697 lines are truncated. The default has been changed to 50.
698
699 *** The new command balance-windows-area balances windows both
700 vertically and horizontally.
701
702 *** pop-to-buffer now always sets input focus when the popped-to window
703 is on a different frame.
704
705 ** Miscellaneous changes:
706
707 *** C-l is bound to the new command recenter-top-bottom, rather than recenter.
708 This moves the current line to window center, top and bottom on
709 successive invocations.
710
711 *** scroll-preserve-screen-position also preserves the column position.
712
713 *** If `yank-pop-change-selection' is t, rotating the kill ring also
714 updates the selection or clipboard to the current yank, just as M-w
715 would do so with the text it copies to the kill ring.
716
717 *** C-M-% now shows replacement as it would look in the buffer, with
718 `\N' and `\&' substituted according to the match. Old behavior can be
719 restored by customizing `query-replace-show-replacement'.
720
721 *** The command shell prompts for the default directory, when it is
722 called with a prefix and the default directory is a remote file name.
723 This is because some file name handlers (like ange-ftp) are not able to
724 run processes remotely.
725
726 *** The new command kill-matching-buffers kills buffers whose name
727 matches a regexp.
728
729 *** The value of comment-style now defaults to `indent'.
730 Thefore, comment-start markers are inserted at the current indentation
731 of the region to comment, rather than the leftmost column.
732
733 *** The new commands `pp-macroexpand-expression' and
734 `pp-macroexpand-last-sexp' pretty-print macro expansions.
735
736 *** The new command `set-file-modes' allows to set file's mode bits.
737 The mode bits can be specified in symbolic notation, like with GNU
738 Coreutils, in addition to an octal number. `chmod' is a new
739 convenience alias for this function.
740
741 *** `next-error-recenter' specifies how next-error should recenter the
742 visited source file. Its value can be a number (for example, 0 for
743 top line, -1 for bottom line), or nil for no recentering.
744
745 *** When typing in a password in the echo area, C-y yanks the current
746 kill into the password.
747
748 *** Tooltip frame parameters `font' and `color' in `tooltip-frame-parameters'
749 are ignored. Customize the `tooltip' face instead.
750
751 *** `mkdir' is a new convenience alias for `make-directory'.
752 \f
753 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
754
755 ** Auto Composition Mode is a minor mode that composes characters
756 automatically when they are displayed. It is globally on by default.
757 It uses `auto-composition-function' (default `auto-compose-chars').
758
759 ** Bubbles, a new game, is similar to SameGame.
760
761 ** Buffer Face mode is a minor mode for remapping the default face in
762 the current buffer. The variable `buffer-face-mode-face' specifies
763 the face to remap to. The command `buffer-face-set' prompts for a
764 face name, sets `buffer-face-mode-face' to it, and enables
765 buffer-face-mode. See "Face changes", under Editing Changes, for a
766 description of face remapping.
767
768 ** butterfly flips the desired bit on the drive platter.
769 See http://xkcd.com/378/
770
771 ** bug-reference.el provides clickable links to bug reports.
772
773 ** dbus.el provides D-Bus language bindings.
774 D-Bus is an inter-process communication mechanism for applications
775 residing on the same host. See the manual for details.
776
777 ** DocView mode allows viewing of PDF, PostScript and DVI documents.
778 One can also search for a regular expression in the document. For
779 details, see the commentary in doc-view.el.
780
781 PDF and DVI files are now opened in Doc View mode by default.
782
783 In Postcript mode, C-c C-c launches Doc View minor mode for viewing
784 the postscript file.
785
786 ** EasyPG provides an interface to the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG).
787 It includes a GnuPG keyring browser, cryptographic operations on
788 regions and files, and automatic encryption of *.gpg files. For
789 details, see the EasyPG Assistant User's Manual.
790
791 ** json.el is a library for parsing and generating JSON
792 (JavaScript Object Notation), a lightweight data-interchange format.
793
794 ** linum.el is a new minor mode to display line numbers for the
795 current buffer.
796
797 ** mairix.el is an interface to mairix, a free tool for indexing and
798 searching locally stored mail. It allows you to query mairix and
799 display the search results with Rmail, Gnus and VM. Note that there
800 is an existing Gnus back end, nnmairix.el, which should be used with
801 Maildir/MH setups.
802
803 ** minibuffer-depth-indicate-mode shows the minibuffer depth in the prompt.
804
805 ** nXML Mode
806 This is a new mode for editing XML documents. It allows a schema to
807 be associated with the XML document being edited, using Relax NG as
808 the schema language. The schema is used to provide two key features:
809
810 *** Continuous validation. nXML validates as you type, highlighting
811 any invalid parts of your document.
812
813 *** Completion. nXML can assist you in entering an element name,
814 attribute name or data value by using information about what is
815 allowed by the schema in that context.
816
817 ** proced.el provides a Dired-like interface for operating on
818 processes. Proced makes an Emacs buffer containing a listing of the
819 current processes. You can use the normal Emacs commands to move
820 around in this buffer, and special Proced commands to operate on the
821 processes listed. It is currently only functional on GNU/Linux,
822 MS-Windows and Solaris.
823
824 ** Remember Mode is a mode for jotting down things to remember.
825 Notes can be saved to a Diary file. For details, see the Remember
826 Manual.
827
828 ** RST mode is a major mode for editing reStructuredText files.
829
830 ** Ruby mode is a major mode for Ruby files.
831
832 ** Visual Line mode provides support for editing by visual lines.
833 It turns on word-wrapping in the current buffer, and rebinds C-a, C-e,
834 and C-k to commands that operate by visual lines instead of logical
835 lines. This is a more reliable replacement for longlines-mode.
836 This can also be turned on using the menu bar, via
837 Options -> Line Wrapping in this Buffer -> Word Wrap
838
839 ** xesam.el is an implementation of Xesam, an interface to (desktop)
840 search engines like Beagle, Strigi, and Tracker. The Xesam API
841 requires D-Bus for communication.
842
843 ** zeroconf.el offers service discovery and service publishing
844 interfaces according to the zeroconf specification. It communicates
845 with Avahi, a zeroconf implementation, via D-Bus messages on systems
846 which have installed this software.
847
848 ** There is a new `whitespace' package.
849 (The pre-existing one has been renamed to `old-whitespace'.)
850 Now, besides reporting bogus blanks, the whitespace package has a
851 minor mode and a global minor mode to visualize blanks (TAB, (HARD)
852 SPACE and NEWLINE). The visualization is made via faces and/or display
853 table. It can also indicate lines that extend beyond a given column,
854 trailing blanks, and empty lines at the start or end of a buffer.
855 See `whitespace-style' for more details. The `whitespace-action' option
856 specifies what to do when a buffer is visited, killed, or written.
857
858 \f
859 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
860
861 ** Abbrev has been rewritten in Elisp and extended with more flexibility.
862
863 *** New functions: abbrev-get, abbrev-put, abbrev-table-get, abbrev-table-put,
864 abbrev-table-p, abbrev-insert, abbrev-table-menu.
865
866 *** Special hook `abbrev-expand-functions' obsoletes `pre-abbrev-expand-hook'.
