1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
3 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 For older news, see the file ONEWS
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9 `view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
12 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
13 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
14 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
15 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
18 * Installation Changes in Emacs 22.1
21 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
22 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
26 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
29 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
30 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
31 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
34 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with Lisp code.
37 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
38 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
39 place for game scores to be stored. You can control this with the
40 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
41 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
42 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
43 in each user's home directory.
46 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
47 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
51 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
53 The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual in Info format is built as part of the
54 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
55 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
56 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
59 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
62 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
63 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
64 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
65 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
68 ** New translations of the Emacs Tutorial are available in the
69 following languages: Brasilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese (both
70 with simplified and traditional characters), French, and Italian.
71 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose one of them in case your language setup
72 doesn't automatically select the right one.
75 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
78 ** Emacs now includes support for loading image libraries on demand.
79 (Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
80 the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
81 setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
84 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
87 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
90 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
93 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
94 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
97 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
100 ** Mac OS 9 port now uses the Carbon API by default. You can also
101 create non-Carbon build by specifying `NonCarbon' as a target. See
102 the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
105 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
106 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
109 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
110 much pure storage it will approximately need.
112 ** The script etc/emacs-buffer.gdb can be used with gdb to retrieve the
113 contents of buffers from a core dump and save them to files easily, should
117 * Startup Changes in Emacs 22.1
120 ** New command line option -Q or --quick.
121 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
122 the fancy startup screen.
125 ** New command line option -D or --basic-display.
126 Disables the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, and
130 ** New command line option -nbc or --no-blinking-cursor disables
131 the blinking cursor on graphical terminals.
134 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
135 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
136 can start with this line:
138 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
141 ** The option --directory DIR now modifies `load-path' immediately.
142 Directories are added to the front of `load-path' in the order they
143 appear on the command line. For example, with this command line:
145 emacs -batch -L .. -L /tmp --eval "(require 'foo)"
147 Emacs looks for library `foo' in the parent directory, then in /tmp, then
148 in the other directories in `load-path'. (-L is short for --directory.)
151 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
152 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
155 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
156 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
157 an interactively callable function.
160 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
161 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
162 affects the initial frame.
165 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
166 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
167 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
168 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
169 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
172 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
173 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
174 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
175 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
176 `inhibit-splash-screen').
179 ** The default is now to use an bitmap as the icon, so the command-line options
180 --icon-type, -i has been replaced with options --no-bitmap-icon, -nb to turn
184 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
185 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
186 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
190 You can now put the init files .emacs and .emacs_SHELL under
191 ~/.emacs.d or directly under ~. Emacs will find them in either place.
194 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
195 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
196 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
197 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
198 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
200 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
203 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
204 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
205 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
206 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
209 ** C-u M-g M-g switches to the most recent previous buffer,
210 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
212 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
213 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
216 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
217 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
218 the operating system or your X server.
221 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
224 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
225 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
229 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
230 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
233 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
234 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
235 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
238 ** The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
239 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
242 ** In incremental search, C-w is changed. M-%, C-M-w and C-M-y are special.
244 See below under "incremental search changes".
247 ** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
249 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
250 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
251 directory with Dired.
254 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
255 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
256 it remains unchanged.
259 ** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
260 M-o M-o requests refontification.
263 ** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
265 See below for more details.
268 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
269 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
270 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
271 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
272 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
273 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
275 * Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
278 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
279 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
282 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
283 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
284 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
285 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
288 ** C-u M-g M-g switches to the most recent previous buffer,
289 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
291 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
292 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
295 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
296 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
297 the operating system or your X server.
300 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
303 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
304 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
308 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
309 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
312 ** You can now switch buffers in a cyclic order with C-x C-left and
313 (prev-buffer) and C-x C-right (next-buffer). C-x left and C-x right
317 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
320 ** M-SPC (just-one-space) when given a numeric argument N
321 converts whitespace around point to N spaces.
324 ** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
325 `insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
328 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
329 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
332 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
333 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
334 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
335 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
338 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
339 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
340 in Indented-Text mode.
343 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variable references.
345 Substrings of the form `$foo' and `${foo}' in the specified new value
346 now refer to the value of environment variable foo. To include a `$'
347 in the value, use `$$'.
350 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
351 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
355 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
358 ** The command `list-faces-display' now accepts a prefix arg.
359 When passed, the function prompts for a regular expression and lists
360 only faces matching this regexp.
362 ** Mark command changes:
365 *** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
366 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
367 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
370 *** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times.
372 If you type C-M-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h
373 (mark-paragraph), or C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region
374 extends each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC
375 M-C-SPC, for example. This feature also works for
376 mark-end-of-sentence, if you bind that to a key. It also extends the
377 region when the mark is active in Transient Mark mode, regardless of
378 the last command. To start a new region with one of marking commands
379 in Transient Mark mode, you can deactivate the active region with C-g,
380 or set the new mark with C-SPC.
383 *** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
385 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
386 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
390 *** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
391 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
392 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
393 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
394 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
397 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
398 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
399 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
402 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
403 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
404 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
408 *** Movement commands `beginning-of-buffer', `end-of-buffer',
409 `beginning-of-defun', `end-of-defun' do not set the mark if the mark
410 is already active in Transient Mark mode.
412 ** Help command changes:
415 *** Changes in C-h bindings:
417 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
419 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
422 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
423 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
425 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
426 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
428 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
430 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
431 run by the key sequence.
433 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
434 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
437 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
438 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
440 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
441 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
443 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
444 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
446 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
447 new-kill-line is on C-k
450 *** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
451 arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
452 default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
453 `help-default-arg-highlight'.
456 *** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
457 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
460 *** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
461 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
462 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
463 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
464 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
465 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
466 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node').
469 *** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
470 description various information about a character, including its
471 encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
472 widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
473 clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
476 *** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
477 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
480 *** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
481 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
482 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
483 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
484 keyboard oriented alternative.
487 *** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
488 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
489 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
490 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
491 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
494 *** The apropos commands now accept a list of words to match.
495 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
496 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
500 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
501 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
502 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
503 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
504 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
507 ** Incremental Search changes:
510 *** Vertical scrolling is now possible within incremental search.
511 To enable this feature, customize the new user option
512 `isearch-allow-scroll'. User written commands which satisfy stringent
513 constraints can be marked as "scrolling commands". See the Emacs manual
517 *** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
518 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
519 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
520 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
523 *** C-y in incremental search now grabs the next line if point is already
524 at the end of a line.
527 *** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
528 Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
529 and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
532 *** M-% typed in isearch mode invokes `query-replace' or
533 `query-replace-regexp' (depending on search mode) with the current
534 search string used as the string to replace.
537 *** Isearch no longer adds `isearch-resume' commands to the command
538 history by default. To enable this feature, customize the new
539 user option `isearch-resume-in-command-history'.
541 ** Replace command changes:
544 *** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
545 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
546 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
549 *** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
550 `replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
551 where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
552 time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
553 `query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
554 to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
555 All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
556 replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
557 can be edited for each replacement.
560 *** query-replace uses isearch lazy highlighting when the new user option
561 `query-replace-lazy-highlight' is non-nil.
564 *** The current match in query-replace is highlighted in new face
565 `query-replace' which by default inherits from isearch face.
567 ** File operation changes:
570 *** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
571 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
572 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
573 is only rarely needed.
576 *** In processing a local variables list, Emacs strips the prefix and
577 suffix are from every line before processing all the lines.
580 *** find-file-read-only visits multiple files in read-only mode,
581 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
584 *** find-alternate-file replaces the current file with multiple files,
585 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
588 *** Auto Compression mode is now enabled by default.
591 *** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
593 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
594 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
595 directory with Dired.
598 *** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
599 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
600 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you can in fact alter the
604 *** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
605 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
608 *** The commands copy-file, rename-file, make-symbolic-link and
609 add-name-to-file, when given a directory as the "new name" argument,
610 convert it to a file name by merging in the within-directory part of
611 the existing file's name. (This is the same convention that shell
612 commands cp, mv, and ln follow.) Thus, M-x copy-file RET ~/foo RET
613 /tmp RET copies ~/foo to /tmp/foo.
616 *** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
617 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
618 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
621 *** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
622 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
623 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
626 *** The new option `write-region-inhibit-fsync' disables calls to fsync
627 in `write-region'. This can be useful on laptops to avoid spinning up
628 the hard drive upon each file save. Enabling this variable may result
629 in data loss, use with care.
632 *** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
633 Emacs asks for confirmation.
636 *** require-final-newline now has two new possible values:
638 `visit' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's needed
639 when visiting the file.
641 `visit-save' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's
642 needed when visiting the file, and also add a newline if it's needed
643 when saving the file.
646 *** The new option mode-require-final-newline controls how certain
647 major modes enable require-final-newline. Any major mode that's
648 designed for a kind of file that should normally end in a newline
649 sets require-final-newline based on mode-require-final-newline.
650 So you can customize mode-require-final-newline to control what these
653 ** Minibuffer changes:
656 *** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
657 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
658 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
662 *** Enhanced visual feedback in `*Completions*' buffer.
664 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
665 have in common and where they begin to differ.
667 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
668 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
669 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
670 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
671 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
672 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
673 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
674 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
677 *** File-name completion can now ignore specified directories.
678 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
679 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
680 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
681 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
682 candidate is a directory.
685 *** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
686 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
687 it remains unchanged.
690 *** New user option `history-delete-duplicates'.
691 If set to t when adding a new history element, all previous identical
692 elements are deleted.
694 ** Redisplay changes:
697 *** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
698 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
699 appears between the position information and the major mode.
702 *** New face `escape-glyph' highlights control characters and escape glyphs.
705 *** Non-breaking space and hyphens are now displayed with a special
706 face, either nobreak-space or escape-glyph. You can turn this off or
707 specify a different mode by setting the variable `nobreak-char-display'.
710 *** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
711 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
712 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
713 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
715 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
716 hscrolling scrolls the window when point gets too close to the
717 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
718 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
719 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
720 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
722 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
723 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
726 *** Moving or scrolling through images (and other lines) taller that
727 the window now works sensibly, by automatically adjusting the window's
731 *** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
732 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
733 the mode line of the currently selected window.
735 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
736 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
739 *** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
740 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
741 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
742 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
746 *** Angle icons in the fringes can indicate the buffer boundaries. In
747 addition, up and down arrow bitmaps in the fringe indicate which ways
748 the window can be scrolled.
750 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
751 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
752 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
754 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
755 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp.
757 The value can also be an alist which specifies the presence and
758 position of each bitmap individually.
760 For example, ((top . left) (t . right)) places the top angle bitmap
761 in left fringe, the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both
762 arrow bitmaps in right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the
763 left fringe, but no arrow bitmaps, use ((top . left) (bottom . left)).
766 *** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
767 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
768 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
769 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
770 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
772 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' can be set to nil to
773 revert to the old behavior of continuing such lines.
776 *** When a window has display margin areas, the fringes are now
777 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
778 outside those margins.
781 *** A window can now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
782 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
784 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
785 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
786 or when the frame is resized.
788 ** Cursor display changes:
791 *** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
792 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
795 *** The X resource cursorBlink can be used to turn off cursor blinking.
798 *** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
799 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
800 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
804 *** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
805 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
809 *** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
810 of the recognized cursor types.
815 *** `mode-line-highlight' is the standard face indicating mouse sensitive
816 elements on mode-line (and header-line) like `highlight' face on text
820 *** `shadow' face defines the appearance of the "shadowed" text, i.e.
821 the text which should be less noticeable than the surrounding text.
822 This can be achieved by using shades of grey in contrast with either
823 black or white default foreground color. This generic shadow face
824 allows customization of the appearance of shadowed text in one place,
825 so package-specific faces can inherit from it.
828 *** `vertical-border' face is used for the vertical divider between windows.
830 ** Font-Lock changes:
833 *** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
834 M-o M-o requests refontification.
837 *** All modes now support using M-x font-lock-mode to toggle
838 fontification, even those such as Occur, Info, and comint-derived
839 modes that do their own fontification in a special way.
841 The variable `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable
842 fontification in Info, remove `turn-on-font-lock' from
846 *** font-lock-lines-before specifies a number of lines before the
847 current line that should be refontified when you change the buffer.
848 The default value is 1.
851 *** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
852 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
853 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
854 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
855 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
858 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
861 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-comment-delimiter-face'.
864 *** Easy to overlook single character negation can now be font-locked.
865 You can use the new variable `font-lock-negation-char-face' and the face of
866 the same name to customize this. Currently the cc-modes, sh-script-mode,
867 cperl-mode and make-mode support this.
870 *** The default settings for JIT stealth lock parameters are changed.
871 The default value for the user option jit-lock-stealth-time is now 16
872 instead of 3, and the default value of jit-lock-stealth-nice is now
873 0.5 instead of 0.125. The new defaults should lower the CPU usage
874 when Emacs is fontifying in the background.
877 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
879 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
880 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
881 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
882 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
885 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
887 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
888 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
889 refontification takes place.
894 *** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
895 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
896 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
897 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
898 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
899 current date and time, current line and column number in the mode-line.
902 *** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
905 *** You can exit dialog windows and menus by typing C-g.
908 *** The menu item "Open File..." has been split into two items, "New File..."
909 and "Open File...". "Open File..." now opens only existing files. This is
910 to support existing GUI file selection dialogs better.
913 *** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, Mac, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
914 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
917 *** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
918 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+, Mac and W32).
921 *** The Lucid menus can display multilingual text in your locale. You have
922 to explicitly specify a fontSet resource for this to work, for example
923 `-xrm "Emacs*fontSet: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*,*"'.
926 *** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif now pops down when pressing
927 ESC, like they do for Gtk+, Mac and W32.
930 *** For Gtk+ version 2.4, you can make Emacs use the old file dialog
931 by setting the variable `x-use-old-gtk-file-dialog' to t. Default is to use
937 *** If you set the new variable `mouse-autoselect-window' to a non-nil
938 value, windows are automatically selected as you move the mouse from
939 one Emacs window to another, even within a frame. A minibuffer window
940 can be selected only when it is active.
943 *** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
944 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
945 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
946 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
947 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
951 *** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
953 Traditionally, Emacs uses a Mouse-1 click to set point and a Mouse-2
954 click to follow a link, whereas most other applications use a Mouse-1
955 click for both purposes, depending on whether you click outside or
956 inside a link. Now the behavior of a Mouse-1 click has been changed
957 to match this context-sentitive dual behavior. (If you prefer the old
958 behavior, set the user option `mouse-1-click-follows-link' to nil.)
960 Depending on the current mode, a Mouse-2 click in Emacs can do much
961 more than just follow a link, so the new Mouse-1 behavior is only
962 activated for modes which explicitly mark a clickable text as a "link"
963 (see the new function `mouse-on-link-p' for details). The Lisp
964 packages that are included in release 22.1 have been adapted to do
965 this, but external packages may not yet support this. However, there
966 is no risk in using such packages, as the worst thing that could
967 happen is that you get the original Mouse-1 behavior when you click
968 on a link, which typically means that you set point where you click.
970 If you want to get the original Mouse-1 action also inside a link, you
971 just need to press the Mouse-1 button a little longer than a normal
972 click (i.e. press and hold the Mouse-1 button for half a second before
975 Dragging the Mouse-1 inside a link still performs the original
976 drag-mouse-1 action, typically copy the text.
978 You can customize the new Mouse-1 behavior via the new user options
979 `mouse-1-click-follows-link' and `mouse-1-click-in-non-selected-windows'.
982 *** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
983 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
984 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
985 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
986 also disable mouse highlighting.
989 *** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
990 shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
991 variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
994 *** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
995 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
998 *** Emacs ignores mouse-2 clicks while the mouse wheel is being moved.
1000 People tend to push the mouse wheel (which counts as a mouse-2 click)
1001 unintentionally while turning the wheel, so these clicks are now
1002 ignored. You can customize this with the mouse-wheel-click-event and
1003 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
1006 *** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
1008 ** Multilingual Environment (Mule) changes:
1011 *** Language environment and various default coding systems are setup
1012 more correctly according to the current locale name. If the locale
1013 name doesn't specify a charset, the default is what glibc defines.
1014 This change can result in using the different coding systems as
1015 default in some locale (e.g. vi_VN).
1018 *** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1019 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1020 can mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1021 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1022 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1023 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1024 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1025 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1028 *** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
1029 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
1032 *** New command `recode-region' decodes the region again by a specified
1036 *** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
1040 *** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
1044 *** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
1045 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
1046 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
1050 *** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
1051 in the current input method to input a character at point.
1054 *** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
1055 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
1056 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
1057 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
1058 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
1059 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
1060 mule-unicode-... ones.
1062 By default this translation happens automatically on encoding.
1063 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
1064 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
1067 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
1068 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
1069 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
1070 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
1071 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
1074 *** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
1075 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
1076 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
1077 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
1080 *** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
1081 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
1082 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
1083 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
1084 automatically according to the locale.)
1087 *** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
1088 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
1089 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
1090 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
1091 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
1095 *** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
1099 *** Improved Thai support. A new minor mode `thai-word-mode' (which is
1100 automatically activated if you select Thai as a language
1101 environment) changes key bindings of most word-oriented commands to
1102 versions which recognize Thai words. Affected commands are
1106 M-DEL (backward-kill-word)
1107 M-t (transpose-words)
1108 M-q (fill-paragraph)
1111 *** Indian support has been updated.
1112 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
1113 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
1114 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
1118 *** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
1121 *** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
1122 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
1123 single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
1124 turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
1125 sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
1126 system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
1127 interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
1128 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
1129 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
1130 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
1131 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
1132 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
1135 *** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
1136 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
1137 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
1140 *** Many new coding systems are available in the `code-pages' library.
1141 These include complete versions of most of those in codepage.el, based
1142 on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now obsolete and is used
1143 only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. All coding systems defined in
1144 `code-pages' are auto-loaded.
1147 *** New variable `utf-translate-cjk-unicode-range' controls which
1148 Unicode characters to translate in `utf-translate-cjk-mode'.
1151 *** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
1152 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
1153 fontset appropriately.
1155 ** Customize changes:
1158 *** Custom themes are collections of customize options. Create a
1159 custom theme with M-x customize-create-theme. Use M-x load-theme to
1160 load and enable a theme, and M-x disable-theme to disable it. Use M-x
1161 enable-theme to renable a disabled theme.
1164 *** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
1165 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
1166 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
1170 *** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
1171 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
1172 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
1173 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
1174 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
1175 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
1176 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
1179 *** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
1180 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
1181 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
1182 under the "[State]" button.
1184 ** Buffer Menu changes:
1187 *** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
1188 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to `T' in Buffer Menu
1192 *** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1193 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1194 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1197 *** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
1198 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
1199 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
1201 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
1202 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
1203 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories are
1204 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
1205 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
1207 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
1208 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
1209 t, and the status is shown.
1211 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
1212 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
1217 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
1218 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
1219 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
1222 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
1223 with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
1226 *** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
1227 of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
1230 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
1231 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
1232 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
1233 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
1234 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
1235 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
1238 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
1239 into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
1242 *** In Dired-x, Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode.
1244 The mode toggling command is bound to M-o. A new command
1245 dired-mark-omitted, bound to * O, marks omitted files. The variable
1246 dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the mode toggling function
1250 *** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1251 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1252 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1253 directory listing into a buffer.
1258 *** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
1259 option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
1260 except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
1261 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
1262 overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
1264 The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
1265 support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
1267 `comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
1268 read-only and field properties. Hence, it always kill entire
1269 lines, including any prompts.
1271 `comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
1272 read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
1273 part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
1274 and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
1275 not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
1276 `kill-region' if read-only are involved: it copies the text to the
1277 kill-ring, but does not delete it.
1280 *** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
1281 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
1282 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
1283 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
1286 *** `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' has been renamed
1287 `comint-use-prompt-regexp'. The old name has been kept as an alias,
1288 but declared obsolete.
1290 ** M-x Compile changes:
1293 *** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
1295 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
1296 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
1297 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
1298 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
1300 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
1301 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
1302 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
1304 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
1305 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
1306 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
1307 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
1308 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
1310 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
1313 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1314 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1315 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1316 subprocesses inherit.
1319 *** New user option `compilation-disable-input'.
1320 If this is non-nil, send end-of-file as compilation process input.
1323 *** New options `next-error-highlight' and `next-error-highlight-no-select'
1324 specify the method of highlighting of the corresponding source line
1325 in new face `next-error'.
1328 *** A new minor mode `next-error-follow-minor-mode' can be used in
1329 compilation-mode, grep-mode, occur-mode, and diff-mode (i.e. all the
1330 modes that can use `next-error'). In this mode, cursor motion in the
1331 buffer causes automatic display in another window of the corresponding
1332 matches, compilation errors, etc. This minor mode can be toggled with
1336 *** When the left fringe is displayed, an arrow points to current message in
1337 the compilation buffer.
1340 *** The new variable `compilation-context-lines' controls lines of leading
1341 context before the current message. If nil and the left fringe is displayed,
1342 it doesn't scroll the compilation output window. If there is no left fringe,
1343 no arrow is displayed and a value of nil means display the message at the top
1346 ** Occur mode changes:
1349 *** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1350 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1354 *** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
1355 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
1358 *** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
1359 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
1360 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
1361 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
1362 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
1367 *** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1369 There's a new separate package grep.el, with its own submenu and
1370 customization group.
1373 *** M-x grep provides highlighting support.
1375 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
1376 can be saved and automatically revisited.
1379 *** `grep-find' is now also available under the name `find-grep' where
1380 people knowing `find-grep-dired' would probably expect it.
1383 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1384 `grep-scroll-output' override the corresponding compilation mode
1385 settings, for grep commands only.
1388 *** New option `grep-highlight-matches' highlightes matches in *grep*
1389 buffer. It uses a special feature of some grep programs which accept
1390 --color option to output markers around matches. When going to the next
1391 match with `next-error' the exact match is highlighted in the source
1392 buffer. Otherwise, if `grep-highlight-matches' is nil, the whole
1393 source line is highlighted.
1396 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1397 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1398 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1399 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1400 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1401 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1405 *** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
1406 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep automatically
1407 detects whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
1408 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
1409 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
1410 command lines to be used than was possible before.
1412 ** X Windows Support:
1415 *** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
1416 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
1417 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
1420 *** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1421 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1422 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1423 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1425 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1426 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1429 *** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which can
1430 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
1432 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
1433 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
1436 *** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
1437 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
1438 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
1439 and use the more appropriately result.
1442 *** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
1443 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
1444 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
1449 *** Emacs now responds to mouse-clicks on the mode-line, header-line and
1450 display margin, when run in an xterm.
1453 *** Improved key bindings support when running in an xterm.
1454 When emacs is running in an xterm more key bindings are available. The
1455 following should work:
1456 {C,S,C-S,A}-{right,left,up,down,prior,next,delete,insert,F1-12}.
1457 These key bindings work on xterm from X.org 6.8, they might not work on
1458 some older versions of xterm, or on some proprietary versions.
1460 ** Character terminal color support changes:
1463 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
1464 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
1465 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
1466 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
1467 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
1468 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
1469 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
1470 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
1471 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
1474 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
1475 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
1476 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
1477 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
1478 all of these colors.
1481 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
1482 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
1483 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
1484 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
1488 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
1490 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1
1493 ** Newsticker is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1495 Newsticker asynchronously retrieves headlines (RSS) from a list of news
1496 sites, prepares these headlines for reading, and allows for loading the
1497 corresponding articles in a web browser. Its documentation is in a
1501 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
1502 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
1503 program files that include other program files.
1505 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
1506 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
1510 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1512 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1513 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1514 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1515 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
1518 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1519 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1522 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1524 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1525 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1526 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1527 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1530 ** Image files are normally visited in Image mode, which lets you toggle
1531 between viewing the image and viewing the text using C-c C-c.
1534 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1536 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1537 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1538 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1539 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1540 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1541 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1543 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1544 rectangle highlighting: Use C-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1545 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1546 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1548 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1549 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1550 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1551 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1552 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1553 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1554 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1556 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1557 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1558 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1560 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1561 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1563 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1564 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1565 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1566 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1568 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1569 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1570 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you can customize the
1571 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1573 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1574 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1575 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1576 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1579 ** Org mode is now part of the Emacs distribution
1581 Org mode is a mode for keeping notes, maintaining ToDo lists, and
1582 doing project planning with a fast and effective plain-text system.
1583 It also contains a plain-text table editor with spreadsheet-like
1586 The Org mode table editor can be integrated into any major mode by
1587 activating the minor Orgtbl-mode.
1589 The documentation for org-mode is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1590 type "C-h i m org RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1591 available in `etc/orgcard.tex' and `etc/orgcard.ps'.
1594 ** The new package dns-mode.el add syntax highlight of DNS master files.
1595 The key binding C-c C-s (`dns-mode-soa-increment-serial') can be used
1596 to increment the SOA serial.
1599 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1600 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1601 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1602 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1603 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method can
1604 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1607 ** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
1608 source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
1611 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1612 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1613 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1614 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1615 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1617 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1618 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1619 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1620 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1621 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1622 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1624 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1625 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1626 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1627 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1628 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1629 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1630 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1631 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1632 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1636 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1637 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1639 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1640 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1641 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1642 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1644 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1647 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1648 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1649 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1650 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1651 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1654 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1655 the keyboard macro ring.
1657 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1658 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1660 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1661 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1662 this behavior via the variables kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1663 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1665 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1666 C-x C-k SPC steps through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1667 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1670 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
1671 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
1672 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
1675 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on Dired
1676 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
1679 ** The new package longlines.el provides a minor mode for editing text
1680 files composed of long lines, based on the `use-hard-newlines'
1681 mechanism. The long lines are broken up by inserting soft newlines,
1682 which are automatically removed when saving the file to disk or
1683 copying into the kill ring, clipboard, etc. By default, Longlines
1684 mode inserts soft newlines automatically during editing, a behavior
1685 referred to as "soft word wrap" in other text editors. This is
1686 similar to Refill mode, but more reliable. To turn the word wrap
1687 feature off, set `longlines-auto-wrap' to nil.
1690 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1692 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1693 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1694 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1695 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1696 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1697 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1700 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1701 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1702 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1703 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1705 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1708 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1709 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1710 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1714 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1715 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1716 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1717 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1720 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1721 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1724 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1725 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1726 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1727 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1728 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1729 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1732 ** The thumbs.el package allows you to preview image files as thumbnails
1733 and can be invoked from a Dired buffer.
1736 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1738 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1739 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1740 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1741 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1742 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1743 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1744 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1745 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1746 `rsync' to do the copying).
1748 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1749 `su' and `sudo'. Ange-FTP is still supported via the `ftp' method.
1751 If you want to disable Tramp you should set
1753 (setq tramp-default-method "ftp")
1756 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
1759 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1760 configuration files.
1763 ** The new package conf-mode.el handles thousands of configuration files, with
1764 varying syntaxes for comments (;, #, //, /* */ or !), assignment (var = value,
1765 var : value, var value or keyword var value) and sections ([section] or
1766 section { }). Many files under /etc/, or with suffixes like .cf through
1767 .config, .properties (Java), .desktop (KDE/Gnome), .ini and many others are
1771 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1774 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
1777 ** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
1778 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
1780 ** The new package scroll-lock.el provides the Scroll Lock minor mode
1781 for pager-like scrolling. Keys which normally move point by line or
1782 paragraph will scroll the buffer by the respective amount of lines
1783 instead and point will be kept vertically fixed relative to window
1784 boundaries during scrolling.
1786 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1:
1788 ** The variable `woman-topic-at-point' was renamed
1789 to `woman-use-topic-at-point' and behaves differently: if this
1790 variable is non-nil, the `woman' command uses the word at point
1791 automatically, without asking for a confirmation. Otherwise, the word
1792 at point is suggested as default, but not inserted at the prompt.
1795 ** Changes to cmuscheme
1797 *** Emacs now offers to start Scheme if the user tries to
1798 evaluate a Scheme expression but no Scheme subprocess is running.
1800 *** If a file `.emacs_NAME' (where NAME is the name of the Scheme interpreter)
1801 exists in the user's home directory or in ~/.emacs.d, its
1802 contents are sent to the Scheme subprocess upon startup.
1804 *** There are new commands to instruct the Scheme interpreter to trace
1805 procedure calls (`scheme-trace-procedure') and to expand syntactic forms
1806 (`scheme-expand-current-form'). The commands actually sent to the Scheme
1807 subprocess are controlled by the user options `scheme-trace-command',
1808 `scheme-untrace-command' and `scheme-expand-current-form'.
1811 ** Makefile mode has submodes for automake, gmake, makepp and BSD make.
1813 The former two couldn't be differentiated before, and the latter two
1814 are new. Font-locking is robust now and offers new customizable
1818 ** In Outline mode, `hide-body' no longer hides lines at the top
1819 of the file that precede the first header line.
1822 ** Telnet now prompts you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
1825 ** The terminal emulation code in term.el has been improved; it can
1826 run most curses applications now.
1829 ** M-x diff uses Diff mode instead of Compilation mode.
1832 ** You can now customize `fill-nobreak-predicate' to control where
1833 filling can break lines. The value is now normally a list of
1834 functions, but it can also be a single function, for compatibility.
1836 Emacs provide two predicates, `fill-single-word-nobreak-p' and
1837 `fill-french-nobreak-p', for use as the value of
1838 `fill-nobreak-predicate'.
1841 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
1842 with special modes such as Tar mode.
1845 ** Commands `winner-redo' and `winner-undo', from winner.el, are now
1846 bound to C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an
1847 incompatible change.
1850 ** `global-whitespace-mode' is a new alias for `whitespace-global-mode'.
1853 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
1854 resync points in both windows.
1857 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1859 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry always
1860 starts a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1863 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
1864 when Emacs visits them.
1866 ** Info mode changes:
1869 *** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
1870 with the number appended to the `*info*' buffer name (e.g. "*info*<2>").
1873 *** isearch in Info uses Info-search and searches through multiple nodes.
1875 Before leaving the initial Info node isearch fails once with the error
1876 message [initial node], and with subsequent C-s/C-r continues through
1877 other nodes. When isearch fails for the rest of the manual, it wraps
1878 aroung the whole manual to the top/final node. The user option
1879 `Info-isearch-search' controls whether to use Info-search for isearch,
1880 or the default isearch search function that wraps around the current
1884 *** New search commands: `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S),
1885 `Info-search-backward', and `Info-search-next' which repeats the last
1886 search without prompting for a new search string.
1889 *** New command `Info-history-forward' (bound to r and new toolbar icon)
1890 moves forward in history to the node you returned from after using
1891 `Info-history-back' (renamed from `Info-last').
1894 *** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
1897 *** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
1898 from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
1901 *** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
1902 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
1906 *** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
1907 the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
1908 arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
1911 *** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
1912 and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
1915 *** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
1916 references and following them calls `browse-url'.
1919 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
1921 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
1922 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
1925 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
1927 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
1928 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
1929 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
1932 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
1935 *** `Info-index' offers completion.
1937 ** Lisp mode changes:
1940 *** Lisp mode now uses `font-lock-doc-face' for doc strings.
1943 *** C-u C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-prints the list after point.
1945 *** New features in evaluation commands
1948 **** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
1949 the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
1952 **** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
1953 in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
1954 by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
1955 function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
1956 `eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
1961 *** Font lock support.
1962 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
1963 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
1964 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
1965 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
1966 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
1967 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
1969 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
1970 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
1971 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
1972 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
1973 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
1974 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
1975 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
1976 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
1977 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
1979 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
1980 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
1981 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
1982 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
1983 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
1984 take the better part of a minute.
1986 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
1987 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
1988 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
1989 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
1990 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
1991 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
1993 **** Support for documentation comments.
1994 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
1995 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
1996 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
1997 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
1999 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
2000 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
2001 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
2002 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2004 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
2005 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
2006 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
2007 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
2010 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
2011 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
2012 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
2013 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
2014 not as configurable as it ought to be.
2016 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
2017 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
2018 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
2019 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
2020 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
2022 *** Support for the AWK language.
2023 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
2024 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
2025 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
2028 **** Indentation Engine
2029 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
2031 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
2032 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
2033 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
2034 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
2035 definition, or structured statement.
2037 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
2038 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
2039 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
2041 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
2042 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
2043 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
2044 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
2047 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
2048 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
2049 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
2050 the AWK language itself.
2052 **** Comment Commands
2053 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
2054 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
2056 **** Movement Commands
2057 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
2058 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
2059 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
2061 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
2062 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
2063 recognize these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
2066 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
2067 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
2068 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
2069 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
2071 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
2072 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
2073 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
2074 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
2075 composition-close, and incomposition.
2077 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
2078 The functions `c-hungry-backspace' and `c-hungry-delete-forward' can be
2079 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
2081 *** Better control over `require-final-newline'.
2083 The variable `c-require-final-newline' specifies which of the modes
2084 implemented by CC mode should insert final newlines. Its value is a
2085 list of modes, and only those modes should do it. By default the list
2086 includes C, C++ and Objective-C modes.
2088 Whichever modes are in this list will set `require-final-newline'
2089 based on `mode-require-final-newline'.
2091 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
2093 The elements in the syntactic context returned by `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2094 and stored in `c-syntactic-context' has been changed somewhat to allow
2095 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
2096 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
2098 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
2102 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
2104 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
2107 This change might affect code that call `c-guess-basic-syntax' directly,
2108 and custom lineup functions if they use `c-syntactic-context'. However,
2109 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
2110 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
2112 *** API changes for derived modes.
2114 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
2115 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
2116 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
2117 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
2118 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
2120 **** New language variable system.
2121 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
2123 **** New initialization functions.
2124 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
2125 give better control: `c-basic-common-init', `c-font-lock-init', and
2126 `c-init-language-vars'.
2128 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
2129 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
2130 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
2131 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
2133 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
2134 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
2135 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
2136 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
2137 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2139 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
2140 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
2141 its substatement. E.g:
2147 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
2149 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
2150 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
2151 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
2152 variable `c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros'. A new syntactic symbol
2153 `cpp-define-intro' has been added to control the initial indentation
2156 **** New lineup function `c-lineup-cpp-define'.
2158 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
2159 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
2160 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
2161 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
2162 much line `c-lineup-dont-change', which was used earlier, but handles
2163 empty lines within the macro better.
2165 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
2166 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
2167 `c-context-line-break' and `c-context-open-line'.
2169 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2170 `c-backslash-region' tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
2171 variable `c-backslash-max-column' which put a limit on how far out
2172 backslashes can be moved.
2174 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2175 This is controlled by the new variable `c-auto-align-backslashes'. It
2176 affects `c-context-line-break', `c-context-open-line' and newlines
2177 inserted in Auto-Newline mode.
2178 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
2180 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
2181 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
2182 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
2183 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
2184 backslash) in the macro.
2186 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
2187 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
2188 the variable `c-indent-comment-alist'. The indentation behavior based
2189 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
2190 and #endif but indentation to `comment-column' in most other cases
2191 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
2193 *** New function `c-context-open-line'.
2194 It's the open-line equivalent of `c-context-line-break'.
2196 *** New lineup functions
2198 **** `c-lineup-string-cont'
2199 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
2202 result = prefix + "A message "
2203 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
2205 **** `c-lineup-cascaded-calls'
2206 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
2208 **** `c-lineup-knr-region-comment'
2209 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
2210 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
2212 **** `c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg'
2213 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks.
2215 **** `c-lineup-argcont'
2216 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
2218 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
2219 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
2220 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
2221 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
2222 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
2223 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
2225 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
2226 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
2227 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
2228 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
2231 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
2232 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
2233 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
2234 happen when macros are involved.
2236 *** Improved the way `c-indent-exp' chooses the block to indent.
2237 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
2238 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
2239 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
2240 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
2241 line is left untouched.
2243 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
2244 The function `c-toggle-syntactic-indentation' can be used to toggle
2245 syntactic indentation.
2247 ** In sh-script, a continuation line is only indented if the backslash was
2248 preceded by a SPC or a TAB.
2251 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
2254 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
2255 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
2256 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
2257 C-c C-i b, and so on.
2259 ** Fortran mode changes:
2262 *** Fortran mode does more font-locking by default. Use level 3
2263 highlighting for the old default.
2266 *** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
2267 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
2268 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
2271 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have new navigation commands
2272 `f90-end-of-block', `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block',
2273 `f90-previous-block', `fortran-end-of-block',
2274 `fortran-beginning-of-block'.
2277 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have support for `hs-minor-mode' (hideshow).
2278 It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
2282 *** The new function `f90-backslash-not-special' can be used to change
2283 the syntax of backslashes in F90 buffers.
2286 ** Reftex mode changes
2288 *** Changes to RefTeX's table of contents
2290 The new command keys "<" and ">" in the TOC buffer promote/demote the
2291 section at point or all sections in the current region, with full
2292 support for multifile documents.
2294 The new command `reftex-toc-recenter' (`C-c -') shows the current
2295 section in the TOC buffer without selecting the TOC window.
2296 Recentering can happen automatically in idle time when the option
2297 `reftex-auto-recenter-toc' is turned on. The highlight in the TOC
2298 buffer stays when the focus moves to a different window. A dedicated
2299 frame can show the TOC with the current section always automatically
2300 highlighted. The frame is created and deleted from the toc buffer
2303 The toc window can be split off horizontally instead of vertically.
2304 See new option `reftex-toc-split-windows-horizontally'.
2306 Labels can be renamed globally from the table of contents using the
2309 The new command `reftex-goto-label' jumps directly to a label
2313 *** Changes related to citations and BibTeX database files
2315 Commands that insert a citation now prompt for optional arguments when
2316 called with a prefix argument. Related new options are
2317 `reftex-cite-prompt-optional-args' and `reftex-cite-cleanup-optional-args'.