867
868 *** `make-abbrev-table', `define-abbrev', `define-abbrev-table' all take
869 extra arguments for arbitrary properties.
870
871 *** New variable `abbrev-minor-mode-table-alist'.
872
873 *** `local-abbrev-table' can hold a list of abbrev-tables.
874
875 *** Abbrevs have now the following special properties:
876 `:count', `:system', `:enable-function', `:case-fixed'.
877
878 *** Abbrev-tables have now the following special properties:
879 `:parents', `:case-fixed', `:enable-function', `:regexp',
880 `abbrev-table-modiff'.
881
882 ** Apropos
883
884 *** `apropos-library' describes the elements defined in a given library.
885
886 *** Set `apropos-compact-layout' is you want a more compact (but wider) layout.
887
888 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse Rar archives.
889 Note, however, that the free version of the unrar command only handles
890 versions 1 and 2 of the Rar format.
891
892 ** BibTeX mode
893
894 *** New command `bibtex-initialize' (re)initializes BibTeX buffers.
895
896 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' options `whitespace', `braces', and
897 `string', disabled by default.
898
899 *** New variable `bibtex-cite-matcher-alist' contains rules to
900 identify cited keys in BibTeX entries, used by `bibtex-find-crossref'.
901
902 *** Command `bibtex-url' allows multiple URLs per entry.
903
904 ** Calendar and diary
905
906 *** There is a new date style, `iso', essentially year/month/day.
907 The variable `european-calendar-style' is obsolete - use `calendar-date-style'.
908 Similarly, the commands `american-calendar' and `european-calendar'
909 should be replaced by `calendar-set-date-style'.
910
911 *** The calendar namespace has been rationalized.
912 All functions and variables now begin with a `calendar-', `diary-', or
913 `holiday-' prefix. The various calendar systems have secondary
914 prefixes, eg `calendar-french-'. The old names you are likely to use
915 directly still exist, for the time being, as aliases, but please start
916 using the new names.
917
918 *** The whitespace in the calendar layout can be customized.
919 See the variables:
920 calendar-left-margin, calendar-intermonth-spacing, calendar-column-width,
921 calendar-day-header-width, and calendar-day-digit-width.
922
923 *** Text (e.g. ISO weeks) can be displayed between the calendar months.
924 See the variables calendar-intermonth-header and calendar-intermonth-text.
925
926 *** The function `holiday-chinese' computes holidays on the Chinese calendar.
927 It has been used to add items to the list `holiday-oriental-holidays'.
928
929 *** `diary-remind' accepts a negative number -DAYS as a shorthand for
930 the list (1 2 ... DAYS).
931
932 ** Change Log mode
933
934 *** The new command C-c C-f (change-log-find-file) finds the file
935 associated with the current log entry.
936
937 *** The new command C-c C-c (change-log-goto-source) goes to the
938 source code associated with a log entry.
939
940 ** Compile and grep modes
941
942 *** The mode-line entry for the *compilation* and *grep* buffer is color coded.
943 It has different colors for to show that: (a) the command is still
944 running, (b) successful completion, (c) error.
945
946 *** compilation-auto-jump-to-first-error tells `compile' to jump to
947 the first error encountered during compilations.
948
949 *** compilation-scroll-output accepts a new value, `first-error', which
950 says to stop auto scrolling at the first error that occurs.
951
952 *** The `cc' alias for C++ files in `grep-file-aliases' has been
953 improved. `hh' can be used to match C++ header files and `cchh' both
954 C++ sources and headers.
955
956 ** Copyright
957
958 *** You can specify your copyright holders' names.
959 Only copyright lines with holders matching `copyright-names-regexp' are
960 considered for update.
961
962 *** Copyrights can be at the end of the buffer.
963 This is controlled by `copyright-at-end-flag' (used by, e.g., change-log-mode).
964
965 ** Custom
966
967 *** defcustom accepts new keyword arguments, `:safe' and `:risky', which
968 set a variable's `safe-local-variable' and `risky-local-variable' property.
969
970 ** Diff mode
971
972 *** diff-refine-hunk highlights word-level details of changes in a diff hunk.
973 It's used automatically as you move through hunks, see
974 diff-auto-refine-mode. It is bound to `C-c C-b'.
975
976 *** diff-add-change-log-entries-other-window iterates through the diff
977 buffer and tries to create ChangeLog entries for each change.
978 It is bound to `C-x 4 A'.
979
980 *** Turning on `whitespace-mode' in a diff buffer will show trailing
981 whitespace problems in the modified lines.
982
983 ** Dired
984
985 *** In Dired, C-x C-q now runs the command wdired-change-to-wdired-mode,
986 and C-x C-q in wdired-mode exits it with asking a question about
987 saving changes.
988
989 *** `&' runs the command `dired-do-async-shell-command' that executes
990 the command asynchronously without the need to manually add ampersand
991 to the end of the command. Its output appears in the buffer `*Async Shell
992 Command*'.
993
994 *** `M-s f C-s' and `M-s f M-C-s' run Isearch that matches only at file names.
995 When a new user option `dired-isearch-filenames' is t, then even ordinary
996 Isearch started with `C-s' and `C-M-s' matches only at file names in the
997 Dired buffer. When `dired-isearch-filenames' is `dwim' then activation of
998 file name Isearch depends on the position of point - if point is on a file
999 name initially, then Isearch matches only file names, otherwise it matches
1000 everywhere in the Dired buffer. You can toggle file names matching on or
1001 off by typing `M-s f' in Isearch mode.
1002
1003 *** `M-s a C-s' and `M-s a M-C-s' run multi-file Isearch on the marked files.
1004 They visit the first marked file in the sequence and display the usual Isearch
1005 prompt for a string or a regexp where all Isearch commands are available.
1006
1007 *** `Q' in Dired provides two new keys for multi-file replacement.
1008 The upper case key `Y' replaces all remaining matches in all remaining files
1009 with no more questions. The upper case key `N' stops doing replacements
1010 in the current file and skips to the next file. These multi-file keys
1011 are available for all commands that use `tags-query-replace'
1012 including `dired-do-query-replace-regexp', `vc-dir-query-replace-regexp',
1013 `reftex-query-replace-document'.
1014
1015 ** Fortran
1016
1017 *** The line length of fixed-form Fortran is not fixed at 72 any more.
1018 Customize the variable `fortran-line-length' to change it.
1019
1020 *** In Fortran mode, M-; is now bound to the standard comment-dwim,
1021 rather than fortran-indent-comment.
1022
1023 *** (The increasingly misnamed) F90 mode supports Fortran 2003 syntax.
1024
1025 ** Gnus
1026
1027 *** The Gnus package has been updated
1028 There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements; see the file
1029 GNUS-NEWS or the node "No Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
1030
1031 *** In Emacs 23, Gnus uses Emacs' new internal coding system `utf-8-emacs' for
1032 saving articles drafts and ~/.newsrc.eld. These file may not be read
1033 correctly in Emacs 22 and below. If you want to Gnus across different Emacs
1034 versions, you may set `mm-auto-save-coding-system' to `emacs-mule'.