2319 The new command `reftex-create-bibtex-file' creates a BibTeX database
2320 with all entries referenced in the current document. The keys "e" and
2321 "E" allow to produce a BibTeX database file from entries marked in a
2322 citation selection buffer.
2324 The command `reftex-citation' uses the word in the buffer before the
2325 cursor as a default search string.
2327 The support for chapterbib has been improved. Different chapters can
2328 now use BibTeX or an explicit `thebibliography' environment.
2330 The macros which specify the bibliography file (like \bibliography)
2331 can be configured with the new option `reftex-bibliography-commands'.
2333 Support for jurabib has been added.
2336 *** Global index matched may be verified with a user function
2338 During global indexing, a user function can verify an index match.
2339 See new option `reftex-index-verify-function'.
2342 *** Parsing documents with many labels can be sped up.
2344 Operating in a document with thousands of labels can be sped up
2345 considerably by allowing RefTeX to derive the type of a label directly
2346 from the label prefix like `eq:' or `fig:'. The option
2347 `reftex-trust-label-prefix' needs to be configured in order to enable
2348 this feature. While the speed-up is significant, this may reduce the
2349 quality of the context offered by RefTeX to describe a label.
2352 *** Miscellaneous changes
2354 The macros which input a file in LaTeX (like \input, \include) can be
2355 configured in the new option `reftex-include-file-commands'.
2357 RefTeX supports global incremental search.
2360 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
2361 to support use of font-lock.
2363 ** HTML/SGML changes:
2366 *** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
2370 *** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
2371 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
2372 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
2373 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
2374 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
2375 from the file name or buffer contents.
2378 *** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
2383 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
2386 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
2387 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
2388 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
2389 TeX commands to use at startup.
2392 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
2393 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
2396 *** New major mode Doctex mode, for *.dtx files.
2400 *** The new command `bibtex-url' browses a URL for the BibTeX entry at
2401 point (bound to C-c C-l and mouse-2, RET on clickable fields).
2403 *** The new command `bibtex-entry-update' (bound to C-c C-u) updates
2404 an existing BibTeX entry.
2406 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
2408 *** `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' can take values `plain',
2409 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
2410 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
2411 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
2412 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
2413 `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' is non-nil.
2415 *** If the new variable `bibtex-parse-keys-fast' is non-nil,
2416 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
2418 *** If the new variable `bibtex-autoadd-commas' is non-nil,
2419 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
2421 *** The new variable `bibtex-autofill-types' contains a list of entry
2422 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
2424 *** The new command `bibtex-complete' completes word fragment before
2425 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
2427 *** The new commands `bibtex-find-entry' and `bibtex-find-crossref'
2428 locate entries and crossref'd entries (bound to C-c C-s and C-c C-x).
2429 Crossref fields are clickable (bound to mouse-2, RET).
2431 *** In BibTeX mode the command `fill-paragraph' (M-q) fills
2432 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
2434 *** The new variables `bibtex-files' and `bibtex-file-path' define a set
2435 of BibTeX files that are searched for entry keys.
2437 *** The new command `bibtex-validate-globally' checks for duplicate keys
2438 in multiple BibTeX files.
2440 *** The new command `bibtex-copy-summary-as-kill' pushes summary
2441 of BibTeX entry to kill ring (bound to C-c C-t).
2444 ** In Enriched mode, `set-left-margin' and `set-right-margin' are now
2445 by default bound to `C-c [' and `C-c ]' instead of the former `C-c C-l'
2451 *** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
2452 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
2455 *** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
2456 and other common debugger commands.
2459 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
2460 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
2461 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
2462 state of your program. It can separate the input/output of your program from
2463 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
2464 Emacs 21/22 such as the toolbar, and bitmaps in the fringe to indicate
2467 Use M-x gdb to start GDB-UI.
2469 *** The variable tooltip-gud-tips-p has been removed. GUD tooltips can now be
2470 toggled independently of normal tooltips with the minor mode
2474 *** In graphical mode, with a C program, GUD Tooltips have been extended to
2475 display the #define directive associated with an identifier when program is
2479 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
2481 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
2482 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
2483 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
2484 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
2485 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
2487 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
2488 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
2489 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
2492 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
2495 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
2496 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
2497 Set `gud-jdb-use-classpath' to nil.
2499 Added Customization Variables
2501 *** `gud-jdb-command-name'. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
2503 *** `gud-jdb-use-classpath'. Allows selection of java source file searching
2504 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan `gud-jdb-directories' for
2505 java sources (previous method).
2507 *** `gud-jdb-directories'. List of directories to scan and search for java
2508 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
2513 *** The STARTTLS wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
2514 instead of the OpenSSL based `starttls' tool. For backwards
2515 compatibility, it prefers `starttls', but you can toggle
2516 `starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
2519 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
2521 ** Auto-Revert changes:
2524 *** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
2526 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
2527 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
2528 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it stays at
2529 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
2530 just put point at the end of the buffer and it stays there. This
2531 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior can
2534 If you are sure that the file will only change by growing at the end,
2535 then you can tail the file more efficiently by using the new minor
2536 mode Auto Revert Tail mode. The function `auto-revert-tail-mode'
2540 *** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
2541 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
2542 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
2543 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
2544 mode only reverts a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
2545 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
2546 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
2547 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
2548 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
2551 *** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
2552 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
2553 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
2554 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
2555 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
2560 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
2561 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
2564 The ten most recent files can be quickly opened by using the shortcut
2565 keys 1 to 9, and 0, when the recent list is displayed in a buffer via
2566 the `recentf-open-files', or `recentf-open-more-files' commands.
2568 The `recentf-keep' option replaces `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p'
2569 and provides a more general mechanism to customize which file names to
2570 keep in the recent list.
2572 With the more advanced option `recentf-filename-handlers', you can
2573 specify functions that successively transform recent file names. For
2574 example, if set to `file-truename' plus `abbreviate-file-name', the
2575 same file will not be in the recent list with different symbolic
2576 links, and the file name will be abbreviated.
2578 To follow naming convention, `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag'
2579 replaces the misnamed option `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The
2580 old name remains available as alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2586 *** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, `desktop-save-mode'.
2589 *** The variable `desktop-enable' is obsolete.
2591 Customize `desktop-save-mode' to enable desktop saving.
2594 *** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
2598 *** The desktop package can be customized to restore only some buffers
2599 immediately, remaining buffers are restored lazily (when Emacs is
2604 - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
2605 - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
2606 - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
2608 - desktop-lazy-complete runs the desktop load to completion.
2609 - desktop-lazy-abort aborts lazy loading of the desktop.
2612 *** New customizable variables:
2613 - desktop-save. Determins whether the desktop should be saved when it is
2615 - desktop-file-name-format. Format in which desktop file names should be saved.
2616 - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
2617 - desktop-locals-to-save. List of local variables to save.
2618 - desktop-globals-to-clear. List of global variables that `desktop-clear' will clear.
2619 - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp. Regexp identifying buffers that `desktop-clear'
2621 - desktop-restore-eager. Number of buffers to restore immediately. Remaining buffers are
2622 restored lazily (when Emacs is idle).
2623 - desktop-lazy-verbose. Verbose reporting of lazily created buffers.
2624 - desktop-lazy-idle-delay. Idle delay before starting to create buffers.
2627 *** New command line option --no-desktop
2631 - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
2632 - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
2635 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
2637 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
2638 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
2639 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
2640 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
2641 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
2647 *** When comparing directories.
2648 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
2649 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
2650 from one directory to another.
2653 *** When comparing files or buffers.
2654 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
2655 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
2656 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
2660 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
2661 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
2662 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
2667 *** New regular expressions features
2669 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
2671 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
2672 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
2673 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
2674 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
2675 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
2676 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
2677 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
2678 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
2679 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
2680 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
2682 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in GCC.
2684 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
2685 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
2688 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
2690 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
2691 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
2692 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
2694 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
2696 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
2697 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
2699 *** New language parsing features
2701 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
2703 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
2705 **** The GCC __attribute__ keyword is now recognized and ignored.
2707 **** New language HTML.
2709 Tags are generated for `title' as well as `h1', `h2', and `h3'. Also,
2710 when `name=' is used inside an anchor and whenever `id=' is used.
2712 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
2714 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
2715 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
2717 **** New language Lua.
2719 All functions are tagged.
2721 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
2723 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
2724 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
2727 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
2729 **** New language PHP.
2731 Functions, classes and defines are tags. If the --members option is
2732 specified to etags, variables are tags also.
2734 **** New default keywords for TeX.
2736 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
2739 *** Honour #line directives.
2741 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
2742 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
2743 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
2744 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
2745 writes tags pointing to the source file.
2747 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
2749 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
2750 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
2751 reads from standard input and marks the produced tags as belonging to
2757 *** The key C-x C-q only changes the read-only state of the buffer
2758 (toggle-read-only). It no longer checks files in or out.
2760 We made this change because we held a poll and found that many users
2761 were unhappy with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this
2762 behavior, you can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your
2765 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
2767 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
2770 *** The new variable `vc-cvs-global-switches' specifies switches that
2771 are passed to any CVS command invoked by VC.
2773 These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which means they
2774 are inserted before the command name. For example, this allows you to
2775 specify a compression level using the `-z#' option for CVS.
2778 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
2781 *** VC-Annotate mode enhancements
2783 In VC-Annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
2784 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
2785 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
2787 P: annotates the previous revision
2788 N: annotates the next revision
2789 J: annotates the revision at line
2790 A: annotates the revision previous to line
2791 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
2792 L: shows the log of the revision at line
2793 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
2798 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
2799 between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
2803 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
2804 anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
2805 `checkout', `update' or `commit'. That means using cvs diff options
2809 ** The new variable `mail-default-directory' specifies
2810 `default-directory' for mail buffers. This directory is used for
2811 auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to "~/".
2814 ** The mode line can indicate new mail in a directory or file.
2816 See the documentation of the user option
2817 `display-time-mail-directory'.
2822 *** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
2824 *** The new commands rmail-end-of-message and rmail-summary end-of-message,
2825 by default bound to `/', go to the end of the current mail message in
2826 Rmail and Rmail summary buffers.
2829 *** Support for `movemail' from GNU mailutils was added to Rmail.
2831 This version of `movemail' allows to read mail from a wide range of
2832 mailbox formats, including remote POP3 and IMAP4 mailboxes with or
2833 without TLS encryption. If GNU mailutils is installed on the system
2834 and its version of `movemail' can be found in exec-path, it will be
2835 used instead of the native one.
2840 *** Gnus now includes Sieve and PGG
2842 Sieve is a library for managing Sieve scripts. PGG is a library to handle
2846 *** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
2848 See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "Oort Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
2853 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.84. There have been major changes since
2854 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
2856 ** Calendar changes:
2859 *** You can now use < and >, instead of C-x < and C-x >, to scroll
2860 the calendar left or right. (The old key bindings still work too.)
2863 *** There is a new calendar package, icalendar.el, that can be used to
2864 convert Emacs diary entries to/from the iCalendar format.
2867 *** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
2868 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
2869 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
2870 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
2871 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
2872 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
2873 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
2874 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
2875 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
2878 *** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
2879 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
2880 count backward from the end of the year.
2883 *** The new Calendar function `calendar-goto-iso-week' (g w)
2884 prompts for a year and a week number, and moves to the first
2885 day of that ISO week.
2888 *** The new variable `calendar-minimum-window-height' affects the
2889 window generated by the function `generate-calendar-window'.
2892 *** The functions `holiday-easter-etc' and `holiday-advent' now take
2893 optional arguments, in order to only report on the specified holiday
2894 rather than all. This makes customization of variables such as
2895 `christian-holidays' simpler.
2898 *** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
2899 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
2900 and `diary-header-line-format'.
2903 *** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed:
2904 use the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
2905 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
2906 `appt-issue-message', `appt-visible', and `appt-msg-window'.
2909 *** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
2910 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
2911 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
2912 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
2916 ** Speedbar changes:
2918 *** Speedbar items can now be selected by clicking mouse-1, based on
2919 the `mouse-1-click-follows-link' mechanism.
2921 *** SPC and DEL are no longer bound to scroll up/down in the speedbar
2924 *** The new command `speedbar-toggle-line-expansion', bound to SPC,
2925 contracts or expands the line under the cursor.
2927 *** New command `speedbar-create-directory', bound to `M'.
2929 *** The new commands `speedbar-expand-line-descendants' and
2930 `speedbar-contract-line-descendants', bound to `[' and `]'
2931 respectively, expand and contract the line under cursor with all of
2934 *** The new user option `speedbar-query-confirmation-method' controls
2935 how querying is performed for file operations. A value of 'always
2936 means to always query before file operations; 'none-but-delete means
2937 to not query before any file operations, except before a file
2940 *** The new user option `speedbar-select-frame-method' specifies how
2941 to select a frame for displaying a file opened with the speedbar. A
2942 value of 'attached means to use the attached frame (the frame that
2943 speedbar was started from.) A number such as 1 or -1 means to pass
2944 that number to `other-frame'.
2946 *** The new user option `speedbar-use-tool-tips-flag', if non-nil,
2947 means to display tool-tips for speedbar items.
2949 *** The frame management code in speedbar.el has been split into a new
2950 `dframe' library. Emacs Lisp code that makes use of the speedbar
2951 should use `dframe-attached-frame' instead of
2952 `speedbar-attached-frame', `dframe-timer' instead of `speedbar-timer',
2953 `dframe-close-frame' instead of `speedbar-close-frame', and
2954 `dframe-activity-change-focus-flag' instead of
2955 `speedbar-activity-change-focus-flag'. The variables
2956 `speedbar-update-speed' and `speedbar-navigating-speed' are also
2957 obsolete; use `dframe-update-speed' instead.
2962 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
2963 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
2964 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
2965 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
2966 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
2968 The following values are supported:
2970 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
2984 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
2987 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
2988 your `.emacs' will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
2989 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
2991 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
2993 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
2994 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
2995 all identifiers ending in `_t' under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
2996 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
2998 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
2999 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
3001 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i.
3003 Most SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
3004 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
3006 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
3008 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
3009 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
3010 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
3011 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
3014 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
3015 called with the `-E' command line argument to use the operating system
3016 credentials to authenticate the user.
3018 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
3019 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
3020 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
3022 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
3023 Keyword higlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
3025 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
3026 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
3029 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
3030 appropriate `sql-interactive-mode' wrapper for the current setting of
3034 *** sql.el supports the SQLite interpreter--call 'sql-sqlite'.
3039 *** New ffap commands and keybindings:
3041 C-x C-r (`ffap-read-only'),
3042 C-x C-v (`ffap-alternate-file'), C-x C-d (`ffap-list-directory'),
3043 C-x 4 r (`ffap-read-only-other-window'), C-x 4 d (`ffap-dired-other-window'),
3044 C-x 5 r (`ffap-read-only-other-frame'), C-x 5 d (`ffap-dired-other-frame').
3047 *** FFAP accepts wildcards in a file name by default.
3049 C-x C-f passes the file name to `find-file' with non-nil WILDCARDS
3050 argument, which visits multiple files, and C-x d passes it to `dired'.
3053 ** In skeleton.el, `-' marks the `skeleton-point' without interregion interaction.
3055 `@' has reverted to only setting `skeleton-positions' and no longer
3056 sets `skeleton-point'. Skeletons which used @ to mark
3057 `skeleton-point' independent of `_' should now use `-' instead. The
3058 updated `skeleton-insert' docstring explains these new features along
3059 with other details of skeleton construction.
3062 ** Hideshow mode changes
3064 *** New variable `hs-set-up-overlay' allows customization of the overlay
3065 used to effect hiding for hideshow minor mode. Integration with isearch
3066 handles the overlay property `display' specially, preserving it during
3067 temporary overlay showing in the course of an isearch operation.
3069 *** New variable `hs-allow-nesting' non-nil means that hiding a block does
3070 not discard the hidden state of any "internal" blocks; when the parent
3071 block is later shown, the internal blocks remain hidden. Default is nil.
3074 ** `hide-ifdef-mode' now uses overlays rather than selective-display
3075 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
3076 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
3079 ** `partial-completion-mode' now handles partial completion on directory names.
3082 ** The type-break package now allows `type-break-file-name' to be nil
3083 and if so, doesn't store any data across sessions. This is handy if
3084 you don't want the `.type-break' file in your home directory or are
3085 annoyed by the need for interaction when you kill Emacs.
3088 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
3090 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
3091 `ps-print', provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF
3092 fonts. See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
3095 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
3096 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
3097 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
3098 using strokes as an input method.
3100 ** Emacs server changes:
3103 *** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
3105 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
3106 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
3107 % emacsclient -s foo file1
3108 % emacsclient -s bar file2
3111 *** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
3112 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given Lisp
3113 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
3116 *** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
3119 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
3122 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
3124 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
3125 argument it toggles the mode. Turning off PC-Selection mode restores
3126 the global key bindings that were replaced by turning on the mode.
3129 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
3130 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
3133 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
3135 Emacs still works on terminals that require magic cookies in order to
3136 use standout mode, but they can no longer display mode-lines in
3140 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
3142 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
3143 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
3144 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
3146 ** battery.el changes:
3149 *** display-battery-mode replaces display-battery.
3152 *** battery.el now works on recent versions of OS X.
3155 ** calculator.el now has radix grouping mode.
3157 To enable this, set `calculator-output-radix' non-nil. In this mode a
3158 separator character is used every few digits, making it easier to see
3159 byte boundries etc. For more info, see the documentation of the
3160 variable `calculator-radix-grouping-mode'.
3163 ** fast-lock.el and lazy-lock.el are obsolete. Use jit-lock.el instead.
3166 ** iso-acc.el is now obsolete. Use one of the latin input methods instead.
3169 ** cplus-md.el has been deleted.
3171 * Changes in Emacs 22.1 on non-free operating systems
3174 ** The HOME directory defaults to Application Data under the user profile.
3176 If you used a previous version of Emacs without setting the HOME
3177 environment variable and a `.emacs' was saved, then Emacs will continue
3178 using C:/ as the default HOME. But if you are installing Emacs afresh,
3179 the default location will be the "Application Data" (or similar
3180 localized name) subdirectory of your user profile. A typical location
3181 of this directory is "C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data",
3182 where USERNAME is your user name.
3184 This change means that users can now have their own `.emacs' files on
3185 shared computers, and the default HOME directory is less likely to be
3186 read-only on computers that are administered by someone else.
3189 ** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
3191 You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
3192 existing values. For example:
3194 emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
3196 will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
3197 irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
3200 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
3202 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
3203 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
3206 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
3208 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
3211 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
3213 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
3214 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
3215 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
3216 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
3217 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
3218 against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
3221 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
3223 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
3224 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
3225 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
3226 sound support for those formats.
3229 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
3231 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
3234 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
3236 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
3237 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
3238 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
3241 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
3243 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in much
3244 the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now adds these
3245 colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu for the
3246 default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground), and uses
3247 some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
3248 `list-colors-display' shows the list of System color names, in case
3249 you wish to use them in other faces.