1035
1036 *** Passwords are consistently loaded through `auth-source'
1037 Gnus can use `auth-source' for POP and IMAP passwords. Also see that
1038 `smtpmail' and `url' support `auth-source' for SMTP and HTTP/HTTPS/RSS
1039 authentication respectively.
1040
1041 ** Help mode
1042
1043 *** New macro `with-help-window' should set up help windows better
1044 than `with-output-to-temp-buffer' with `print-help-return-message'.
1045
1046 *** New option `help-window-select' permits to customize whether help
1047 window shall be automatically selected when invoking help.
1048
1049 *** New variable `help-window-point-marker' permits one to specify a new
1050 position for point in help window (for example in `view-lossage').
1051
1052 ** Isearch
1053
1054 *** New command `isearch-forward-word' bound globally to `M-s w' starts
1055 incremental word search. New command `isearch-toggle-word' bound to the
1056 same key `M-s w' in Isearch mode toggles word searching on or off
1057 while Isearch is active.
1058
1059 *** New command `isearch-highlight-regexp' bound to `M-s h r' in Isearch
1060 mode runs `highlight-regexp' (`hi-lock-face-buffer') with the current
1061 search string as its regexp argument. The same key `M-s h r' and
1062 other keys on the `M-s h' prefix are bound globally to the command
1063 `highlight-regexp' and other hi-lock commands.
1064
1065 *** New command `isearch-occur' bound to `M-s o' in Isearch mode
1066 runs `occur' with the current search string. The same key `M-s o'
1067 is bound globally to the command `occur'.
1068
1069 *** Isearch can now search through multiple ChangeLog files.
1070 When running Isearch in a ChangeLog file, if the search fails,
1071 then another C-s tries searching the previous ChangeLog,
1072 if there is one (e.g. going from ChangeLog to ChangeLog.12).
1073 This is enabled if multi-isearch-search is non-nil.
1074
1075 *** Two new commands to start Isearch on a list of marked buffers
1076 for buff-menu.el and ibuffer.el are bound to the keys `M-s a C-s' and
1077 `M-s a M-C-s'.
1078
1079 *** The part of an Isearch that failed to match is highlighted in
1080 `isearch-fail' face.
1081
1082 *** `C-h C-h' in Isearch mode displays isearch-specific Help screen,
1083 `C-h b' displays all Isearch key bindings, `C-h k' displays the full
1084 documentation of the given Isearch key sequence, `C-h m' displays
1085 documentation of Isearch mode. All the rest Help commands exit Isearch mode
1086 and execute their global definitions.
1087
1088 *** When started in the minibuffer, Isearch searches in the minibuffer
1089 history. See `Minibuffer changes', above.
1090
1091 ** MH-E
1092
1093 *** Upgraded to MH-E version 8.2. See MH-E-NEWS for details.
1094
1095 ** Python
1096 *** The file etc/emacs.py now supports both Python 2 and 3, meaning
1097 that either version can be used as inferior Python by python.el.
1098
1099 *** Python mode now has `pdbtrack' functionality. When using pdb to
1100 debug a Python program, pdbtrack notices the pdb prompt and displays
1101 the source file and line that the program is stopped at, much the same
1102 way as gud-mode does for debugging C programs with gdb.
1103
1104 ** Recentf
1105
1106 *** The default value of `recentf-keep' prevents from checking of
1107 remote files, if there is no established connection to the
1108 corresponding remote host.
1109
1110 ** Rmail
1111
1112 *** Rmail no longer converts the messages to Babyl format.
1113 Instead, it uses UNIX mbox format, both on disk and in Rmail buffers,
1114 and does conversion and decoding when a message is displayed.
1115
1116 The first time you visit an Rmail file in Babyl format, Rmail
1117 automatically converts it to mbox format. This is a one-time
1118 conversion, but it can take a few minutes, depending on how fast is
1119 your machine and on the size of the file. You should find the rest of
1120 Rmail usage unaltered.
1121
1122 However, M-x set-rmail-inbox-list now lasts only for one session
1123 because there is no way to save the list of inbox files in an
1124 mbox-format file.
1125
1126 Also, whereas with Babyl format M-x find-file would switch to Rmail
1127 mode, with mbox format this is no longer the case (there being no way
1128 to add an "-*- rmail-*-" cookie to an mbox file). Use C-u M-x rmail
1129 instead.
1130
1131 If you have written any extensions to Rmail, they are likely to need
1132 updating. Conceptually, the Rmail buffer that you see is no longer
1133 just a narrowed portion of the whole. So you cannot access the whole
1134 of a message (or message collection) by a simple save-restriction and
1135 widen. Instead, there are two buffers: the rmail-buffer, and the
1136 rmail-view-buffer. The former is the buffer that you see, the latter
1137 is invisible. Most of the time, the invisible `view' buffer contains
1138 the full contents of the Rmail file, and the Rmail buffer contains a
1139 decoded copy of the current message (with only a subset of the
1140 headers). In this state, Rmail is said to be `swapped'.
1141
1142 You may find the following functions useful:
1143
1144 `rmail-get-header' and `rmail-set-header' get or set the value of a
1145 message header, whether or not it is currently visible.
1146
1147 `rmail-apply-in-message' is a general purpose function that calls a
1148 function (with arguments) which you specify on the full text of a given
1149 message. To further narrow to just the headers, search forward for "\n\n".
1150
1151 *** The new command `rmail-mime' displays MIME messages.
1152 It is bound to `v' in Rmail buffers and summaries. It displays plain
1153 text and multipart messages in a temporary buffer, and offers buttons
1154 to save attachments.
1155
1156 *** The command `rmail-redecode-body' no longer accepts the optional arg RAW.
1157 Since Rmail now holds messages in their original undecoded form in a
1158 separate buffer, `rmail-redecode-body' no longer encodes the original
1159 message, and therefore there should be no need to avoid encoding it.
1160
1161 *** The o command is now `rmail-output'. It is an all-purpose command
1162 for copying messages from Rmail and appending them to files. It
1163 handles Babyl-format files as well as mbox-format files, and it
1164 handles both kinds properly when they are visited in Emacs. It always
1165 copies the full headers of the message.
1166
1167 *** The C-o command is now `rmail-output-as-seen'. It uses
1168 the message as displayed, appending it to an mbox file.
1169
1170 *** The modified status of the Rmail buffer is reported in the mode-line.
1171 Previously, this information was hidden.
1172
1173 ** TeX modes
1174
1175 *** New option latex-indent-within-escaped-parens
1176 permits to customize indentation of LaTeX environments delimited
1177 by escaped parens.
1178
1179 ** T-mouse Mode
1180
1181 *** If the gpm mouse server is running and t-mouse-mode is enabled,
1182 Emacs uses a Unix socket in a GNU/Linux console to talk to server,
1183 rather than faking events using the client program mev. This C level
1184 approach provides mouse highlighting and help echoing in the
1185 minibuffer.
1186
1187 ** Tramp
1188
1189 *** New connection methods.
1190 The new methods "plinkx", "plink2", "psftp", "sftp" and "fish" have
1191 been introduced. There are also new so-called gateway methods
1192 "tunnel" and "socks".
1193
1194 *** IPv6 addresses.
1195 IPv6 addresses are supported now as host names. They must be embedded
1196 in square brackets, like in "/ssh:[::1]:".
1197
1198 *** Multihop syntax has been removed.
1199 The pseudo-method "multi" has been removed. Instead, multi hops
1200 can be specified by the new variable `tramp-default-proxies-alist'.
1201
1202 *** More default settings.
1203 Default values can be set via the variables `tramp-default-user',
1204 `tramp-default-user-alist' and `tramp-default-host'.
1205
1206 *** Connection information is cached.
1207 In order to reduce connection setup, information about used
1208 connections is kept persistently in a file. The name of this file is
1209 defined in the variable `tramp-persistency-file-name'.
1210
1211 *** Control of remote processes.
1212 Running processes on a remote host can be controlled by settings in
1213 `tramp-remote-path' and `tramp-remote-process-environment'.
1214
1215 *** Success of remote copy is checked.
1216 When the variable `file-precious-flag' is set, the success of a remote
1217 file copy is checked via the file's checksum.
1218
1219 *** Passwords can be read from an authentification file.
1220 Tramp uses the package `auth-source' to read passwords from a file, if
1221 necessary.
1222
1223 ** VC and related modes
1224
1225 *** VC now supports applying VC operations to a set of files at a time.
1226 This enables VC to work much more effectively with changeset-oriented
1227 version-control systems such as Subversion, GNU Arch, Mercurial, Git
1228 and Bzr. VC will now pass a multiple-file commit to these systems as
1229 a single changeset.
1230
1231 *** vc-dir is a new command that displays file names and their VC
1232 status. It allows to apply various VC operations to a file, a
1233 directory or a set of files/directories.
1234
1235 *** VC switches are no longer appended, rather the first non-nil value is used.
1236 (This was for the most part true in Emacs 22, but was not advertised).
1237 This is because there is an increasing variety of VC systems, and they
1238 do not all accept the same "common" options. For example, a CVS diff
1239 command used to append the values of `vc-cvs-diff-switches',
1240 `vc-diff-switches', and `diff-switches'. Now the first non-nil value
1241 from that sequence is used. The special value `t' means "no switches".
1242
1243 *** Clicking on the VC mode-line entry now pops the VC menu.
1244
1245 *** The VC mode-line entry now has a tooltip that explains the VC file status.
1246
1247 *** In VC Annotate mode, the key bindings have changed to use lower
1248 case keys instead of the upper case keys used in the past.
1249
1250 *** In VC Annotate mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
1251 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
1252 by typing the D key. Using the "Show changeset diff of revision at
1253 line" menu entry does the same thing.
1254
1255 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type v to toggle the annotation visibility.
1256
1257 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type f to show the file revision on
1258 the current line.
1259
1260 *** Asynchronous VC commands display [Waiting...] in the mode-line
1261 of the corresponding buffer as long as the asynchronous process is
1262 active.
1263
1264 *** Log entries can be modified using the key "e" in log-view.
1265 For now only CVS, RCS, SCCS and SVN support this functionality.
1266 This is done by the `modify-change-comment' backend function.
1267
1268 *** In log-view-mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
1269 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
1270 by typing the D key or using the "Changeset Diff" menu entry.
1271
1272 *** In Log Edit mode, C-c C-d now shows the diff for the files involved.
1273
1274 *** vc-git supports the "git grep" command.
1275
1276 *** VC Support for Meta-CVS has been removed for lack of a maintainer able
1277 to update it to the new VC.
1278
1279 ** Miscellaneous
1280
1281 *** comint-mode uses `start-file-process' now (see Lisp Changes).
1282 If `default-directory' is a remote file name, subprocesses are started
1283 on the corresponding remote system.
1284
1285 *** Eldoc highlights the function argument under point
1286 with the face `eldoc-highlight-function-argument'.
1287
1288 *** In Etags, the --members option is now the default.
1289 Use --no-members if you want the old default behavior of not tagging
1290 struct members in C, members variables in C++ and variables in PHP.
1291
1292 *** The `gdb' command only works with the graphical interface now.
1293 Use `gud-gdb' if you want the (old) text command mode.
1294
1295 *** goto-address.el provides two new minor modes, goto-address-mode and
1296 goto-address-prog-mode, which buttonize URLS and email addresses.
1297
1298 *** The new command `eshell/info' runs info in an eshell buffer.
1299
1300 *** The new variable `ffap-rfc-directories' specifies a list of local
1301 directories in which `ffap-rfc' will first search for RFCs.
1302
1303 *** hide-ifdef-mode allows shadowing ifdef-blocks instead of hiding them.
1304 See option `hide-ifdef-shadow' and function `hide-ifdef-toggle-shadowing'.
1305
1306 *** `icomplete-prospects-height' now supercedes `icomplete-prospects-length'.
1307
1308 *** Info displays breadcrumbs in the header of the page.
1309 See Info-breadcrumbs-depth to control it.
1310
1311 *** net-utils has an `iwconfig' command, similar to the existing `ifconfig'.
1312 It is used to configure wireless interfaces.
1313
1314 *** The pcmpl-unix package supports hostname completion for ssh and scp.
1315
1316 *** sgml-electric-tag-pair-mode lets you simultaneously edit matched tag pairs.
1317
1318 *** smerge-refine highlights word-level details of changes in conflict.
1319 It's used automatically as you move through conflicts, see
1320 smerge-auto-refine-mode.
1321
1322 *** talk.el has been extended for multiple tty support.
1323
1324 *** A new command `display-time-world' has been added to the Time
1325 package. It creates a buffer with an updating time display using
1326 several time zones.
1327
1328 *** The appearance of superscript and subscript in TeX is more customizable.
1329 See the documentation of the variables: tex-fontify-script,
1330 tex-font-script-display, tex-suscript-height-ratio, and
1331 tex-suscript-height-minimum.
1332
1333 *** view-remove-frame-by-deleting is now by default t
1334 since users found iconification of view-mode frames distracting.
1335
1336 *** WoMan tries to add locale-specific manual page directories to the
1337 search path. This can be disabled by setting `woman-locale' to nil.
1338
1339 \f
1340 * Changes in Emacs 23.1 on non-free operating systems
1341
1342 ** Case is now considered significant in completion on MS-Windows.
1343 The default value of `completion-ignore-case' is now nil on
1344 MS-Windows, the same as it is for other operating systems. The
1345 variable doesn't apply to reading a file name -- in that case Emacs
1346 heeds `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' instead.
1347
1348 ** IPv6 is supported on MS-Windows.
1349 Emacs now supports IPv6 on Windows XP and later, and earlier versions
1350 of Windows with third party IPv6 stacks installed. In Emacs 22, IPv6 was
1351 supported on other platforms, but not on Windows due to using the winsock
1352 1.1 header file, even though Emacs was linking to the winsock 2 library.
1353
1354 ** Busy cursor (hourglass) now displays on MS-Windows.
1355 When Emacs is busy, an hourglass mouse cursor is displayed on Windows.
1356 In Emacs 22 only X supported the busy cursor.
1357
1358 ** Battery status is available on MS-Windows
1359 Emacs can now display the battery status in the mode-line when enabled with
1360 display-battery-mode or from the Options menu. More verbose battery
1361 information is also available with the command `battery'. In Emacs 22
1362 battery status was supported only on GNU/Linux and Mac.