3252 ** On MS Windows NT/W2K/XP, Emacs uses Unicode for clipboard operations.
3254 Those systems use Unicode internally, so this allows Emacs to share
3255 multilingual text with other applications. On other versions of
3256 MS Windows, Emacs now uses the appropriate locale coding-system, so
3257 the clipboard should work correctly for your local language without
3261 ** Running in a console window in Windows now uses the console size.
3263 Previous versions of Emacs erred on the side of having a usable Emacs
3264 through telnet, even though that was inconvenient if you use Emacs in
3265 a local console window with a scrollback buffer. The default value of
3266 w32-use-full-screen-buffer is now nil, which favours local console
3267 windows. Recent versions of Windows telnet also work well with this
3268 setting. If you are using an older telnet server then Emacs detects
3269 that the console window dimensions that are reported are not sane, and
3270 defaults to 80x25. If you use such a telnet server regularly at a size
3271 other than 80x25, you can still manually set
3272 w32-use-full-screen-buffer to t.
3275 ** On Mac OS, `keyboard-coding-system' changes based on the keyboard script.
3278 ** The variable `mac-keyboard-text-encoding' and the constants
3279 `kTextEncodingMacRoman', `kTextEncodingISOLatin1', and
3280 `kTextEncodingISOLatin2' are obsolete.
3282 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3285 ** The variables post-command-idle-hook and post-command-idle-delay have
3286 been removed. Use run-with-idle-timer instead.
3289 ** `suppress-keymap' now works by remapping `self-insert-command' to
3290 the command `undefined'. (In earlier Emacs versions, it used
3291 `substitute-key-definition' to rebind self inserting characters to
3295 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
3296 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
3297 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
3300 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
3302 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3304 ** General Lisp changes:
3306 *** The function `expt' handles negative exponents differently.
3307 The value for `(expt A B)', if both A and B are integers and B is
3308 negative, is now a float. For example: (expt 2 -2) => 0.25.
3311 *** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
3314 *** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
3317 *** `add-to-list' takes an optional third argument, APPEND.
3319 If APPEND is non-nil, the new element gets added at the end of the
3320 list instead of at the beginning. This change actually occurred in
3321 Emacs 21.1, but was not documented then.
3324 *** New function `add-to-ordered-list' is like `add-to-list' but
3325 associates a numeric ordering of each element added to the list.
3328 *** New function `copy-tree' makes a copy of a tree.
3330 It recursively copyies through both CARs and CDRs.
3333 *** New function `delete-dups' deletes `equal' duplicate elements from a list.
3335 It modifies the list destructively, like `delete'. Of several `equal'
3336 occurrences of an element in the list, the one that's kept is the
3340 *** New function `rassq-delete-all'.
3342 (rassq-delete-all VALUE ALIST) deletes, from ALIST, each element whose
3343 CDR is `eq' to the specified value.
3346 *** The function `number-sequence' makes a list of equally-separated numbers.
3348 For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9). By
3349 default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different
3350 separation as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns
3354 *** New variables `most-positive-fixnum' and `most-negative-fixnum'.
3356 They hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3359 *** Minor change in the function `format'.
3361 Some flags that were accepted but not implemented (such as "*") are no
3365 *** Functions `get' and `plist-get' no longer give errors for bad plists.
3367 They return nil for a malformed property list or if the list is
3371 *** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
3373 They are like `plist-get' and `plist-put', except that they compare
3374 the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
3377 *** New variable `print-continuous-numbering'.
3379 When this is non-nil, successive calls to print functions use a single
3380 numbering scheme for circular structure references. This is only
3381 relevant when `print-circle' is non-nil.
3383 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
3384 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
3387 *** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
3389 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
3390 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
3391 if no expansion is done, which can be tested using `eq'.
3394 *** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
3396 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
3397 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
3398 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
3401 *** A function or macro's doc string can now specify the calling pattern.
3403 You put this info in the doc string's last line. It should be
3404 formatted so as to match the regexp "\n\n(fn .*)\\'". If you don't
3405 specify this explicitly, Emacs determines it from the actual argument
3406 names. Usually that default is right, but not always.
3409 *** New macro `with-local-quit' temporarily allows quitting.
3411 A quit inside the body of `with-local-quit' is caught by the
3412 `with-local-quit' form itself, but another quit will happen later once
3413 the code that has inhibitted quitting exits.
3415 This is for use around potentially blocking or long-running code
3416 inside timer functions and `post-command-hook' functions.
3419 *** New macro `define-obsolete-function-alias'.
3421 This combines `defalias' and `make-obsolete'.
3424 *** New function `unsafep' determines whether a Lisp form is safe.
3426 It returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly do anything
3427 dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be unsafe
3428 (calls unknown function, alters global variable, etc).
3430 *** `list-faces-display' takes an optional argument, REGEXP.
3432 If it is non-nil, the function lists only faces matching this regexp.
3434 ** Lisp code indentation features:
3437 *** The `defmacro' form can contain indentation and edebug declarations.
3439 These declarations specify how to indent the macro calls in Lisp mode
3440 and how to debug them with Edebug. You write them like this:
3442 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
3444 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
3445 possible declaration specifiers are:
3448 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
3451 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
3452 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro,
3453 but this is cleaner.)
3456 *** cl-indent now allows customization of Indentation of backquoted forms.
3458 See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
3461 *** cl-indent now handles indentation of simple and extended `loop' forms.
3463 The new user options `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation',
3464 `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can
3465 be used to customize the indentation of keywords and forms in loop
3469 ** Variable aliases:
3471 *** New function: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3473 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3474 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3475 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3476 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3478 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3479 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3481 *** New function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
3483 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3484 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3485 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3487 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3488 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3491 *** The macro `define-obsolete-variable-alias' combines `defvaralias' and
3492 `make-obsolete-variable'.
3494 ** defcustom changes:
3497 *** The new customization type `float' requires a floating point number.
3502 *** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character.
3504 Exception: In a character constant, if it is followed by a `-' in a
3505 character constant (e.g. ?\s-A), it is still interpreted as the super
3506 modifier. In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
3509 *** A hex escape in a string constant forces the string to be multibyte.
3512 *** An octal escape in a string constant forces the string to be unibyte.
3515 *** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
3516 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
3517 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
3518 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
3519 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
3522 *** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
3523 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
3526 *** New function `substring-no-properties' returns a substring without
3530 *** The new function `assoc-string' replaces `assoc-ignore-case' and
3531 `assoc-ignore-representation', which are still available, but have
3532 been declared obsolete.
3535 ** Displaying warnings to the user.
3537 See the functions `warn' and `display-warning', or the Lisp Manual.
3538 If you want to be sure the warning will not be overlooked, this
3539 facility is much better than using `message', since it displays
3540 warnings in a separate window.
3543 ** Progress reporters.
3545 These provide a simple and uniform way for commands to present
3546 progress messages for the user.
3548 See the new functions `make-progress-reporter',
3549 `progress-reporter-update', `progress-reporter-force-update',
3550 `progress-reporter-done', and `dotimes-with-progress-reporter'.
3552 ** Buffer positions:
3555 *** Function `compute-motion' now calculates the usable window
3556 width if the WIDTH argument is nil. If the TOPOS argument is nil,
3557 the usable window height and width is used.
3560 *** The `line-move', `scroll-up', and `scroll-down' functions will now
3561 modify the window vscroll to scroll through display rows that are
3562 taller that the height of the window, for example in the presence of
3563 large images. To disable this feature, bind the new variable
3564 `auto-window-vscroll' to nil.
3567 *** The argument to `forward-word', `backward-word' is optional.
3572 *** Argument to `forward-to-indentation' and `backward-to-indentation' is optional.
3577 *** New function `mouse-on-link-p' test if a position is in a clickable link.
3579 This is the function used by the new `mouse-1-click-follows-link'
3583 *** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns the line number of a position.
3585 It an optional buffer position argument that defaults to point.
3588 *** `field-beginning' and `field-end' take new optional argument, LIMIT.
3590 This argument tells them not to search beyond LIMIT. Instead they
3591 give up and return LIMIT.
3594 *** Function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now returns the pixel coordinates
3595 and partial visiblity state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
3599 *** New functions `posn-at-point' and `posn-at-x-y' return
3600 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
3601 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
3603 ** Text modification:
3606 *** The new function `insert-for-yank' normally works like `insert', but
3607 removes the text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list
3608 and handles the `yank-handler' text property.
3611 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-as-yank' is like
3612 `insert-for-yank' except that it gets the text from another buffer as
3613 in `insert-buffer-substring'.
3616 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-no-properties' is like
3617 `insert-buffer-substring', but removes all text properties from the
3621 *** The new function `filter-buffer-substring' extracts a buffer
3622 substring, passes it through a set of filter functions, and returns
3623 the filtered substring. Use it instead of `buffer-substring' or
3624 `delete-and-extract-region' when copying text into a user-accessible
3625 data structure, such as the kill-ring, X clipboard, or a register.
3627 The list of filter function is specified by the new variable
3628 `buffer-substring-filters'. For example, Longlines mode adds to
3629 `buffer-substring-filters' to remove soft newlines from the copied
3633 *** Function `translate-region' accepts also a char-table as TABLE
3637 *** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
3638 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
3639 be inserted is translated through it.
3644 The new function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
3645 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
3649 *** The function `insert-string' is now obsolete.
3654 *** In determining an adaptive fill prefix, Emacs now tries the function in
3655 `adaptive-fill-function' _before_ matching the buffer line against
3656 `adaptive-fill-regexp' rather than _after_ it.
3659 ** Atomic change groups.
3661 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
3662 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
3663 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
3665 (atomic-change-group
3667 (delete-region x y))
3669 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
3670 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
3671 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
3672 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
3674 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
3675 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
3677 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
3678 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
3679 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
3680 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
3682 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
3683 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
3686 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
3687 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
3688 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
3689 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
3691 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
3692 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
3693 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
3694 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
3695 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
3696 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
3699 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
3700 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
3701 returned values, like this:
3703 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
3704 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
3706 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
3707 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
3708 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
3710 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
3711 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
3712 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
3713 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
3716 ** Buffer-related changes:
3719 *** `list-buffers-noselect' now takes an additional argument, BUFFER-LIST.
3721 If it is non-nil, it specifies which buffers to list.
3724 *** `kill-buffer-hook' is now a permanent local.
3727 *** The new function `buffer-local-value' returns the buffer-local
3728 binding of VARIABLE (a symbol) in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not
3729 have a buffer-local binding in buffer BUFFER, it returns the default
3730 value of VARIABLE instead.
3732 *** The function `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' now lets you maintain
3733 various status records in parallel.
3735 It take a variable (a symbol) as argument. If the variable is non-nil,
3736 then its value should be a vector installed previously by
3737 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p'. If the frame names, buffer names, buffer
3738 order, or their read-only or modified flags have changed, since the
3739 time the vector's contents were recorded by a previous call to
3740 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', then the function returns t. Otherwise
3743 On the first call to `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', the variable's
3744 value should be nil. `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' stores a suitable
3745 vector into the variable and returns t.
3747 If the variable is itself nil, then `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' uses,
3748 for compatibility, an internal variable which exists only for this
3752 *** The function `read-buffer' follows the convention for reading from
3753 the minibuffer with a default value: if DEF is non-nil, the minibuffer
3754 prompt provided in PROMPT is edited to show the default value provided
3755 in DEF before the terminal colon and space.
3757 ** Local variables lists:
3760 *** Text properties in local variables.
3762 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
3763 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
3766 *** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
3767 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
3768 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
3769 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
3773 *** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
3774 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
3775 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
3776 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
3777 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
3778 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
3780 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
3781 confirmation as before.
3783 ** Searching and matching changes:
3786 *** New function `looking-back' checks whether a regular expression matches
3787 the text before point. Specifying the LIMIT argument bounds how far
3788 back the match can start; this is a way to keep it from taking too long.
3791 *** The new variable `search-spaces-regexp' controls how to search
3792 for spaces in a regular expression. If it is non-nil, it should be a
3793 regular expression, and any series of spaces stands for that regular
3794 expression. If it is nil, spaces stand for themselves.
3796 Spaces inside of constructs such as `[..]' and inside loops such as
3797 `*', `+', and `?' are never replaced with `search-spaces-regexp'.
3800 *** New regular expression operators, `\_<' and `\_>'.
3802 These match the beginning and end of a symbol. A symbol is a
3803 non-empty sequence of either word or symbol constituent characters, as
3804 specified by the syntax table.
3807 *** rx.el has new corresponding `symbol-end' and `symbol-start' elements.
3810 *** `skip-chars-forward' and `skip-chars-backward' now handle
3811 character classes such as `[:alpha:]', along with individual
3812 characters and ranges.
3815 *** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
3816 properties from surrounding text.
3819 *** The list returned by `(match-data t)' now has the buffer as a final
3820 element, if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data'
3821 accepts such a list for restoring the match state.
3824 *** Functions `match-data' and `set-match-data' now have an optional
3825 argument `reseat'. When non-nil, all markers in the match data list
3826 passed to these function will be reseated to point to nowhere.
3829 *** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
3830 variable `sentence-end-without-space', which contains such characters
3831 that end a sentence without following spaces.
3833 The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of the
3834 variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil, then
3835 this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
3836 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
3837 `sentence-end-without-space'.
3842 *** `buffer-undo-list' can allows programmable elements.
3844 These elements have the form (apply FUNNAME . ARGS), where FUNNAME is
3845 a symbol other than t or nil. That stands for a high-level change
3846 that should be undone by evaluating (apply FUNNAME ARGS).
3848 These entries can also have the form (apply DELTA BEG END FUNNAME . ARGS)
3849 which indicates that the change which took place was limited to the
3850 range BEG...END and increased the buffer size by DELTA.
3853 *** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
3854 `undo-outer-limit', garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
3855 it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
3858 ** New `yank-handler' text property can be used to control how
3859 previously killed text on the kill ring is reinserted.
3861 The value of the `yank-handler' property must be a list with one to four
3862 elements with the following format:
3863 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
3865 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
3866 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
3867 element on the kill-ring). If a `yank-handler' property is found,
3868 the normal behavior of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
3870 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
3871 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
3872 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
3873 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
3874 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
3876 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
3877 `yank-excluded-properties' is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
3878 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
3879 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
3880 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
3881 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
3882 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
3883 FUNCTION can set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
3885 *** The functions `kill-new', `kill-append', and `kill-region' now have an
3886 optional argument to specify the `yank-handler' text property to put on
3889 *** The function `yank-pop' will now use a non-nil value of the variable
3890 `yank-undo-function' (instead of `delete-region') to undo the previous
3891 `yank' or `yank-pop' command (or a call to `insert-for-yank'). The function
3892 `insert-for-yank' automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
3893 element of the string argument's `yank-handler' text property if present.
3895 *** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
3896 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
3897 string. The old behavior is available if you call
3898 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
3900 ** Syntax table changes:
3903 *** The macro `with-syntax-table' no longer copies the syntax table.
3906 *** The new function `syntax-after' returns the syntax code
3907 of the character after a specified buffer position, taking account
3908 of text properties as well as the character code.
3911 *** `syntax-class' extracts the class of a syntax code (as returned
3915 *** The new function `syntax-ppss' rovides an efficient way to find the
3916 current syntactic context at point.
3918 ** File operation changes:
3921 *** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
3922 searching for an executable or an Emacs Lisp file.
3925 *** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
3926 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
3930 *** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
3931 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
3932 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
3933 The value in that case is an identifier for the remote file system.
3936 *** `buffer-auto-save-file-format' is the new name for what was
3937 formerly called `auto-save-file-format'. It is now a permanent local.
3940 *** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
3941 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
3942 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
3945 *** `copy-file' now takes an additional option arg MUSTBENEW.
3947 This argument works like the MUSTBENEW argument of write-file.
3950 *** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
3951 a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
3954 *** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
3955 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
3956 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
3957 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
3960 *** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
3961 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
3962 tasks, for example; it can be used by the copyright package to make
3963 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
3966 *** If `buffer-save-without-query' is non-nil in some buffer,
3967 `save-some-buffers' will always save that buffer without asking (if
3971 *** New function `locate-file' searches for a file in a list of directories.
3972 `locate-file' accepts a name of a file to search (a string), and two
3973 lists: a list of directories to search in and a list of suffixes to
3974 try; typical usage might use `exec-path' and `load-path' for the list
3975 of directories, and `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' for the list
3976 of suffixes. The function also accepts a predicate argument to
3977 further filter candidate files.
3979 One advantage of using this function is that the list of suffixes in
3980 `exec-suffixes' is OS-dependant, so this function will find
3981 executables without polluting Lisp code with OS dependancies.
3984 *** The precedence of file name handlers has been changed.
3986 Instead of choosing the first handler that matches,
3987 `find-file-name-handler' now gives precedence to a file name handler
3988 that matches nearest the end of the file name. More precisely, the
3989 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen. In case
3990 of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
3993 *** A file name handler can declare which operations it handles.
3995 You do this by putting an `operation' property on the handler name
3996 symbol. The property value should be a list of the operations that
3997 the handler really handles. It won't be called for any other
4000 This is useful for autoloaded handlers, to prevent them from being
4001 autoloaded when not really necessary.
4004 *** The function `make-auto-save-file-name' is now handled by file
4005 name handlers. This will be exploited for remote files mainly.
4010 *** An interactive specification can now use the code letter 'U' to get
4011 the up-event that was discarded in case the last key sequence read for a
4012 previous `k' or `K' argument was a down-event; otherwise nil is used.
4015 *** The new interactive-specification `G' reads a file name
4016 much like `F', but if the input is a directory name (even defaulted),
4017 it returns just the directory name.
4020 *** Functions `y-or-n-p', `read-char', `read-key-sequence' and the like, that
4021 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
4022 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
4025 *** (while-no-input BODY...) runs BODY, but only so long as no input
4026 arrives. If the user types or clicks anything, BODY stops as if a
4027 quit had occurred. `while-no-input' returns the value of BODY, if BODY
4028 finishes. It returns nil if BODY was aborted by a quit, and t if
4029 BODY was aborted by arrival of input.
4031 ** Minibuffer changes:
4034 *** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional
4035 buffer argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted, it
4036 defaults to the current buffer.
4039 *** New function `minibuffer-selected-window' returns the window which
4040 was selected when entering the minibuffer.
4043 *** `read-from-minibuffer' now accepts an additional argument KEEP-ALL
4044 saying to put all inputs in the history list, even empty ones.
4047 *** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
4048 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
4049 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
4050 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
4051 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
4054 *** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by Lisp code
4055 to override the built-in `read-file-name' function.
4058 *** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
4059 whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
4060 `read-file-name' function.
4063 *** The new function `read-directory-name' for reading a directory name.
4065 It is like `read-file-name' except that the defaulting works better
4066 for directories, and completion inside it shows only directories.