1363
1364 ** More keys available on MS-Windows.
1365 Keys normally associated with IMEs, and some exotic keys not normally found
1366 on standard keyboards have been given names so they can be bound to functions
1367 inside Emacs. If there are keys on your keyboard that have not been exposed
1368 to Emacs in the past, try C-h k to see if they are available now.
1369
1370 Emacs can now bind functions to the extra buttons for media player and
1371 browser control present on some keyboards. These buttons are disabled
1372 by default, since enabling them prevents their system-wide use when
1373 Emacs has focus. To enable them, set the variable
1374 w32-pass-multimedia-buttons to nil. See the doc string of that variable
1375 for the list of extra keys that are available.
1376
1377 ** BDF fonts no longer supported on MS-Windows.
1378 The font backend was completely rewritten for this release. The focus
1379 on Windows has been getting acceptable performance and full unicode
1380 support, including complex script shaping for native Windows fonts. A
1381 rewrite of the BDF font support has not happened due to lack of time
1382 and developers. If demand still exists for such a backend even with
1383 the improved language support for native Windows fonts, future
1384 development in this direction will most likely be based on the
1385 freetype library, giving access to a wider range of font formats.
1386
1387 \f
1388 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1389
1390 ** Variables cannot be both buffer-local and frame-local any more.
1391
1392 ** `functionp' returns nil for special forms.
1393 I.e., it only returns t for objects that can be passed to `funcall'.
1394
1395 ** The behavior of map-char-table has changed. It may call the
1396 specified function with a cons (FROM . TO) as a key if characters in
1397 that range have the same value.
1398
1399 ** Process changes
1400
1401 *** The function `dired-call-process' has been removed.
1402
1403 *** The multibyteness of process filters is now determined by the
1404 coding-system used for decoding. The functions
1405 `process-filter-multibyte-p' and `set-process-filter-multibyte' are
1406 obsolete.
1407
1408 ** The variable `byte-compile-warnings' can now be a list starting with `not',
1409 meaning to disable the specified warnings. The meaning of this list
1410 may therefore be the reverse of what you expect (of course, this is
1411 only an issue if you make use of the new `not' syntax). Rather than
1412 checking/manipulating elements directly, use the new functions
1413 `byte-compile-warning-enabled-p', `byte-compile-disable-warning', and
1414 `byte-compile-enable-warning.'
1415
1416 ** `mode-name' is no longer guaranteed to be a string.
1417 Use `(format-mode-line mode-name)' to ensure a string value.
1418
1419 ** The function x-font-family-list has been removed.
1420 Use the new function font-family-list (see Lisp Changes, below).
1421
1422 ** Internationalization changes
1423
1424 *** The value of the function `charset-id' is now always 0.
1425
1426 *** The functions `register-char-codings' and `coding-system-spec'
1427 have been removed.
1428
1429 *** The cpXXX coding systems are now supported automatically.
1430 The functions cp-...-codepage, which you had to use in Emacs 22 to
1431 enable support for these coding systems, have been deleted.
1432
1433 *** The following features have been removed. They were used for
1434 displaying various scripts with specific fonts, and are no longer
1435 needed now that OpenType font support is available:
1436
1437 **** `devanagari' and `devan-util', and all associated devanagari-* and
1438 dev-* functions and variables (formerly used for Devanagari script).
1439
1440 **** `kannada' and `knd-util', and all associated kannada-* and knd-*
1441 functions and variables (formerly used for Kannada script).
1442
1443 **** `malayalam' and `mlm-util', and all associated malayalam-* and
1444 mlm-* functions and variables (formerly used for Malayalam script).
1445
1446 **** `tamil' and `tml-util, and all associated tamil-* and tml-*
1447 functions and variables (formerly used for Tamil script).
1448
1449 *** The meaning of NAME argument of `set-fontset-font' is changed.
1450 Previously nil is accepted as the default fontset. Now, nil is for
1451 the fontset of the selected frame and t is for the default fontset.
1452
1453 *** The meaning of FONTSET argument of `print-fontset' is changed.
1454 Now, nil is for the fontset of the selected frame and t is for the
1455 default fontset.
1456
1457 ** If a function in write-region-annotate-functions returns with a
1458 different buffer current, Emacs no longer kills that buffer
1459 automatically. This behavior existed in previous versions of Emacs,
1460 but was undocumented. To kill a buffer after write-region, give the
1461 variable `write-region-post-annotation-function' a buffer-local value
1462 of `kill-buffer'.
1463
1464 ** The variable temp-file-name-pattern has been removed.
1465 This variable was only used by call-process-region, which now uses
1466 temporary-file-directory instead.
1467
1468 ** The COUNT and SYSTEM-FLAG arguments to define-abbrev have been
1469 removed. The function now takes extra arguments for specifying
1470 arbitrary abbrev properties.
1471
1472 ** end-of-defun-function is now guaranteed to work only when called
1473 from the start of a defun. It must now leave point exactly at the end
1474 of defun, since `end-of-defun' now itself moves forward over
1475 whitespace after calling it.
1476
1477 \f
1478 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1479
1480 ** The new variable `generate-autoload-cookie' controls the magic comment
1481 string used by `update-file-autoloads' to find autoloaded forms. The
1482 variable `generated-autoload-file' similarly controls the name of the
1483 file where `update-file-autoloads' writes the calls to `autoload'.
1484 The default values are ";;;###autoload" and `loaddefs.el',
1485 respectively.
1486
1487 ** New primitives `list-system-processes' and `process-attributes'
1488 let Lisp programs access the processes that are running on the local
1489 machine. See the doc strings of these functions for more details.
1490 Not all platforms support accessing this information; on those that
1491 don't, these primitives will return nil.
1492
1493 ** New variable `user-emacs-directory'.
1494 Use this instead of "~/.emacs.d".
1495
1496 ** If a local hook function has a non-nil `permanent-local-hook'
1497 property, `kill-all-local-variables' does not remove it from the local
1498 value of the hook variable; it remains even if you change major modes.
1499
1500 ** `frame-inherited-parameters' lets new frames inherit parameters from
1501 the selected frame.
1502
1503 ** New keymap `input-decode-map' overrides like key-translation-map, but
1504 applies before function-key-map. Also it is terminal-local contrary to
1505 key-translation-map. Terminal-specific key-sequences are generally added to
1506 this map rather than to function-key-map now.
1507
1508 ** `ignore-errors' is now a standard macro (does not require the CL package).
1509
1510 ** `interprogram-paste-function' can now return one string or a list
1511 of strings. In the latter case, Emacs puts the second and following
1512 strings on the kill ring.
1513
1514 ** In `condition-case', a handler can specify "let the debugger run first".
1515 You do this by writing `debug' in the list of conditions to be handled,
1516 like this:
1517
1518 (condition-case nil
1519 (foo bar)
1520 ((debug error) nil))
1521
1522 ** clone-indirect-buffer now runs the clone-indirect-buffer-hook.