4068 ** Completion changes:
4071 *** The functions `all-completions' and `try-completion' now accept lists
4072 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
4073 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
4074 exported to Lisp. The keys in alists and hash tables can be either
4075 strings or symbols, which are automatically converted with to strings.
4078 *** The new macro `dynamic-completion-table' supports using functions
4079 as a dynamic completion table.
4081 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
4083 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
4084 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
4085 completions. This alist can be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
4086 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
4087 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
4088 entered. `dynamic-completion-table' then computes the completion.
4091 *** The new macro `lazy-completion-table' initializes a variable
4092 as a lazy completion table.
4094 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
4096 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
4097 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
4098 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
4099 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
4100 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
4101 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
4104 ** Enhancements to keymaps.
4106 *** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
4108 You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
4109 same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
4112 (kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
4114 *** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
4116 This is an alternative to using `defadvice' or `substitute-key-definition'
4117 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
4118 binding and lookup functionality.
4120 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
4121 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
4125 Suppose that minor mode `my-mode' has defined the commands
4126 `my-kill-line' and `my-kill-word', and it wants C-k (and any other key
4127 bound to `kill-line') to run the command `my-kill-line' instead of
4128 `kill-line', and likewise it wants to run `my-kill-word' instead of
4131 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
4132 command remapping allows you to directly map `kill-line' into
4133 `my-kill-line' and `kill-word' into `my-kill-word' using `define-key':
4135 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
4136 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
4138 When `my-mode' is enabled, its minor mode keymap is enabled too. So
4139 when the user types C-k, that runs the command `my-kill-line'.
4141 Only one level of remapping is supported. In the above example, this
4142 means that if `my-kill-line' is remapped to `other-kill', then C-k still
4143 runs `my-kill-line'.
4145 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
4147 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4148 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
4149 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
4150 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
4152 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
4153 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
4155 - `key-binding' now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
4156 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
4158 - `where-is-internal' now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
4159 `kill-line', when `my-mode' is enabled), and the actual key binding for
4160 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
4161 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
4162 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns "C-k" for `kill-line', and
4163 "<kill-line>" for `my-kill-line').
4165 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
4166 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
4167 command was not remapped.
4169 *** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
4170 over minor mode keymaps.
4172 *** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
4173 text properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
4174 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
4176 *** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
4178 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
4179 bindings of the parent keymap.
4181 *** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
4183 *** New function `current-active-maps' returns a list of currently
4186 *** New function `describe-buffer-bindings' inserts the list of all
4187 defined keys and their definitions.
4189 *** New function `keymap-prompt' returns the prompt string of a keymap.
4191 *** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
4194 *** New variable `emulation-mode-map-alists'.
4196 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
4197 keymap alist separate from `minor-mode-map-alist' by adding their
4198 keymap alist to this list.
4203 *** The new function `copy-abbrev-table' copies an abbrev table.
4205 It returns a new abbrev table that is a copy of a given abbrev table.
4208 *** `define-abbrev' now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG.
4210 If non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means
4211 that it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the
4212 abbrevs. Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always
4216 ** Enhancements to process support
4218 *** Function `list-processes' now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
4219 it lists only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set.
4221 *** New fns `set-process-query-on-exit-flag' and `process-query-on-exit-flag'.
4223 These replace the old function `process-kill-without-query'. That
4224 function is still supported, but new code should use the new
4227 *** Function `signal-process' now accepts a process object or process
4228 name in addition to a process id to identify the signaled process.
4230 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
4231 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
4233 Use the new functions `process-get' and `process-put' to access, add,
4234 and modify elements on this property list. Use the new functions
4235 `process-plist' and `set-process-plist' to access and replace the
4236 entire property list of a process.
4238 *** Function `accept-process-output' has a new optional fourth arg
4239 JUST-THIS-ONE. If non-nil, only output from the specified process
4240 is handled, suspending output from other processes. If value is an
4241 integer, also inhibit running timers. This feature is generally not
4242 recommended, but may be necessary for specific applications, such as
4245 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
4247 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
4248 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
4249 very poor performance. This behavior can be remedied to some extent
4250 by setting the new variable `process-adaptive-read-buffering' to a
4251 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
4252 from such processes, to allowing them to produce more output before
4253 emacs tries to read it.
4255 *** The new function `call-process-shell-command'.
4257 This executes a shell command synchronously in a separate process.
4259 *** The new function `process-file' is similar to `call-process', but
4260 obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
4261 `default-directory'.
4263 *** A process filter function gets the output as multibyte string
4264 if the process specifies t for its filter's multibyteness.
4266 That multibyteness is decided by the value of
4267 `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is created, and
4268 you can change it later with `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
4270 *** The new function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the
4271 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4273 *** The new function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns the
4274 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4276 *** If a process's coding system is `raw-text' or `no-conversion' and its
4277 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
4278 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
4279 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
4280 which was not compatible with the behavior of file reading.
4283 ** Enhanced networking support.
4285 *** The new `make-network-process' function makes network connections.
4286 It allows opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
4287 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
4289 - A server is started using :server t arg.
4290 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
4291 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
4292 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
4293 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
4294 - The process' property list can be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
4295 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
4296 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
4298 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
4299 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
4301 *** The old `open-network-stream' now uses `make-network-process'.
4303 *** New functions `process-datagram-address', `set-process-datagram-address'.
4305 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
4306 and set the current address of the remote partner.
4308 *** New function `format-network-address'.
4310 This function reformats the Lisp representation of a network address
4311 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
4312 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
4313 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
4314 string for other formatting options.
4316 *** `process-contact' has an optional KEY argument.
4318 Depending on this argument, you can get the complete list of network
4319 process properties or a specific property. Using :local or :remote as
4320 the KEY, you get the address of the local or remote end-point.
4322 An Inet address is represented as a 5 element vector, where the first
4323 4 elements contain the IP address and the fifth is the port number.
4325 *** New functions `stop-process' and `continue-process'.
4327 These functions stop and restart communication through a network
4328 connection. For a server process, no connections are accepted in the
4329 stopped state. For a client process, no input is received in the
4332 *** New function `network-interface-list'.
4334 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
4335 current network addresses.
4337 *** New function `network-interface-info'.
4339 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
4340 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
4342 *** Deleting a network process with `delete-process' calls the sentinel.
4344 The status message passed to the sentinel for a deleted network
4345 process is "deleted". The message passed to the sentinel when the
4346 connection is closed by the remote peer has been changed to
4347 "connection broken by remote peer".
4349 ** Using window objects:
4352 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4354 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line or the
4358 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4360 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line
4364 *** You can now make a window as short as one line.
4366 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
4367 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
4368 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
4369 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
4370 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
4373 *** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
4374 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
4375 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
4379 *** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
4380 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
4383 *** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
4384 selected window without impacting the order of `buffer-list'.
4385 It saves and restores the current buffer, too.
4388 *** `select-window' takes an optional second argument NORECORD.
4390 This is like `switch-to-buffer'.
4393 *** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
4394 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
4395 by calling `select-window'. It also saves and restores the current
4399 *** `set-window-buffer' has an optional argument KEEP-MARGINS.
4401 If non-nil, that says to preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
4402 and scroll-bar settings.
4405 *** The new function `window-split-tree' returns a frame's window split tree.
4408 ** Customizable fringe bitmaps
4410 *** New function `define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to create new
4411 fringe bitmaps, as well as change the built-in fringe bitmaps.
4413 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and use the symbol
4414 identifing the bitmap such as `left-truncation or `continued-line'.
4416 *** New function `destroy-fringe-bitmap' deletes a fringe bitmap
4417 or restores a built-in one to its default value.
4419 *** New function `set-fringe-bitmap-face' specifies the face to be
4420 used for a specific fringe bitmap. The face is automatically merged
4421 with the `fringe' face, so normally, the face should only specify the
4422 foreground color of the bitmap.
4424 *** There are new display properties, `left-fringe' and `right-fringe',
4425 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
4426 bitmap of the display line.
4428 Format is `display (left-fringe BITMAP [FACE])', where BITMAP is a
4429 symbol identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or defined with
4430 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
4431 for displaying the bitmap instead of the default `fringe' face.
4432 When specified, FACE is automatically merged with the `fringe' face.
4434 *** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns the current fringe
4435 bitmaps in the display line at a given buffer position.
4437 ** Other window fringe features:
4440 *** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
4442 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
4443 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
4444 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
4445 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
4447 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
4448 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
4449 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
4450 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
4451 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
4452 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
4454 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
4455 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
4456 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
4457 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
4460 *** Per-window fringe and scrollbar settings
4462 **** Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and
4465 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
4466 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
4467 `set-window-fringes'.
4469 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
4470 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
4471 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
4472 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
4474 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
4475 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
4476 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
4477 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
4478 an update of the display margins.
4480 **** Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
4481 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
4483 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
4484 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
4485 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
4486 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
4487 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4488 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4489 of the display margins.
4491 ** Redisplay features:
4494 *** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
4497 *** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
4498 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
4499 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
4500 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
4501 forcing an explicit window update.
4504 *** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
4505 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
4506 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
4508 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
4509 does that, this value cannot be accurate.
4512 *** You can define multiple overlay arrows via the new
4513 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'.
4515 It contains a list of varibles which contain overlay arrow position
4516 markers, including the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
4518 Each variable on this list can have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
4519 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
4520 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
4521 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
4522 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
4523 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
4526 *** New `line-height' and `line-spacing' properties for newline characters
4528 A newline can now have `line-height' and `line-spacing' text or overlay
4529 properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
4531 If the `line-height' property value is t, the newline does not
4532 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
4533 newline glyph is reduced. Also, a `line-spacing' property on this
4534 newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
4535 slices without adding blank areas between the images.
4537 If the `line-height' property value is a positive integer, the value
4538 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
4539 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
4541 If the `line-height' property value is a float, the minimum line
4542 height is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by
4545 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (FACE . RATIO), the
4546 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
4547 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
4549 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (nil . RATIO), the line
4550 height is calculated as RATIO * actual height of the line's contents.
4552 If the `line-height' value is a cons (HEIGHT . TOTAL), HEIGHT specifies
4553 the line height as described above, while TOTAL is any of the forms
4554 described above and specifies the total height of the line, causing a
4555 varying number of pixels to be inserted after the line to make it line
4556 exactly that many pixels high.
4558 If the `line-spacing' property value is an positive integer, the value
4559 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
4560 overrides the default frame `line-spacing' and any buffer local value of
4561 the `line-spacing' variable.
4563 If the `line-spacing' property is a float or cons, the line spacing
4564 is calculated as specified above for the `line-height' property.
4567 *** The buffer local `line-spacing' variable can now have a float value,
4568 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
4571 *** Enhancements to stretch display properties
4573 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
4574 PROPS is a property list now allows pixel based width and height
4575 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
4577 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
4578 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
4581 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
4582 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
4583 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
4584 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
4586 POS ::= left | center | right
4587 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
4590 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
4591 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
4592 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
4593 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
4594 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
4595 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
4596 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
4599 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
4600 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
4601 corresponding area of the window.
4603 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
4604 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
4605 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
4606 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
4607 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
4608 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
4609 these symbols), further occurences of these symbols are interpreted as
4610 the width of the area.
4612 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
4613 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
4615 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
4616 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
4617 header line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
4619 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
4620 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
4621 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
4622 height) of the specified image.
4624 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
4625 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
4628 *** Normally, the cursor is displayed at the end of any overlay and
4629 text property string that may be present at the current window
4630 position. The cursor can now be placed on any character of such
4631 strings by giving that character a non-nil `cursor' text property.
4634 *** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
4635 supported on text terminals.
4638 *** Support for displaying image slices
4640 **** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) can be used with
4641 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
4643 **** Function `insert-image' has new optional fourth arg to
4644 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
4646 **** New function `insert-sliced-image' inserts a given image as a
4647 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
4650 *** Images can now have an associated image map via the :map property.
4652 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
4653 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
4654 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((X0 . Y0) . (X1 . Y1))) specifying the
4655 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
4656 A circle is a cons (circle . ((X0 . Y0) . R)) specifying the center
4657 and the radius of the circle; R can be a float or integer.
4658 A polygon is a cons (poly . [X0 Y0 X1 Y1 ...]) where each pair in the
4659 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
4661 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
4662 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
4663 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
4664 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
4665 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable `void-area-text-pointer'
4666 for possible pointer shapes.
4668 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
4669 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
4670 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
4673 *** The function `find-image' now searches in etc/images/ and etc/.
4674 The new variable `image-load-path' is a list of locations in which to
4675 search for image files. The default is to search in etc/images, then
4676 in etc/, and finally in the directories specified by `load-path'.
4677 Subdirectories of etc/ and etc/images are not recursively searched; if
4678 you put an image file in a subdirectory, you have to specify it
4679 explicitly; for example, if an image is put in etc/images/foo/bar.xpm:
4681 (defimage foo-image '((:type xpm :file "foo/bar.xpm")))
4683 ** Mouse pointer features:
4687 *** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
4688 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
4689 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
4690 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
4691 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
4694 *** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
4695 :pointer image property.
4698 *** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images can now be
4699 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
4701 ** Mouse event enhancements:
4704 *** Mouse events for clicks on window fringes now specify `left-fringe'
4705 or `right-fringe' as the area.
4708 *** All mouse events now include a buffer position regardless of where
4709 you clicked. For mouse clicks in window margins and fringes, this is
4710 a sensible buffer position corresponding to the surrounding text.
4713 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
4716 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
4719 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
4723 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types
4727 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns the actual glyph coordinates
4728 of the mouse event position.
4731 *** Mouse events can now indicate an image object clicked on.
4734 *** Mouse events include relative X and Y pixel coordinates relative to
4735 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
4738 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
4739 (image or character) clicked on.
4742 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', 'posn-object-width-height'.
4744 These return the image or string object of a mouse click, the X and Y
4745 pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner of that object, and
4746 the total width and height of that object.
4748 ** Text property and overlay changes:
4751 *** Arguments for `remove-overlays' are now optional, so that you can
4752 remove all overlays in the buffer with just (remove-overlays).
4755 *** New variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
4757 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
4758 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
4759 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
4760 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
4763 *** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
4764 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
4765 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
4766 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
4767 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
4770 *** The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties'.
4772 It is like `remove-text-properties' except that it takes a list of
4773 property names as argument rather than a property list.
4778 *** The new face attribute condition `min-colors' can be used to tailor
4779 the face color to the number of colors supported by a display, and
4780 define the foreground and background colors accordingly so that they
4781 look best on a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This
4782 is now the preferred method for defining default faces in a way that
4783 makes a good use of the capabilities of the display.
4786 *** New function `display-supports-face-attributes-p' can be used to test
4787 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
4789 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
4790 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
4791 defined with `defface'.
4794 *** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
4795 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
4796 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
4797 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
4798 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
4801 *** The first face specification element in a defface can specify
4802 `default' instead of frame classification. Then its attributes act as
4803 defaults that apply to all the subsequent cases (and can be overridden
4807 *** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
4808 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
4809 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
4810 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
4811 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
4814 *** The function `face-differs-from-default-p' now truly checks
4815 whether the given face displays differently from the default face or
4816 not (previously it did only a very cursory check).
4819 *** `face-attribute', `face-foreground', `face-background', `face-stipple'.
4821 These now accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how
4822 face inheritance is used when determining the value of a face
4826 *** New functions `face-attribute-relative-p' and `merge-face-attribute'
4827 help with handling relative face attributes.
4830 *** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face list is reversed.
4832 If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
4833 faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous
4834 releases of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made
4835 so that :inherit face lists operate identically to face lists in text
4839 *** On terminals, faces with the :inverse-video attribute are displayed
4840 with swapped foreground and background colors even when one of them is
4841 not specified. In previous releases of Emacs, if either foreground
4842 or background color was unspecified, colors were not swapped. This
4843 was inconsistent with the face behavior under X.
4846 *** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
4847 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
4849 ** Font-Lock changes:
4852 *** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
4854 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
4855 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
4856 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
4857 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
4860 *** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
4862 **** the FACENAME returned in `font-lock-keywords' can be a list of the
4863 form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set other
4864 properties than `face'.
4866 **** `font-lock-extra-managed-props' can be set to make sure those
4867 extra properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
4870 *** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
4872 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
4873 (see `jit-lock-defer-contextually'), then all of that text will
4874 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
4875 depends on text several lines further down (and when `font-lock-multiline'
4876 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
4884 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
4885 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a `jit-lock-defer-multiline'
4886 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
4887 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
4889 ** Major mode mechanism changes:
4892 *** `set-auto-mode' now gives the interpreter magic line (if present)
4893 precedence over the file name. Likewise an `<?xml' or `<!DOCTYPE'
4894 declaration will give the buffer XML or SGML mode, based on the new
4895 var `magic-mode-alist'.
4898 *** Use the new function `run-mode-hooks' to run the major mode's mode hook.
4901 *** All major mode functions should now run the new normal hook
4902 `after-change-major-mode-hook', at their very end, after the mode
4903 hooks. `run-mode-hooks' does this automatically.
4906 *** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
4907 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
4911 *** Major modes can define `eldoc-documentation-function'
4912 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
4916 *** `define-derived-mode' by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
4917 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
4920 *** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
4921 are used by `define-derived-mode' to make sure the mode hook for the
4922 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
4924 ** Minor mode changes:
4927 *** `define-minor-mode' now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
4928 and simply passes them to `defcustom', if applicable.
4931 *** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
4934 *** `define-global-minor-mode'.
4936 This is a new name for what was formerly called
4937 `easy-mmode-define-global-mode'. The old name remains as an alias.
4939 ** Command loop changes:
4942 *** The new function `called-interactively-p' does what many people
4943 have mistakenly believed `interactive-p' to do: it returns t if the
4944 calling function was called through `call-interactively'.
4946 Only use this when you cannot solve the problem by adding a new
4947 INTERACTIVE argument to the command.
4950 *** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional argument.
4952 If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks for a function that could be
4953 called with `call-interactively', and does not return t for keyboard
4957 *** When a command returns, the command loop moves point out from
4958 within invisible text, in the same way it moves out from within text
4959 covered by an image or composition property.
4961 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
4962 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
4963 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
4964 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
4965 `post-command-hook' and thus does not care about intermediate states.
4968 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to `only', that
4969 enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
4970 During that following command, the value of `transient-mark-mode'
4971 is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
4972 the next return to the command loop changes to nil.
4975 *** Both the variable and the function `disabled-command-hook' have
4976 been renamed to `disabled-command-function'. The variable
4977 `disabled-command-hook' has been kept as an obsolete alias.
4980 *** `emacsserver' now runs `pre-command-hook' and `post-command-hook'
4981 when it receives a request from emacsclient.
4983 ** Lisp file loading changes:
4986 *** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
4987 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
4988 current file redefined it).
4991 *** `load-history' now records (defun . FUNNAME) when a function is
4992 defined. For a variable, it records just the variable name.
4995 *** The function `symbol-file' can now search specifically for function,
4996 variable or face definitions.
4999 *** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
5000 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
5001 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
5004 *** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
5005 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
5006 than 3 levels of nesting.
5009 ** Byte compiler changes:
5011 *** The byte compiler now displays the actual line and character
5012 position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form of its
5013 warning and error messages have been brought into line with GNU standards
5014 for these. As a result, you can use next-error and friends on the
5015 compilation output buffer.
5017 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
5018 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
5020 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
5021 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
5022 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
5023 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
5026 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
5027 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
5029 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
5030 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
5031 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
5032 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
5033 macro expansion), but such tests can be nested. Note that `when' and
5034 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
5036 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
5037 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
5038 Emacs and XEmacs and can sometimes make the result significantly more
5039 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
5040 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
5043 *** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in Lisp files is now obeyed.
5046 *** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
5047 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
5048 (require 'cl) when loaded.
5050 ** Frame operations:
5053 *** New functions `frame-current-scroll-bars' and `window-current-scroll-bars'.
5055 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
5056 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
5059 *** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
5060 for all (existing and future) frames.
5063 *** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
5064 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
5065 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
5066 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
5069 *** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
5070 the `scroll-bar-width' frame parameter value is nil.
5075 *** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
5077 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
5078 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
5079 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
5082 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
5084 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
5085 the time it takes to convert the format.
5087 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
5091 *** `set-buffer-file-coding-system' now takes an additional argument,
5092 NOMODIFY. If it is non-nil, it means don't mark the buffer modified.
5095 *** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
5096 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
5097 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
5098 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
5101 *** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
5102 of one coding system from another coding system.
5105 *** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
5106 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
5110 *** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
5111 it is read from a file without decoding.
5114 *** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
5115 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
5118 *** New function `quail-find-key' returns a list of keys to type in the
5119 current input method to input a character.
5121 ** Mode line changes:
5124 *** New function `format-mode-line'.
5126 This returns the mode line or header line of the selected (or a
5127 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
5130 *** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
5131 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
5134 *** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
5135 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
5139 *** Mouse-face on mode-line (and header-line) is now supported.
5141 ** Menu manipulation changes:
5144 *** To manipulate the File menu using easy-menu, you must specify the
5145 proper name "file". In previous Emacs versions, you had to specify
5146 "files", even though the menu item itself was changed to say "File"
5147 several versions ago.
5150 *** The dummy function keys made by easy-menu are now always lower case.
5151 If you specify the menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
5152 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
5154 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for the bindings that were
5155 made with easy-menu.
5158 *** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
5159 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
5160 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
5161 need to have a name.
5163 ** Operating system access:
5166 *** The new primitive `get-internal-run-time' returns the processor
5167 run time used by Emacs since start-up.
5170 *** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
5171 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
5172 accepts a float as UID parameter.
5175 *** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
5178 *** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
5179 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
5180 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
5183 *** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
5184 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
5189 *** A number of hooks have been renamed to better follow the conventions:
5191 `find-file-hooks' to `find-file-hook',
5192 `find-file-not-found-hooks' to `find-file-not-found-functions',
5193 `write-file-hooks' to `write-file-functions',
5194 `write-contents-hooks' to `write-contents-functions',
5195 `x-lost-selection-hooks' to `x-lost-selection-functions',
5196 `x-sent-selection-hooks' to `x-sent-selection-functions',
5197 `delete-frame-hook' to `delete-frame-functions'.
5199 In each case the old name remains as an alias for the moment.
5202 *** local-write-file-hooks is marked obsolete
5204 Use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook'.
5207 *** New function `x-send-client-message' sends a client message when
5213 *** New variable `gc-cons-percentage' automatically grows the GC cons threshold
5214 as the heap size increases.
5217 *** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
5218 on garbage collection.
5221 *** The normal hook `post-gc-hook' is run at the end of garbage collection.
5223 The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
5225 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 22.1
5228 ** The new library button.el implements simple and fast `clickable
5229 buttons' in emacs buffers. Buttons are much lighter-weight than the
5230 `widgets' implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that
5231 doesn't require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for
5232 such things as help and apropos buffers.
5235 ** The new library tree-widget.el provides a widget to display a set
5236 of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
5237 well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
5240 ** The new library bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
5241 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
5245 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
5246 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
5248 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
5249 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
5250 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
5253 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
5254 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
5257 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
5258 (function (lambda ()
5260 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5261 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
5262 (function (lambda ()
5263 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5266 ** The new library benchmark.el does timing measurements on Lisp code.
5268 This includes measuring garbage collection time.
5271 ** The new library testcover.el does test coverage checking.
5273 This is so you can tell whether you've tested all paths in your Lisp
5274 code. It works with edebug.
5276 The function `testcover-start' instruments all functions in a given
5277 file. Then test your code. The function `testcover-mark-all' adds
5278 overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to show where coverage
5279 is lacking. The command `testcover-next-mark' (bind it to a key!)
5280 will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
5282 Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely
5283 evaluated; a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same
5284 value. The red splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly
5285 complete their evaluation, such as `error'. The brown splotches are
5286 skipped for forms that are expected to always evaluate to the same
5287 value, such as (setq x 14).
5289 For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to
5290 help out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a
5291 red splotch. It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does
5292 return. The macro `1value' suppresses a brown splotch for its argument.
5293 This macro is a no-op except during test-coverage -- then it signals
5294 an error if the argument actually returns differing values.
5296 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
5298 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
5302 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
5304 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
5307 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
5310 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
5313 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
5314 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
5315 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
5316 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
5317 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
5318 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
5319 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
5320 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
5321 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
5322 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
5324 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
5325 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
5327 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
5328 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
5329 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
5330 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behavior is actually
5331 contrary to the compound text specification.
5334 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
5336 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
5338 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
5341 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
5343 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
5345 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
5346 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
5347 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
5348 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
5349 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
5351 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
5354 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
5355 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
5357 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
5358 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
5359 instead of using default-major-mode.
5361 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
5362 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
5363 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
5364 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
5365 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
5366 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
5367 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
5369 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
5373 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
5375 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
5376 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
5377 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
5379 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
5380 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
5383 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
5385 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
5386 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
5387 charsets in this release.
5389 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
5391 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
5393 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
5394 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
5397 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
5398 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
5399 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
5400 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
5401 necessary changes to unexec.
5403 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
5404 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
5406 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
5407 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
5409 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
5410 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
5412 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
5413 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
5414 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
5415 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
5416 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
5418 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
5419 new display features described below.
5422 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
5424 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
5426 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
5427 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
5428 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
5429 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
5432 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
5434 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
5435 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
5436 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
5437 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
5440 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
5441 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
5442 under Lisp changes, below.
5444 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
5446 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
5447 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
5448 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
5449 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
5450 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
5451 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
5454 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
5455 supported on character terminals.
5457 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
5458 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
5459 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
5460 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
5462 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
5466 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
5467 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
5468 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
5469 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
5472 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
5474 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
5475 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
5476 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
5477 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
5479 - User option: max-mini-window-height
5481 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
5482 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
5483 specifies a number of lines.
5487 - User option: resize-mini-windows
5489 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
5490 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
5491 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
5494 Default is `grow-only'.
5498 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
5499 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
5501 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
5503 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
5504 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
5507 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
5509 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
5510 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
5511 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
5513 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
5515 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
5516 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
5517 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
5518 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
5519 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
5522 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
5523 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
5524 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
5525 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
5526 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
5527 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
5529 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
5530 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
5531 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
5532 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
5533 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
5534 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
5536 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
5537 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
5538 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
5539 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
5540 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
5542 ** Tool bar support.
5544 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
5545 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
5546 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
5547 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
5548 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
5551 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
5552 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
5556 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
5557 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
5558 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
5560 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
5561 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
5562 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
5563 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
5565 ** Automatic Hscrolling
5567 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
5568 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
5571 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
5572 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
5573 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
5574 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
5575 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
5577 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
5578 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
5579 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
5580 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
5581 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
5582 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
5584 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
5585 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
5586 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
5587 customizing face `fringe'.
5589 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
5590 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
5591 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
5592 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
5593 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
5594 the window to be partially obscured.)
5596 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
5597 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
5598 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
5599 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
5601 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
5603 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
5604 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
5605 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
5606 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
5607 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
5610 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
5612 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
5614 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
5616 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
5617 `*') toggles the status.
5619 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
5621 ** Hourglass pointer
5623 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
5624 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
5628 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
5629 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
5630 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
5633 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
5635 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
5636 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
5637 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
5640 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
5641 have to do anything to activate it.
5643 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
5645 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
5646 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
5648 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
5649 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
5650 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
5651 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
5652 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
5653 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
5654 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
5655 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
5657 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
5658 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
5659 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
5660 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
5661 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
5662 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
5664 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
5665 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
5667 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
5668 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
5671 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
5672 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
5673 beginning and end of the buffer.
5675 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
5676 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
5679 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
5680 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
5682 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
5683 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
5686 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
5687 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
5690 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
5692 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
5693 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
5694 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
5696 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
5697 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
5698 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
5700 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
5703 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
5705 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
5706 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
5707 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
5708 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
5709 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
5712 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
5713 all frames except the selected one.
5715 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
5716 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
5718 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
5719 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
5720 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
5721 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
5722 `Info-use-header-line'.
5724 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
5725 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
5726 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
5728 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
5730 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
5731 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
5734 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
5735 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
5736 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
5737 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
5739 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
5741 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
5742 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
5743 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
5744 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
5746 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
5747 point in a pop-up window.
5749 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
5750 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
5751 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
5753 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
5754 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
5756 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
5757 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
5758 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
5759 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
5761 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
5763 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5764 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5766 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
5767 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
5768 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
5770 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
5771 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
5774 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
5775 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
5776 file that is already visited under a different name.
5778 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
5779 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
5781 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
5782 and displays information about that.
5784 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
5785 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
5787 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
5788 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
5789 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
5790 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
5791 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
5792 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
5794 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
5795 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
5797 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
5798 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
5799 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
5800 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
5801 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
5802 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
5803 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
5805 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
5806 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
5808 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
5809 system for keyboard input.
5811 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
5812 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
5813 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
5814 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
5815 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
5816 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
5817 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
5818 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
5819 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
5821 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
5822 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
5824 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
5825 displays all characters in that character set.
5827 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
5828 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
5830 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
5831 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
5832 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
5834 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
5835 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
5836 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
5837 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
5838 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
5839 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
5842 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
5843 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
5846 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
5847 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
5848 Lisp Coding Convention".
5850 new command old-binding
5851 --- ------- -----------
5852 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
5853 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
5854 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
5856 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
5857 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
5858 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
5860 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
5861 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
5862 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
5863 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
5864 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
5865 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
5867 ** There are new Leim input methods.
5868 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
5869 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
5872 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
5873 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
5874 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
5875 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
5876 "`", you must type "=q".
5878 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
5879 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
5880 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
5881 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
5882 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
5885 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
5886 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
5887 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
5888 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
5890 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
5891 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
5892 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
5893 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
5895 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
5896 on the display using several methods
5898 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
5899 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
5900 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
5902 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
5903 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
5905 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
5907 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
5908 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
5910 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
5911 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
5912 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
5913 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
5915 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
5916 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
5917 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
5919 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
5920 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
5922 ** New X resources recognized
5924 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
5925 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
5926 is useful for debugging X problems.
5930 emacs.synchronous: true
5932 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
5933 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
5934 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
5935 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
5936 visual class names are
5945 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
5946 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
5949 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
5950 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
5951 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
5956 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
5958 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
5959 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
5960 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
5961 resource values are `true' or `on'.
5965 emacs.privateColormap: true
5967 ** Faces and frame parameters.
5969 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
5970 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
5971 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
5972 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
5973 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
5974 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
5975 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
5977 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
5978 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
5979 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
5980 `default' face and vice versa.
5984 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
5986 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
5988 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
5989 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
5990 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
5991 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
5993 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
5994 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
5995 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
5997 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
6000 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
6002 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
6003 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
6004 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
6005 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
6007 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
6009 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
6011 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
6013 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
6016 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
6019 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
6021 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
6022 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
6023 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
6025 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
6026 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
6028 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
6029 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
6030 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
6032 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
6034 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
6035 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
6036 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6037 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
6039 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
6040 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
6041 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6042 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
6044 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
6045 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
6046 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
6049 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
6051 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
6052 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
6053 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
6055 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
6056 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
6057 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
6058 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
6059 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
6060 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
6062 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
6064 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
6065 notably at the end of lines.
6067 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
6068 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
6070 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
6072 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
6073 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
6075 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
6076 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
6077 after each match to get the replacement text.
6079 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
6080 you edit the replacement string.
6082 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
6083 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
6084 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
6086 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
6088 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
6089 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
6091 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
6092 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
6093 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
6094 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
6097 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
6098 read mail from the menu etc.
6100 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
6101 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
6102 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
6103 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
6105 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
6106 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6108 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
6109 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
6110 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
6111 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
6112 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
6115 ** Customize changes
6117 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
6118 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
6119 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
6120 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
6121 earlier versions of Emacs.
6123 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
6124 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
6127 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6128 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
6129 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
6130 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
6133 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6134 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
6135 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
6136 already in your init file.
6138 ** New features in evaluation commands
6140 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
6141 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
6142 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
6143 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
6144 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
6146 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
6147 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
6148 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
6149 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
6152 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
6153 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
6155 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
6156 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
6158 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
6159 code when called with a prefix argument.
6163 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
6164 current user setups (although it's believed that these
6165 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
6166 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
6167 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
6168 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
6171 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
6172 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
6173 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
6176 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
6177 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
6178 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
6179 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
6181 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
6182 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
6184 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
6185 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
6187 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
6188 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
6189 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
6190 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
6192 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
6193 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
6194 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
6195 earlier statement. An example:
6197 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
6199 res += a[i]->offset;
6202 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
6203 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
6204 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
6205 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
6208 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
6211 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
6212 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
6213 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
6214 documentation or other natural language text.
6216 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
6217 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
6218 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
6219 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
6220 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
6221 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
6222 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
6224 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
6225 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
6226 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
6227 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
6229 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
6230 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
6231 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
6232 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
6235 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
6236 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
6237 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
6238 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
6239 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
6240 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
6241 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
6242 is reported afterwards.
6244 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
6245 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
6246 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
6248 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
6249 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
6250 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
6251 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
6252 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
6253 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
6256 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
6257 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
6258 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
6259 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
6260 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
6263 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
6264 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
6265 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
6266 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
6267 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
6268 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
6270 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
6271 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
6272 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
6273 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
6274 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
6275 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
6276 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
6277 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
6279 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
6280 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
6281 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
6282 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
6285 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
6286 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
6287 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
6288 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
6289 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
6290 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
6291 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
6292 function documentation for more info.
6294 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
6295 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
6296 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
6297 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
6298 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
6299 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
6300 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
6301 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
6303 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
6305 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
6306 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
6308 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
6309 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
6310 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
6311 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
6312 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
6315 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
6316 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
6317 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
6320 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
6321 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
6322 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
6323 chapter about this in the manual.
6325 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
6326 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
6327 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
6328 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
6329 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
6331 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
6332 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
6333 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
6335 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
6336 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
6338 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
6339 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
6340 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
6343 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
6344 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
6345 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
6346 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
6349 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
6350 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
6351 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
6352 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
6353 they were before the filling.
6355 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
6356 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
6357 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
6360 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
6361 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
6362 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
6363 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
6366 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
6367 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
6368 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
6369 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
6370 Thanks to Eric Eide.
6372 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
6373 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
6374 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
6376 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
6378 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
6379 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
6380 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
6381 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
6383 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
6384 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
6385 the column specified by comment-column.
6387 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
6388 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
6389 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
6390 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
6391 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
6392 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
6394 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
6395 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
6398 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
6400 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
6401 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
6402 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
6403 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
6406 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
6410 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
6411 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
6412 is, delete only empty directories.
6414 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
6415 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
6416 copy directories recursively.
6418 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
6419 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
6420 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
6422 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
6423 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
6426 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
6427 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
6428 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
6429 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
6430 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
6432 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
6435 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
6436 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
6437 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
6438 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
6442 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
6443 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
6444 internationalization and mail-fetching.
6446 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
6447 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
6449 If you used procmail like in
6451 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
6452 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
6453 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
6454 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
6456 this now has changed to
6459 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
6462 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
6463 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
6465 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
6466 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
6467 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
6468 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
6470 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
6471 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
6472 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
6474 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
6475 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
6476 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
6477 now just a compatibility layer.
6479 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
6482 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
6483 called to position point.
6485 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
6486 summary buffers and NOV files.
6488 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
6489 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
6491 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
6492 subtly different manner.
6494 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
6495 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
6496 ever-changing layouts.
6498 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
6500 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
6502 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
6504 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
6508 -------------------------
6512 C-c C-c q @quotation
6514 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
6517 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
6519 ** Changes in Outline mode.
6521 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
6522 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
6523 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
6525 ** Changes to Emacs Server
6527 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
6528 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
6529 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
6530 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
6531 buffers to kill, as before.
6533 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
6534 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
6537 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
6538 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
6540 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
6542 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
6543 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
6544 use. Default is 1000.
6546 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
6547 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
6549 ** Changes to hideshow.el
6551 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
6553 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
6554 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
6555 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
6556 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
6558 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
6559 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
6560 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
6563 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
6564 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
6565 the normal block-hiding function.
6567 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
6569 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
6570 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
6571 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
6572 for `hs-minor-mode'.
6574 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
6575 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
6577 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
6579 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
6580 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
6581 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
6583 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
6586 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
6589 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
6590 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
6591 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
6592 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
6593 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
6594 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
6596 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
6598 ** Changes to cmuscheme
6600 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
6601 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
6603 ** Changes in Font Lock
6605 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
6606 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
6608 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
6609 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
6611 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
6612 the face used for each string/comment.
6614 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
6615 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
6617 ** Changes to Shell mode
6619 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
6620 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
6621 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
6622 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
6624 ** Comint (subshell) changes
6626 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
6627 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
6629 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
6630 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
6631 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
6632 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
6633 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
6634 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
6636 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
6637 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
6638 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
6639 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
6640 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
6641 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
6642 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
6643 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
6645 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
6646 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
6648 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
6649 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
6650 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
6652 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
6653 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
6654 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
6656 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
6657 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
6658 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
6660 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
6661 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
6662 argument, it appends to the file.
6664 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
6665 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
6668 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
6671 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
6672 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
6673 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
6675 ** Changes to Rmail mode
6677 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
6678 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
6679 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
6680 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
6681 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
6684 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
6685 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
6686 regexp matching your mail addresses.
6688 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
6689 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
6690 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
6691 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
6692 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
6694 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
6697 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
6698 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
6701 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
6702 in which folder to put messages automatically.
6704 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
6705 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
6706 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
6708 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
6709 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
6711 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
6712 use the -f option when sending mail.
6714 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
6715 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
6716 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
6717 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
6718 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
6719 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
6721 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
6722 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
6723 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
6725 ** Changes to TeX mode
6727 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
6730 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
6732 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
6734 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
6736 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6738 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
6739 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
6740 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
6741 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
6742 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
6743 can be edited from that buffer.