1523
1524 ** `beginning-of-defun-function' now takes one argument, the count given to
1525 `beginning-of-defun'. (N.B. `end-of-defun-function' doesn't take any
1526 arguments.)
1527
1528 ** `file-remote-p' has new optional parameters IDENTIFICATION and CONNECTED.
1529 IDENTIFICATION specifies which part of the remote identifier has to be
1530 returned. With CONNECTED passed non-nil, it is checked whether a
1531 remote connection has been established already.
1532
1533 ** The new macro `declare-function' suppresses compiler warnings about
1534 undefined functions.
1535
1536 ** Changes to interactive function handling
1537
1538 *** The new interactive spec code ^ says to first call
1539 handle-shift-selection if shift-select-mode is non-nil, before reading
1540 the command arguments. This is used for shift-selection (see above).
1541
1542 *** Built-in functions can now have an interactive specification that
1543 is not a prompt string. If the `intspec' parameter of a `DEFUN'
1544 starts with a `(', the string is evaluated as a Lisp form.
1545
1546 *** The interactive-form of a function can be added post-facto via the
1547 `interactive-form' symbol property. Mostly useful to add complex
1548 interactive forms to subroutines.
1549
1550 ** Region changes
1551
1552 *** Commands should use `use-region-p' to test whether there is
1553 an active region that they should operate on.
1554
1555 *** `region-active-p' returns non-nil when Transient Mark mode is
1556 enabled and the mark is active. Most commands that act specially on
1557 the active region in Transient Mark mode should use `use-region-p'
1558 instead of `region-active-p', because `use-region-p' obeys the new
1559 user option `use-empty-active-region' (see Editing Changes, above).
1560
1561 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to (only . OLDVAL), that
1562 means to activate transient-mark-mode temporarily, until the next
1563 unshifted point motion command or mark deactivation. Afterwards,
1564 reset transient-mark-mode to the value OLDVAL. The values `only' and
1565 `identity', introduced in Emacs 22, are now deprecated.
1566
1567 ** Emacs session information
1568
1569 *** The new variables `before-init-time' and `after-init-time' record the
1570 value of `current-time' before and after Emacs loads the init files.
1571
1572 *** The new function `emacs-uptime' returns the uptime of an Emacs instance.
1573
1574 *** The new function `emacs-init-time' returns the duration of the
1575 Emacs initialization.
1576
1577 ** Changes affecting display-buffer
1578
1579 *** display-buffer tries to be smarter when splitting windows.
1580 The new option split-window-preferred-function lets you specify your own
1581 function to pop up new windows. Its default value split-window-sensibly
1582 can split a window either vertically or horizontally, whichever seems
1583 more suitable in the current configuration. You can tune the behavior
1584 of split-window-sensibly by customizing split-height-threshold and the
1585 new option split-width-threshold. Both options now take the value nil
1586 to inhibit splitting in one direction. Setting split-width-threshold to
1587 nil inhibits horizontal splitting and gets you the behavior of Emacs 22
1588 in this respect. In any case, display-buffer may now split the largest
1589 window vertically even when it is not as wide as the containing frame.
1590
1591 *** If pop-up-frames has the value `graphic-only', display-buffer only
1592 makes a separate frame on graphic displays.
1593
1594 *** select-frame and set-frame-selected-window have a new optional
1595 argument NORECORD. If non-nil, this will avoid messing with the order
1596 of recently selected windows and the buffer list.
1597
1598 ** Window parameters can now be defined.
1599 These are analogous to frame parameters, but are associated with
1600 individual windows.
1601
1602 *** The new functions window-parameters, window-parameter, and
1603 set-window-parameter are used to query and set window parameters.
1604
1605 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
1606
1607 *** A list of default values can be specified for the DEFAULT argument of
1608 functions `read-from-minibuffer', `read-string', `read-command',
1609 `read-variable', `read-buffer', `completing-read'. Elements of this list
1610 are available for inserting into the minibuffer by typing `M-n'.
1611 For empty input these functions return the first element of this list.
1612
1613 *** New function `read-regexp' uses the regexp history and some useful
1614 regexp defaults (string at point, last Isearch/replacement regexp/string)
1615 via M-n when reading a regexp in the minibuffer.
1616
1617 *** minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map is now named
1618 minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map.
1619
1620 *** The `require-match' argument to `completing-read' accepts the new
1621 values `confirm-only' and `confirm-after-completion'.
1622
1623 ** Search and replacement changes
1624
1625 *** The regexp form \(?<num>:<regexp>\) specifies the group number explicitly.
1626
1627 *** New function `match-substitute-replacement' returns the result of
1628 `replace-match' without actually using it in the buffer.
1629
1630 *** The new variable `replace-search-function' determines the function
1631 to use for searching in query-replace and replace-string. The
1632 function it specifies is called by `perform-replace' when its 4th
1633 argument is nil.
1634
1635 *** The new variable `replace-re-search-function' determines the
1636 function to use for searching in `query-replace-regexp',
1637 `replace-regexp', `query-replace-regexp-eval', and
1638 `map-query-replace-regexp'. The function it specifies is called by
1639 `perform-replace' when its 4th argument is non-nil.
1640
1641 *** New keymap `search-map' bound to `M-s' provides global bindings
1642 for search related commands.
1643
1644 *** New keymap `multi-query-replace-map' contains additonal keys bound
1645 to `automatic-all' and `exit-current' for multi-buffer interactive replacement.
1646
1647 *** The variable `inhibit-changing-match-data', if non-nil, prevents
1648 the search and match primitives from changing the match data.
1649
1650 *** New functions `word-search-forward-lax' and `word-search-backward-lax'.
1651 These are like `word-search-forward and `word-search-backward', except
1652 that the end of the search string need not match a word boundary,
1653 unless it ends in whitespace.
1654
1655 ** File handling changes
1656
1657 *** set-file-modes is now interactive and can take the mode value in
1658 symbolic notation thanks to auxiliary functions.
1659
1660 *** file-local-variables-alist stores an alist of file-local
1661 variables defined in the current buffer.
1662
1663 ** Face-remapping
1664
1665 *** Each face can be remapped to a different face definition using the
1666 variable `face-remapping-alist'. This is an alist that maps faces to
1667 replacement definitions (which can be face names, lists of face names,
1668 or attribute/value plists. If this variable is buffer-local, the
1669 remapping occurs only in that buffer.
1670
1671 *** text-scale-mode remaps the default face to a larger or smaller
1672 size in the current buffer. This feature is used by the Buffer Face
1673 menu and the new `C-x C-+', `C-x C--', and `C-x C-0' commands (see
1674 Editing Changes, above).
1675
1676 *** New functions:
1677
1678 **** `face-remap-add-relative' adds a face remapping entry to the
1679 current buffer.
1680
1681 **** ``face-remap-remove-relative' removes a face remapping entry from
1682 the current buffer.
1683
1684 **** `face-remap-reset-base' restores a face to its global definition.
1685
1686 **** `face-remap-set-base' sets the base remapping of a face.
1687
1688 ** Process changes
1689
1690 *** The new function `start-file-process' is similar to `start-process',
1691 but obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
1692 `default-directory'. The functions `start-file-process-shell-command'
1693 and `process-file-shell-command' are also new; they call internally
1694 `start-file-process' and `process-file', respectively.