6745 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
6746 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
6747 `A' to use all marked entries).
6749 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
6750 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
6752 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
6753 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
6754 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
6757 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
6758 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
6759 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
6760 in column 1 are always made leaves.
6762 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
6763 has the following new features:
6765 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
6766 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
6767 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
6768 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
6770 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
6771 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
6772 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
6773 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
6774 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
6777 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
6782 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
6783 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
6784 spell-checks the current buffer.
6786 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
6789 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
6790 correction is made and re-checked.
6792 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
6794 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
6797 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
6800 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
6803 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6805 ** Makefile mode changes
6807 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
6809 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
6810 Fontlock mode is active.
6814 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
6815 so that searches can be resumed.
6817 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
6818 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
6819 that started the search.
6821 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
6822 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
6824 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
6826 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
6827 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
6828 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
6829 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
6830 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
6831 `secondary-selection'.
6833 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
6834 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
6835 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
6836 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
6837 usual snappy response.
6839 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
6840 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
6841 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
6842 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
6846 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
6847 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
6848 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
6849 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
6850 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
6851 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
6852 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
6853 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
6854 file is registered in that backend.
6856 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
6857 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
6858 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
6859 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
6860 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
6861 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
6863 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
6864 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
6865 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
6866 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
6867 where it doesn't make sense.)
6869 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
6870 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
6871 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
6875 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
6876 checks are always done now.
6878 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
6881 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
6882 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
6883 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
6885 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
6886 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
6887 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
6888 the working file (``merge news'').
6890 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
6891 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
6894 *** Multiple Backends
6896 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
6897 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
6898 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
6899 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
6902 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
6903 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
6904 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
6905 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
6907 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
6908 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
6909 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
6910 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
6911 current revision number from the more remote backend.
6913 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
6914 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
6915 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
6916 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
6918 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
6919 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
6920 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
6921 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
6925 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
6926 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
6927 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
6928 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
6929 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
6930 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
6931 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
6933 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
6934 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
6935 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
6936 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
6937 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
6938 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
6939 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
6940 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
6941 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
6942 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
6943 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
6946 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
6947 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
6948 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
6949 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
6950 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
6951 entire directory tree.
6953 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
6954 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
6955 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
6956 "watched" by other developers.)
6958 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
6959 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
6960 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
6961 starting at the given directory.
6963 *** Lisp Changes in VC
6965 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
6966 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
6967 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
6968 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
6969 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
6970 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
6971 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
6972 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
6973 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
6975 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
6976 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
6977 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
6978 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
6980 ** New modes and packages
6982 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
6983 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
6984 the default is not applicable.
6986 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
6987 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
6988 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
6992 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
6993 drawn, like this: | \ /
6997 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
6998 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
6999 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
7000 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
7001 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
7004 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
7005 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
7007 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
7010 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
7011 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
7012 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
7013 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
7015 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
7016 also do without the mouse.
7018 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
7019 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
7020 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
7021 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
7022 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
7024 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
7026 lines straight-lines
7028 poly-lines straight poly-lines
7030 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
7031 spray-can setting size for spraying
7032 vaporize line vaporize lines
7033 erase characters erase rectangles
7035 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
7036 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
7037 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
7040 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
7041 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
7042 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
7043 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
7045 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
7048 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
7049 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
7050 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
7051 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
7052 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
7053 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
7054 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
7055 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
7056 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
7058 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
7059 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
7060 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
7061 on certain projects.
7063 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
7064 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
7066 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
7068 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
7069 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
7070 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
7071 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
7072 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
7073 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
7074 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
7075 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
7077 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
7080 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
7081 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
7083 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
7084 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
7086 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
7087 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
7088 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
7089 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
7090 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
7092 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
7093 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
7094 separate Texinfo file.
7096 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
7097 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
7098 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
7099 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
7100 enter check-in log messages.
7102 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
7103 without invoking external programs.
7105 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
7106 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
7107 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
7108 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
7109 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
7111 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
7112 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
7114 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
7115 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
7117 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
7118 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
7119 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
7120 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
7121 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
7124 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
7125 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
7126 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
7127 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
7129 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
7130 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
7131 actually modifying content of a buffer.
7133 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
7136 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
7138 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
7140 ; comment (until end of line)
7144 $A default non-terminal
7145 $"C" default terminal
7146 $?C? default special
7147 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
7148 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
7149 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
7150 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
7151 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
7152 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
7153 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
7154 C+ one or more occurrences of C
7155 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
7156 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
7157 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
7158 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
7159 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
7160 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7161 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7163 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
7165 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
7166 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
7167 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
7168 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
7169 equal signs of assignments.
7171 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
7172 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
7174 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
7175 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
7176 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
7178 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
7180 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
7181 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
7182 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
7183 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
7184 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
7185 which answers different needs.
7187 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
7188 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
7189 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
7190 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
7191 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
7194 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
7195 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
7197 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
7199 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
7200 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
7201 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
7203 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
7205 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
7206 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
7207 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
7208 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
7209 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
7210 and background colors.
7212 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
7215 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
7218 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
7220 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
7222 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
7223 whitespace in a file.
7225 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
7226 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
7227 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
7228 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
7229 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
7230 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
7231 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
7233 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
7235 Here is an example of columns:
7238 dog pineapple car EXTRA
7239 porcupine strawberry airplane
7241 Doing the following settings:
7243 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
7244 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
7245 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
7246 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
7249 Selecting the lines above and typing:
7251 M-x delimit-columns-region
7255 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
7256 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
7257 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
7259 delim-col has the following options:
7261 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
7264 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
7265 between each column.
7267 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
7270 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
7273 delim-col has the following commands:
7275 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
7276 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
7278 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
7279 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
7280 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
7281 recent file list can be displayed:
7283 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
7284 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
7285 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
7287 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
7288 dynamically change the menu appearance.
7290 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
7293 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
7294 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
7295 specific to Message mode.
7297 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
7298 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
7299 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
7301 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
7302 interface to access directory servers using different directory
7303 protocols. It has a separate manual.
7305 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
7306 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
7308 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
7310 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
7311 minibuffer with completion.
7313 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
7314 with the diary features.
7316 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
7317 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
7319 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
7322 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
7323 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
7324 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
7325 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
7327 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
7328 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
7331 ** Changes in sort.el
7333 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
7334 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
7335 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
7338 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
7340 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
7341 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
7342 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
7344 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
7345 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
7347 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
7348 output ^M at the end of lines.
7350 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
7351 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
7353 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
7354 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
7357 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
7360 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
7361 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
7364 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
7365 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
7366 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
7367 nil -- just delete one character.
7369 Default value is `untabify'.
7371 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
7373 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
7374 symbol, not double-quoted.
7376 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
7377 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
7378 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
7379 moved to lisp/obsolete.
7381 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
7382 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
7383 `auto-compression-mode' command.
7385 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
7386 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
7387 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
7389 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
7390 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
7392 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
7393 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
7395 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
7396 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
7398 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
7399 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
7400 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
7401 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
7402 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
7403 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
7405 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
7406 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
7408 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
7410 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
7411 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
7413 ** Shell script mode changes.
7415 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
7416 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
7417 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
7421 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
7423 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
7424 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
7425 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
7426 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
7427 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
7429 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
7430 declarations when given the --declarations option.
7432 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
7433 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
7435 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
7436 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
7437 `template' keywords.
7439 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
7440 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
7442 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
7445 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
7447 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
7449 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
7452 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
7454 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
7455 variables are tagged.
7457 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
7459 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
7462 ** Changes in etags.el
7464 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
7465 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
7466 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
7468 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
7469 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
7471 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
7472 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
7473 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
7474 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
7476 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
7478 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
7479 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
7481 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
7483 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
7484 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
7485 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
7487 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
7488 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
7490 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
7491 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
7493 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
7494 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
7495 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
7496 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
7497 point will go to the beginning of the file.
7499 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
7500 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
7501 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
7503 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
7504 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
7505 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
7507 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
7508 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
7509 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
7511 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
7513 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
7515 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
7516 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
7517 expression from that list, are not checked.
7519 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
7520 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
7521 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
7522 the buffer, just like for the local files.
7524 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
7526 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
7527 displays local abbrevs, only.
7529 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
7530 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
7532 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
7533 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
7534 is measured in pixels.
7536 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
7537 to be visited as images.
7539 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
7540 were added to compile.el.
7542 ** Withdrawn packages
7544 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
7545 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
7547 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
7549 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
7552 * Incompatible Lisp changes
7554 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
7555 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
7556 See the sections below for details.
7558 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
7559 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
7560 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
7561 to remove the properties of the copy.
7563 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
7564 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
7565 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
7566 these properties are active.
7568 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
7569 ranges may affect some code.
7571 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
7572 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
7573 make a difference to some code.
7575 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
7576 operates on the minibuffer.
7578 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
7579 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
7580 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
7581 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
7582 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
7583 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
7584 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
7585 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
7586 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
7587 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
7588 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
7589 the buffer as multibyte characters.
7591 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
7592 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
7593 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
7595 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
7596 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
7597 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
7599 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
7600 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
7601 such as `mapconcat'.
7603 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
7606 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
7607 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
7608 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
7609 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
7610 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
7611 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
7612 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
7613 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
7615 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
7616 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
7617 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
7618 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
7619 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
7620 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
7621 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
7622 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
7623 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
7624 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
7627 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
7628 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
7630 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
7632 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
7633 allows the animated display of strings.
7635 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
7636 interactive form of a function.
7638 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
7639 between custom options. Example:
7641 (defcustom default-input-method nil
7642 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
7643 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
7644 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
7646 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
7647 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
7649 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
7650 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
7651 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
7653 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
7654 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
7655 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
7656 (signal or normal termination).
7658 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
7659 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
7661 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
7662 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
7664 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
7665 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
7667 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
7669 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
7670 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
7673 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
7675 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
7676 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
7677 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
7678 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
7679 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
7682 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
7683 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
7686 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
7687 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
7689 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
7690 with the more general `:mask' property.
7692 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
7694 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
7697 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
7698 is running in batch mode. For example,
7700 (message "%s" (read t))
7702 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
7705 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
7706 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
7708 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
7709 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
7712 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
7715 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
7717 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
7718 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
7720 - Function: remq ELT LIST
7722 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
7723 comparison is done with `eq'.
7725 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
7727 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
7728 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
7729 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
7731 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
7732 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
7733 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
7735 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
7736 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
7738 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
7739 function was declared obsolete.
7741 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
7742 retained as an alias).
7744 ** Easy-menu's :filter now takes the unconverted form of the menu and
7745 the result is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
7747 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
7749 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
7751 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
7752 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
7753 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
7754 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
7755 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
7756 means never include the minibuffer window.
7758 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
7760 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
7762 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
7764 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
7765 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
7766 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
7767 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
7770 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
7771 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
7772 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
7773 minibuffer even if it is active.
7775 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
7776 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
7777 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
7778 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
7779 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
7780 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
7782 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
7783 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
7784 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
7785 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
7786 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
7787 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
7788 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
7790 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
7791 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
7792 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
7794 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
7795 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
7796 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
7797 Default value is nil.
7799 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
7802 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
7803 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
7804 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
7806 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
7807 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
7808 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
7810 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
7811 list of a primitive.
7813 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
7815 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
7816 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
7817 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
7818 than replacing the local map.
7820 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
7821 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
7822 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
7825 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
7827 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
7828 as promised long ago.
7830 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
7832 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
7833 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
7834 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
7837 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
7839 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
7840 regular expressions.
7842 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
7844 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
7848 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
7850 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
7854 matches string STRING literally.
7857 matches character CHAR literally.
7860 matches any character except a newline.
7863 matches any character
7866 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
7867 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
7873 matches any character not in SET
7876 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
7877 in the text being matched
7880 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
7883 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
7884 string being matched against.
7887 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
7888 string being matched against.
7891 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
7892 buffer being matched against.
7895 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
7896 buffer being matched against.
7899 matches the empty string, but only at point.
7902 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
7906 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
7909 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
7912 `(not word-boundary)'
7913 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
7917 matches 0 through 9.
7920 matches ASCII control characters.
7923 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
7926 matches space and tab only.
7929 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
7933 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
7937 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7938 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7941 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7942 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7945 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
7948 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
7951 matches anything lower-case.
7954 matches anything upper-case.
7957 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7958 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
7961 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
7964 matches anything that has word syntax.
7967 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
7968 of the following symbols.
7970 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
7971 `punctuation' (\\s.)
7974 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
7975 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
7976 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
7977 `string-quote' (\\s\")
7978 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
7980 `character-quote' (\\s/)
7981 `comment-start' (\\s<)
7982 `comment-end' (\\s>)
7984 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
7985 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
7987 `(category CATEGORY)'
7988 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
7989 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
7991 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
7993 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
7994 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
7998 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
8000 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
8001 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
8002 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
8003 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
8004 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
8005 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
8006 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
8007 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
8008 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
8009 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
8010 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
8019 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
8023 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
8030 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
8031 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
8033 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8034 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
8036 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8037 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
8038 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
8040 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8041 another name for `submatch'.
8043 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8044 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
8045 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
8048 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
8049 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
8050 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
8051 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
8052 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
8054 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
8055 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
8057 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
8058 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8061 like `zero-or-more'.
8064 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8067 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8069 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
8070 matches one or more occurrences of A.
8076 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8079 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8081 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
8082 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
8088 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8091 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8094 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8097 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8100 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
8104 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
8106 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
8108 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
8109 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
8110 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
8111 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
8113 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
8114 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
8115 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
8116 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
8118 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
8119 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
8120 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
8122 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
8123 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
8124 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
8125 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
8126 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
8127 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
8128 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
8131 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
8133 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
8134 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
8135 character set as previously.
8137 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
8138 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
8139 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
8141 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
8142 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
8143 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
8144 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
8146 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
8147 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
8149 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
8150 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
8153 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
8154 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
8156 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
8157 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
8158 buffers and strings.
8160 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
8161 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
8162 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
8163 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
8164 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
8165 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
8166 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
8169 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
8170 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
8171 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
8173 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
8174 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
8175 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
8176 may differ between buffer and string text.
8178 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
8179 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
8181 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
8182 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
8183 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
8184 `composition' from STRING.
8186 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
8187 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
8189 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
8192 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
8193 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
8195 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
8196 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
8197 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
8198 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
8200 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
8201 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
8202 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
8203 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
8204 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
8205 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
8207 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
8208 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
8209 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
8211 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
8212 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
8213 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
8215 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
8216 have been introduced.
8218 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
8219 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
8220 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
8221 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
8222 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
8223 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
8224 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
8225 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
8226 their multibyte equivalent.
8228 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
8229 that offset in the file before writing.
8231 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
8232 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
8234 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
8235 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
8236 from which the command was issued.
8238 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
8239 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
8240 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
8241 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
8244 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
8245 to `window-buffer-height'.
8247 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
8249 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
8250 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
8251 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
8253 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
8256 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
8257 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
8259 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
8260 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
8261 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
8263 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
8264 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
8265 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
8266 is currently displayed in some window.
8268 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
8269 argument function's results.
8271 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
8272 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
8273 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
8274 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
8277 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
8278 header in the list of headers passed to it.
8280 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
8281 ignores differences in case and text representation.
8283 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
8284 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
8287 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
8288 nil don't display a cursor
8289 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
8290 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
8291 others display a box cursor.
8293 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
8294 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
8295 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
8296 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
8298 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
8299 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
8300 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
8301 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
8305 (string-to-syntax "()")
8308 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
8311 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
8312 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
8319 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
8324 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
8329 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
8336 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
8337 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
8340 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
8341 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
8342 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
8343 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
8345 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
8347 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
8348 for a regexp in a string.
8350 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
8351 `mouse-position-function'.
8353 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
8354 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
8356 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
8357 Keywords are now always considered constants.
8359 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
8362 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
8363 returned by function `recent-keys'.
8365 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
8366 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
8367 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
8368 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
8371 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
8372 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
8374 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
8375 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
8376 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
8377 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
8380 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
8381 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
8382 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
8383 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
8385 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
8386 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
8387 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
8389 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
8390 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
8393 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
8395 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
8396 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
8397 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
8400 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
8401 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
8402 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
8403 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
8404 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
8406 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
8407 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
8409 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
8410 instead of being optional.
8412 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
8413 modify read-only text.
8415 ** New functions and variables for locales.
8417 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
8418 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
8419 time functions like strftime. The new variables
8420 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
8421 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
8423 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
8424 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
8425 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
8426 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
8427 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
8428 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
8429 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
8431 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
8432 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
8433 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
8436 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
8437 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
8439 ** New function `propertize'
8441 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
8442 strings with text properties.
8444 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
8446 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
8447 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
8448 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
8449 specified value of that property. Example:
8451 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
8453 ** push and pop macros.
8455 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
8456 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
8457 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
8459 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
8460 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
8461 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
8463 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
8465 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
8466 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
8468 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
8469 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
8470 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
8471 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8473 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
8474 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
8475 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
8476 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8478 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
8479 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
8480 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
8483 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
8484 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
8485 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8486 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
8487 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8489 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8491 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
8492 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8493 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8494 [:alpha:] matches letters.
8495 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8496 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8497 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8498 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8499 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
8500 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
8501 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8502 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8503 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8504 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
8505 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
8507 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
8509 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
8511 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
8513 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
8514 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
8518 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
8519 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
8520 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
8524 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
8525 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
8527 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
8529 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
8530 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
8531 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
8532 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
8533 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
8535 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
8537 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
8538 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
8539 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
8543 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
8544 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
8545 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
8546 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
8547 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
8549 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
8551 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
8553 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
8555 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
8557 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
8559 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
8562 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
8564 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
8566 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8568 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
8570 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
8572 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
8574 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8576 Returns the size of TABLE.
8578 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
8580 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
8582 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
8584 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
8586 - Function: clrhash TABLE
8590 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
8592 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
8595 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
8597 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
8598 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
8600 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
8602 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
8604 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
8606 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
8607 arguments KEY and VALUE.
8609 - Function: sxhash OBJ
8611 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
8613 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
8615 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
8616 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
8617 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
8618 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
8619 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
8621 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
8623 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
8624 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
8625 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
8627 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
8628 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
8630 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
8631 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
8633 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
8634 (sxhash (upcase a)))
8636 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
8637 'case-fold-string-hash))
8639 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
8641 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
8643 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
8644 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
8645 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
8647 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
8649 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
8650 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
8652 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
8653 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
8654 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
8655 is too short to reach that column.
8657 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
8658 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
8659 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
8660 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
8662 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
8663 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
8664 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
8666 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
8667 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
8669 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
8670 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
8672 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
8673 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
8674 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
8675 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
8676 temporary-file-directory instead.
8678 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
8679 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
8680 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
8681 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
8683 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
8684 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
8686 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
8688 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
8689 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
8690 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
8692 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
8694 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
8695 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
8696 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
8697 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
8698 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
8699 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
8701 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
8702 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
8703 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
8704 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
8706 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
8708 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
8709 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
8710 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
8713 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
8714 string where arguments appear in the result string.