1695
1696 *** The new function `process-lines' executes an external program and
1697 returns its output as a list of lines.
1698
1699 ** Character code, representation, and charset changes.
1700
1701 *** In multibyte buffers and strings, characters are represented by
1702 UTF-8 byte sequences. The character code space is now 0x0..0x3FFFFF
1703 with no gap; code points 0x0..0x10FFFF are Unicode characters of the
1704 same code points, while code points 0x3FFF80..0x3FFFFF are raw 8-bit
1705 bytes.
1706
1707 *** Generic characters no longer exist.
1708
1709 *** The concept of a charset has changed. A single character may
1710 belong to multiple charsets (e.g. a-grave, U+00E0, belongs to charsets
1711 unicode, iso-8859-1, iso-8859-3, etc).
1712
1713 **** The dimension of a charset is now 1, 2, 3, or 4, and the size of
1714 each dimension is no longer limited to 94 or 96.
1715
1716 **** A dynamic charset priority list is used to infer the charset of
1717 characters for display.
1718
1719 *** The functions `split-char' and `make-char' now accept up to 4
1720 positional codes instead of just 2.
1721
1722 *** The functions `encode-char' and `decode-char' now accept any character sets.
1723
1724 *** The function `define-charset' now accepts a completely different
1725 form of arguments (old-style arguments still work).
1726
1727 *** The value of the function `char-charset' depends on the current
1728 priorities of charsets.
1729
1730 *** The function get-char-code-property now accepts many Unicode base
1731 character properties. They are `name', `general-category',
1732 `canonical-combining-class', `bidi-class', `decomposition',
1733 `decimal-digit-value', `digit-value', `numeric-value', `mirrored',
1734 `old-name', `iso-10646-comment', `uppercase', `lowercase', and
1735 `titlecase'.
1736
1737 *** The functions `modify-syntax-entry' and `modify-category-entry' now
1738 accept a cons of characters as the first argument, and modify all
1739 entries in that range of characters.
1740
1741 *** Use of `translation-table-for-input' for character code unification
1742 is now obsolete, since Emacs 23.1 and later uses Unicode as basis for
1743 internal representation of characters.
1744
1745 *** New functions:
1746
1747 **** `characterp' returns t if and only if the argument is a character.
1748 This replaces `char-valid-p', which is now obsolete.
1749
1750 **** `max-char' returns the maximum character code (currently #x3FFFFF).
1751
1752 **** `define-charset-alias' defines an alias of a charset.
1753
1754 **** `set-charset-priority' sets priorities of charsets.
1755
1756 **** `charset-priority-list' returns a prioritized list of charsets.
1757
1758 **** `unibyte-string' makes a unibyte string from bytes.
1759
1760 **** `define-char-code-property' defines a character code property.
1761
1762 **** `char-code-property-description' returns the description string of
1763 a character code property.
1764
1765 *** New variables:
1766
1767 **** `find-word-boundary-function-table' is a char-table of functions to
1768 search for a word boundary.
1769
1770 **** `char-script-table' is a char-table of script names.
1771
1772 **** `char-width-table' is a char-table of character widths.
1773
1774 **** `print-charset-text-property' controls how to handle `charset' text
1775 property on printing a string.
1776
1777 **** `printable-chars' is a char-table of printable characters.
1778
1779 ** Code conversion changes
1780
1781 *** The new function `define-coding-system' should be used to define a
1782 coding system instead of `make-coding-system' (which is now obsolete).
1783
1784 *** The functions `encode-coding-region' and `decode-coding-region'
1785 have an optional 4th argument to specify where the result of
1786 conversion should go.
1787
1788 *** The functions `encode-coding-string' and `decode-coding-string'
1789 have an optional 4th argument specifying a buffer to store the result
1790 of conversion.
1791
1792 *** The new variable `inhibit-null-byte-detection' controls whether to
1793 consider text with null bytes as binary data. By default, it is
1794 `nil', and Emacs uses `no-conversion' for any text containing null
1795 bytes.
1796
1797 *** The functions `set-coding-priority' and `make-coding-system' are obsolete.
1798
1799 *** New functions:
1800
1801 **** `with-coding-priority' executes Lisp code using the specified
1802 coding system priority order.
1803
1804 **** `check-coding-systems-region' checks if the text in the region is
1805 encodable by the specified coding systems.
1806
1807 **** `coding-system-aliases' returns a list of aliases of a coding system.
1808
1809 **** `coding-system-charset-list' returns a list of charsets supported
1810 by a coding system.
1811
1812 **** `coding-system-priority-list' returns a list of coding systems
1813 ordered by their priorities.
1814
1815 **** `set-coding-system-priority' sets priorities of coding systems.
1816
1817 **** `coding-system-from-name' returns a coding system matching with
1818 the argument name.
1819
1820
1821 ** There is a new input method, Robin, different from Quail.
1822 It has three functionalities:
1823 i) a simple input method (converts an ASCII sequence into a string).
1824 ii) converts an existing buffer substring into another string
1825 iii) reverse conversion (each character produced by a
1826 robin rule can hold the original ASCII sequence as a char-code-property)
1827
1828 *** The new function `robin-define-package' defines a Robin package.
1829
1830 *** The new function `robin-modify-package' modifies an existing Robin package.
1831
1832 *** The new function `robin-use-package' starts using a Robin package
1833 as an input method.
1834
1835 *** The new function `string-to-unibyte' is like `string-as-unibyte'
1836 but signals an error if STRING contains a non-ASCII, non-eight-bit
1837 character.
1838
1839 ** Changes related to the new font backend
1840
1841 *** Which font backends to use can be specified by the X resource
1842 "FontBackend". For instance, to use both X core fonts and Xft fonts:
1843
1844 Emacs.FontBackend: x,xft
1845
1846 If this resource is not set, Emacs tries to use all font backends
1847 available on your graphic device.
1848
1849 *** New frame parameter `font-backend' specifies a list of
1850 font-backends supported by the frame's graphic device. On X, they are
1851 currently `x' and `xft'.
1852
1853 *** The function `set-fontset-font' now accepts a script name as the
1854 second argument, and has an optional 5th argument to control how to
1855 set the font.
1856
1857 *** New functions:
1858
1859 **** `fontp' checks if the argument is a font-spec or font-entity.
1860
1861 **** `font-spec' creates a new font-spec object.
1862
1863 **** `font-get' returns a font property value.
1864
1865 **** `font-put' sets a font property value.
1866
1867 **** `font-face-attributes' returns a plist of face attributes set by a font.
1868
1869 **** `list-fonts' returns a list of font-entities matching a font spec.
1870
1871 **** `find-font' returns the font-entity best matching the given font spec.
1872
1873 **** `font-family-list' returns a list of family names of available fonts.
1874
1875 **** `font-xlfd-name' returns an XLFD name of a given font spec, font
1876 entity, or font object.
1877
1878 **** `clear-font-cache' clears all font caches.
1879
1880 ** Changes related to multiple-terminal (multi-tty) support
1881
1882 *** $TERM is now set to `dumb' for subprocesses. If you want to know the
1883 $TERM inherited by Emacs you will have to look inside initial-environment.
1884
1885 *** $DISPLAY is now dynamically inherited from the frame's `display'.
1886
1887 *** The `window-system' variable is now frame-local. The new
1888 `initial-window-system' variable contains the `window-system' value
1889 for the first frame. `window-system' is also now a function that
1890 takes a frame argument.
1891
1892 *** The `keyboard-translate-table' variable and the terminal and
1893 keyboard coding systems are now terminal-local.
1894
1895 *** You can specify a terminal device (`tty' parameter) and a terminal
1896 type (`tty-type' parameter) to `make-terminal-frame'.
1897
1898 *** The function `make-frame-on-display' now works during a tty
1899 session.
1900
1901 *** A new `terminal' data type.
1902 The functions `get-device-terminal', `terminal-parameters',
1903 `terminal-parameter', `set-terminal-parameter' use this data type.
1904
1905 *** Function key sequences are now mapped using `local-function-key-map',
1906 a new variable. This inherits from the global variable function-key-map,
1907 which is not used directly any more.
1908
1909 *** New hooks:
1910
1911 **** before-hack-local-variables-hook is called after setting new
1912 variable file-local-variables-alist, and before actually applying the
1913 file-local variables.
1914
1915 **** `suspend-tty-functions' and `resume-tty-functions' are called
1916 after a tty frame has been suspended or resumed, respectively. The
1917 functions are called with the terminal id of the frame being
1918 suspended/resumed as a parameter.
1919
1920 **** The special hook `delete-terminal-functions' is called before
1921 deleting a terminal.
1922
1923 *** New functions:
1924
1925 **** `delete-terminal'
1926
1927 **** `suspend-tty'
1928
1929 **** `resume-tty'.
1930
1931 *** `initial-environment' holds the environment inherited from Emacs's parent.
1932
1933 ** Redisplay changes
1934
1935 *** For underlined characters, the distance between the underline and
1936 the baseline is controlled by a new variable, `underline-minimum-offset'.
1937
1938 *** You can now pass the value of the `invisible' property to
1939 invisible-p to check whether it would cause the text to be invisible.
1940 This is convenient when checking invisibility of text with no buffer
1941 position (e.g. in before/after-strings).
1942
1943 *** `clear-image-cache' can be told to flush only images of a specific file.
1944
1945 *** `vertical-motion' can now be given a goal column.
1946 It now accepts a cons cell (COLS . LINES) in its first argument, which
1947 says to stop, where possible, at a pixel x-position equal to COLS
1948 times the default column width.
1949
1950 *** redisplay-end-trigger-functions, set-window-redisplay-end-trigger,
1951 and window-redisplay-end-trigger are obsolete. Use `jit-lock-register'
1952 instead.
1953
1954 *** The new variables `wrap-prefix' and `line-prefix' specify display
1955 specs which are appended at display-time to every continuation line
1956 and non-continuation line, respectively. In addition, Emacs
1957 recognizes the `wrap-prefix' and `line-prefix' text or overlay
1958 properties; these have the same effects as the variables of the same
1959 name, but take precedence.
1960
1961 ** The Lisp interpreter now treats non-breaking space as whitespace.
1962
1963 ** Miscellaneous new functions
1964
1965 *** `apply-partially' performs a "curried" application of a function.
1966
1967 *** `buffer-swap-text' swaps text between two buffers. This can be
1968 useful for modes such as tar-mode, archive-mode, RMAIL.
1969
1970 *** `combine-and-quote-strings' produces a single string from a list of strings
1971 sticking a separator string in between each pair, and quoting those
1972 strings that include the separator as their substring. Useful for
1973 consing shell command lines from the individual arguments.
1974
1975 *** `custom-note-var-changed' tells Custom to treat the change in a
1976 certain variable as having been made within Custom.
1977
1978 *** `face-all-attributes' returns an alist describing all the basic
1979 attributes of a given face.
1980
1981 *** `format-seconds' converts a number of seconds into a readable
1982 string of days, hours, etc.
1983
1984 *** `image-refresh' refreshes all images associated with a given image
1985 specification.
1986
1987 *** `locate-user-emacs-file' helps packages to select the appropriate
1988 place to save user-specific files. It defaults to `user-emacs-directory'
1989 unless the file already exists at $HOME.
1990
1991 *** `read-color' reads a color name using the minibuffer.
1992
1993 *** `read-shell-command' does what its name says, with completion. It
1994 uses the minibuffer-local-shell-command-map for that.
1995
1996 *** `split-string-and-unquote' splits a string into a list of substrings
1997 on the boundaries of a given delimiter, and unquotes the substrings that
1998 are quoted. Useful for taking apart shell commands.
1999
2000 *** The two new functions `looking-at-p' and `string-match-p' can do
2001 the same matching as `looking-at' and `string-match' without changing
2002 the match data.
2003
2004 *** The two new functions `make-serial-process' and
2005 `serial-process-configure' provide a Lisp interface to the new serial
2006 port support (see Emacs changes, above).
2007
2008 ** Miscellaneous new variables
2009
2010 *** `auto-save-include-big-deletions', if non-nil, means auto-save is
2011 not turned off automatically after a big deletion.
2012
2013 *** `read-circle', if nil, disables the reading of recursive Lisp
2014 structures using the #N= and #N# syntax.
2015
2016 *** `this-command-keys-shift-translated' is non-nil if the key
2017 sequence invoking the current command was found by shift-translation.
2018
2019 *** `window-point-insertion-type' determines the insertion-type of the
2020 marker used for window-point.
2021
2022 *** bookmark provides `bookmark-make-record-function' so special major
2023 modes like Info can teach bookmark.el how to save and restore the
2024 relevant data.
2025
2026 *** `fill-forward-paragraph-function' specifies which function the
2027 filling code should use to find paragraph boundaries.
2028
2029 \f
2030 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 23.1
2031
2032 ** The new package avl-tree.el deals with the AVL tree data structure.
2033
2034 ** The new package check-declare.el verifies the accuracy of
2035 declare-function macros (see Lisp Changes, above).
2036
2037 ** find-cmd.el can build `find' commands using lisp syntax.
2038
2039 ** The package misearch.el has been added. It allows Isearch to search
2040 through multiple buffers. A variable `multi-isearch-next-buffer-function'
2041 defines the function to call to get the next buffer to search in the series
2042 of multiple buffers. Top-level commands `multi-isearch-buffers',
2043 `multi-isearch-buffers-regexp', `multi-isearch-files' and
2044 `multi-isearch-files-regexp' accept a single argument that specifies
2045 a list of buffers/files to search for a string/regexp.
2046
2047 ** The new major mode `special-mode' is intended as a parent for
2048 major modes such as those that set the "'mode-class 'special" property.
2049
2050 \f
2051 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
2052 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
2053
2054 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2055 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2056 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2057 (at your option) any later version.
2058
2059 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2060 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2061 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2062 GNU General Public License for more details.
2063
2064 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2065 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2066
2067 \f
2068 Local variables:
2069 mode: outline
2070 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
2071 end:
2072
2073 arch-tag: e759449d-88b3-4de4-9900-3a6c3dfa23e2