8718 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
8720 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
8721 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
8724 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
8726 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
8728 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
8729 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
8732 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
8734 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
8735 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
8740 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
8741 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
8743 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
8744 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
8745 to enable sound support.
8747 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
8748 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
8749 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
8750 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
8751 sound to play, before playing the sound.
8753 The following sound properties are supported:
8757 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
8758 searched relative to `data-directory'.
8762 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
8763 may be present, but not both.
8767 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
8768 0..1. This property is optional.
8772 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
8773 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
8775 Other properties are ignored.
8777 An alternative interface is called as
8778 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
8780 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
8782 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
8785 ** Changes to garbage collection
8787 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
8788 of live and free strings.
8790 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
8791 strings that have been consed so far.
8794 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
8797 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
8800 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
8801 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
8802 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
8804 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
8806 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
8808 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
8811 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
8813 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
8815 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
8816 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
8817 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
8818 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
8819 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
8821 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
8824 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
8826 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
8827 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
8828 or omitted means use the selected frame.
8830 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
8831 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
8833 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
8836 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
8840 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
8842 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
8843 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
8845 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
8846 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
8847 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
8848 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
8849 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
8850 just display it black instead.
8852 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
8855 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
8859 ** New face implementation.
8861 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
8862 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
8866 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
8868 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
8870 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
8871 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
8873 3. Font height in 1/10pt
8875 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
8877 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
8879 6. Foreground color.
8881 7. Background color.
8883 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
8885 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
8887 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
8889 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
8891 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
8894 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
8895 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
8897 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
8898 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
8899 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
8900 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
8901 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
8902 attributes mentioned above.
8904 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
8905 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
8908 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
8909 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
8914 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
8915 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
8916 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
8917 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
8918 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
8919 results in a fully-specified face.
8921 *** Face realization.
8923 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
8924 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
8925 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
8926 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
8927 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
8928 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
8930 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
8931 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
8932 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
8933 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
8935 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
8936 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
8937 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
8938 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
8939 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
8941 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
8942 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
8943 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
8944 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
8945 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
8948 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
8949 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
8950 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
8951 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
8953 **** Clearing face caches.
8955 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
8956 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
8961 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
8962 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
8963 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
8965 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
8966 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
8967 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
8968 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
8969 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
8971 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
8972 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
8973 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
8975 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
8977 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
8978 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
8979 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
8980 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
8981 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
8982 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
8983 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
8985 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
8986 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
8989 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
8990 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
8993 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
8996 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
9001 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
9002 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
9005 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
9006 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
9007 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
9008 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
9009 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
9012 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
9014 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
9016 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
9018 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
9020 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
9021 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
9022 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
9024 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
9025 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
9026 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
9027 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
9028 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
9029 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
9030 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
9031 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
9032 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
9033 of the face font sort order.
9035 - Function: x-font-family-list
9037 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
9038 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
9039 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
9040 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
9042 - Variable: font-list-limit
9044 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
9045 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
9046 matching font. The default is currently 100.
9048 *** Setting face attributes.
9050 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
9051 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
9052 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
9055 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
9056 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
9058 The following attributes are recognized:
9062 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
9063 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
9064 and `?' are allowed.
9068 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
9069 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
9070 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
9071 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
9075 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
9076 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
9077 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
9078 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
9082 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
9083 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
9084 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
9088 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
9089 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
9092 `:foreground', `:background'
9094 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
9098 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
9099 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
9100 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
9105 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
9106 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
9107 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
9112 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
9113 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
9114 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
9115 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
9119 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
9120 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
9121 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
9122 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
9123 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
9124 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
9125 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
9126 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
9127 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
9128 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
9129 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
9130 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
9131 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
9132 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
9133 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
9134 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
9139 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
9140 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
9144 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
9145 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
9146 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
9147 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
9148 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
9149 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
9151 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
9152 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
9156 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
9157 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
9158 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
9161 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
9162 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
9163 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
9165 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
9170 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
9171 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
9172 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
9174 *** Face attributes and X resources
9176 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
9179 Face attribute X resource class
9180 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
9181 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
9182 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
9183 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
9184 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
9185 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
9186 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
9187 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
9188 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
9189 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
9190 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
9191 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
9192 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
9193 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
9194 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
9195 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
9196 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9197 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
9198 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
9199 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9201 *** Text property `face'.
9203 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
9204 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
9205 specification can be
9207 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
9209 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
9210 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
9211 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
9212 for face attribute names.
9214 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
9215 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
9216 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
9218 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
9220 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
9221 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
9222 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
9223 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
9224 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
9225 used to clear the mapping table.
9227 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
9229 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
9230 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
9231 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
9232 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
9233 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
9234 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
9235 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
9236 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
9237 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
9238 modify their color-related behavior.
9240 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
9243 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
9245 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
9246 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
9247 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
9248 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
9249 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
9250 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
9251 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
9252 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
9253 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
9255 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
9256 display can display image files.
9258 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
9260 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
9261 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
9262 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
9263 `Inviolable' option.
9265 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
9266 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
9267 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
9269 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
9271 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
9272 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
9273 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
9275 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
9276 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
9277 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
9278 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
9279 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
9280 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
9281 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
9284 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
9285 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
9286 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
9288 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
9290 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
9292 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
9294 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9295 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
9296 constrained position if that is different.
9298 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
9299 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
9300 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
9301 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
9302 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9303 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
9304 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
9305 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
9306 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
9308 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
9309 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
9310 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
9311 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
9312 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
9314 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
9315 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
9317 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
9319 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
9321 Delete the field surrounding POS.
9322 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9323 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9325 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9327 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
9328 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9329 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9330 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
9331 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
9333 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9335 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
9336 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9337 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9338 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
9339 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
9341 - Function: field-string &optional POS
9343 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
9344 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9345 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9347 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
9349 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
9350 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9351 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9355 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
9356 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
9357 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
9358 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
9360 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
9361 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
9362 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
9363 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
9366 IMAGE is an image specification.
9368 *** Image specifications
9370 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
9371 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
9372 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
9373 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
9374 described below are ignored.
9376 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
9380 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
9381 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
9382 to use for its ascent.
9384 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
9385 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
9387 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
9388 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
9389 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
9390 overlays that apply to the image.
9394 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
9395 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
9396 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
9400 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
9405 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
9407 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
9408 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
9410 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
9411 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
9412 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
9413 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
9414 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
9415 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
9416 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
9417 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
9420 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
9422 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
9424 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
9425 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
9426 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
9427 of the factors' absolute values.
9429 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
9435 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
9441 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
9446 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
9447 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
9448 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
9449 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
9450 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
9451 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
9452 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
9455 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
9456 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
9461 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
9462 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
9463 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
9464 may be present in the image specification.
9468 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
9469 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
9470 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
9471 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
9473 *** Supported image types
9475 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
9477 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
9478 properties supported are:
9482 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9483 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9487 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9488 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9490 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
9491 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
9492 instead of a `:file' property.
9496 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
9500 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
9506 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
9507 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
9509 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
9511 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
9514 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
9515 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
9518 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
9520 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
9521 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
9522 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
9523 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
9525 Additional image properties supported are:
9527 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
9529 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
9530 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
9533 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
9534 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
9536 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
9537 to display compressed images.
9539 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
9541 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
9542 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
9547 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9548 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9552 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9553 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9555 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
9557 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
9558 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9561 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
9563 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
9564 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9567 **** GIF, image type `gif'
9569 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
9570 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
9572 Additional image properties supported are:
9576 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
9577 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
9580 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
9581 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
9582 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
9585 (defun show-anim (file max)
9586 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
9587 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
9589 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
9592 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
9595 (goto-char (point-min))
9596 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
9597 (insert-image img "x"))
9598 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
9600 **** PNG, image type `png'
9602 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
9603 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9606 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
9608 Additional image properties supported are:
9612 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
9613 integer. This is a required property.
9617 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
9618 must be a integer. This is an required property.
9622 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
9623 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
9624 files. This is an required property.
9626 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
9631 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
9632 which are supported in the current configuration.
9634 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
9635 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
9636 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
9637 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
9638 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
9640 *** Simplified image API, image.el
9642 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
9643 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
9644 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
9645 define an image based on available image types. The functions
9646 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
9651 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
9654 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
9655 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
9656 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
9657 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
9658 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
9659 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
9660 of the display margins.
9662 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
9663 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
9664 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
9665 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
9670 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
9671 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
9672 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
9673 that have a `help-echo' property.
9675 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
9676 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
9677 the window in which the help was found.
9679 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
9680 `help-echo' text property was found.
9682 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
9683 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
9685 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
9686 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
9689 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
9690 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
9692 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
9693 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
9694 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
9695 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
9696 used as help string.
9698 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
9699 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
9700 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
9702 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
9704 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
9705 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
9707 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
9708 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
9709 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
9710 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
9713 (global-set-key [A-down]
9716 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9717 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
9718 (global-set-key [A-up]
9721 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9722 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
9724 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
9726 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
9727 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
9728 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
9729 is called with one argument, POS.
9731 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
9732 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
9733 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
9734 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
9735 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
9737 ** Tool bar support.
9739 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
9740 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
9741 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
9742 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
9743 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
9744 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
9746 *** Tool bar item definitions
9748 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
9749 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
9750 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
9752 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
9753 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
9754 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
9755 property (see below).
9757 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
9758 binding are currently ignored.
9760 The following properties are recognized:
9764 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
9769 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
9773 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
9774 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
9775 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
9777 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
9779 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
9780 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
9784 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
9785 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
9786 meaning of each of the four elements:
9788 Index Use when item is
9789 ----------------------------------------
9790 0 enabled and selected
9791 1 enabled and deselected
9792 2 disabled and selected
9793 3 disabled and deselected
9795 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
9796 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
9798 `:help HELP-STRING'.
9800 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
9801 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
9803 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
9804 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
9805 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
9808 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
9809 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
9810 buffer-locally to override the global map.
9812 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
9814 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
9815 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
9816 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
9818 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
9819 raised when the mouse moves over them.
9821 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
9822 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
9823 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
9824 vertical margins . Default is 1.
9826 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
9827 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
9829 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
9831 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
9834 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
9835 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
9836 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
9838 is the original tool bar item definition, then
9840 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
9842 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
9845 ** Mode line changes.
9847 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
9849 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
9850 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
9851 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
9853 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
9854 a `local-map' text property.
9856 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
9857 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
9859 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
9860 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
9861 `local-map' property.
9863 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
9864 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
9867 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
9868 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
9870 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
9871 variable mode-line-format to nil.
9873 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
9875 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
9876 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
9877 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
9878 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
9881 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
9884 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
9885 position in the header-line.
9887 ** Text property `display'
9889 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
9890 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
9891 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
9892 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
9893 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
9895 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
9897 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
9898 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
9900 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
9901 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
9902 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
9903 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
9904 simpler form STRING as property value.
9906 *** Variable width and height spaces
9908 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
9909 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
9910 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
9911 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
9912 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
9913 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
9914 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
9916 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
9917 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
9918 properties described below.
9920 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
9921 characters having the `display' property.
9925 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
9926 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
9928 - :relative-width FACTOR
9930 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
9931 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
9932 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
9933 width of that character by FACTOR.
9937 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
9938 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
9940 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
9944 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
9947 - :relative-height FACTOR
9949 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
9950 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
9954 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
9955 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
9956 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
9959 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
9963 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
9964 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
9965 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
9966 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
9967 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
9968 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
9969 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
9970 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
9971 as display specification.
9973 *** Other display properties
9975 - (space-width FACTOR)
9977 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
9978 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
9983 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
9985 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
9986 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
9987 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
9988 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
9989 a font is available counts as a step.
9991 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
9992 as tall as the frame's default font.
9994 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
9995 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
9997 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
9998 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
10002 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
10003 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
10004 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
10005 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
10006 `height' subproperty.
10008 *** Conditional display properties
10010 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
10011 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
10012 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
10013 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
10014 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
10015 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
10016 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
10017 different when object is a string.
10019 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
10022 ** New menu separator types.
10024 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
10025 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
10026 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
10027 to specify other menu separator types.
10029 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
10031 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
10034 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
10036 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
10038 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
10040 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
10042 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
10044 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10046 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
10048 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10050 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
10052 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
10053 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
10055 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
10057 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
10059 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
10061 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
10063 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
10065 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
10067 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
10069 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10071 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
10073 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
10075 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
10077 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10079 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
10081 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
10083 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
10084 the corresponding single-line separators.
10086 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
10088 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
10089 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
10090 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
10091 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
10092 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
10093 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
10094 default foreground is black.
10096 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
10097 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
10098 `ScrollBarBackground').
10100 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
10101 settings for scroll bar colors.
10103 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
10104 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
10106 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
10107 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
10108 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
10109 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
10110 the original window start.
10112 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
10113 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
10114 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
10116 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
10118 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
10119 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
10120 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
10121 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
10123 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
10124 fixed-width and fixed-height.
10126 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
10128 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
10129 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
10130 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
10131 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
10132 temporarily to nil, for example
10134 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
10135 (enlarge-window 10))
10137 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
10138 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
10140 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
10141 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
10142 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
10143 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
10144 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
10145 support a vertical-bar cursor).
10149 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
10151 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
10154 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
10156 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
10158 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
10159 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
10160 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
10161 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
10162 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
10164 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
10168 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
10170 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
10174 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
10176 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
10177 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
10179 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
10181 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
10183 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
10184 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
10185 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
10187 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
10188 is the one that is used.
10190 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
10191 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
10192 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
10193 separate from the command's regular output.
10194 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
10195 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
10196 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
10199 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
10200 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
10201 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
10202 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
10204 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
10205 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
10206 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
10207 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
10209 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
10210 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
10211 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
10212 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
10214 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
10215 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
10216 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
10217 they never ignore case.
10219 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
10220 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
10221 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
10222 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
10223 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
10224 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
10225 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
10227 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
10228 the same format that was used in the file before.
10230 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
10231 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
10233 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
10234 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
10235 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
10237 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
10238 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
10239 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
10240 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
10241 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
10242 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
10243 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
10245 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
10246 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
10247 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
10248 format. You can now customize these variables.
10250 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
10251 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
10252 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
10253 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
10255 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
10256 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
10257 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
10259 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
10260 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
10261 doesn't have any effect.
10263 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
10264 not one per buffer.
10266 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
10267 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
10268 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
10270 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
10271 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
10272 `auto-show-mode' command.
10274 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
10275 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
10276 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
10277 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
10278 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
10280 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
10281 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
10283 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
10284 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
10285 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
10287 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
10288 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
10289 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
10290 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
10292 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
10294 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
10295 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
10296 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
10297 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
10298 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
10300 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
10301 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
10303 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
10304 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
10305 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
10306 `?' on other systems.
10308 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
10309 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
10312 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
10313 current codepage when it starts.
10317 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
10318 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
10319 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
10320 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
10321 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
10322 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
10326 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
10327 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
10329 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
10330 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
10331 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
10332 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
10333 buffer-file-coding-system.
10335 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
10336 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
10339 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
10340 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
10341 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
10342 list of possible coding systems.
10346 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
10347 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
10348 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
10349 docstring for details.
10351 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
10352 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
10353 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
10354 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
10355 lineup functions use this feature currently.
10357 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
10358 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
10360 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
10361 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
10363 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
10364 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
10365 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
10366 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
10369 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
10370 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
10372 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
10373 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
10374 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
10375 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
10377 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
10378 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
10379 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
10380 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
10381 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
10383 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
10385 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
10387 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
10388 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
10390 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
10392 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
10393 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
10394 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
10395 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
10396 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
10400 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
10401 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
10402 Gnus manual for the full story.
10404 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
10405 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
10406 group, which is created automatically.
10408 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
10411 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
10413 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
10414 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
10416 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
10419 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
10421 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
10422 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
10424 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
10426 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
10427 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
10429 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
10430 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
10432 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
10433 control over simplification.
10435 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
10437 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
10440 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
10442 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
10444 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
10445 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
10446 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
10448 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
10449 `a' forces normal posting method.
10451 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
10454 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
10455 to a non-nil value.
10457 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
10458 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
10460 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
10463 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
10465 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
10467 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
10468 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
10470 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
10471 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
10473 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
10475 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
10478 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
10479 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
10481 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
10482 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
10484 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
10486 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
10488 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
10490 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
10492 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
10493 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
10494 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
10496 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
10497 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
10498 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
10499 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
10500 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
10502 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
10503 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
10504 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
10505 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
10507 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
10508 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
10509 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
10512 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
10514 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
10515 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
10517 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
10518 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
10519 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
10520 removed from the label.
10522 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
10523 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
10525 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
10526 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
10528 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
10529 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
10532 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
10534 ** New/deleted modes and packages
10536 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
10537 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
10539 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
10540 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
10541 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
10543 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
10544 changes with a special face.
10546 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
10547 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
10548 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
10550 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
10552 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
10553 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
10554 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
10555 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
10556 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
10558 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
10559 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
10560 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
10562 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
10563 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
10564 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
10565 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
10566 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
10567 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
10568 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
10569 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
10570 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
10572 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
10573 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
10574 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
10575 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
10576 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
10579 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
10580 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
10581 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
10582 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
10583 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
10584 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
10586 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
10587 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
10588 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
10589 was not documented clearly before.
10591 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
10592 This includes Tetris and Snake.
10594 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
10596 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
10597 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
10598 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
10599 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
10601 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
10602 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
10603 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
10605 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
10607 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
10608 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
10610 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
10611 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
10614 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
10615 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
10616 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
10617 file names and attributes are returned.
10619 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
10620 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
10621 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
10622 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
10623 returns the result.
10625 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
10626 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
10628 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
10630 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
10631 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
10632 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
10635 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
10636 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
10639 The new function process-running-child-p
10640 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
10641 terminal to its own child process.
10643 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
10644 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
10645 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
10646 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
10648 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
10649 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
10651 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
10652 :included is an alias for :visible.
10654 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
10655 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
10656 to move or copy menu entries.
10658 ** Multibyte editing changes
10660 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
10661 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
10662 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
10663 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
10664 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
10665 (setq char (sref str idx)
10666 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
10667 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
10669 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
10670 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
10671 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
10673 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
10674 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
10675 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
10677 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
10679 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
10680 across the boundary.
10682 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
10683 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
10684 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
10685 contains 8-bit characters.
10686 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
10687 contains invalid characters.
10689 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
10690 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
10691 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
10692 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
10695 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
10696 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
10697 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
10698 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
10700 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
10701 compose Thai characters in a string.
10703 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
10704 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
10705 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
10706 menus should always use the third argument.
10708 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
10709 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
10710 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
10711 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
10713 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
10714 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
10715 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
10716 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
10718 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
10719 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
10720 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
10721 echo area contents.
10723 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
10725 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
10726 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
10727 requested feature cannot be loaded.
10729 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
10730 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
10731 means to clear out that attribute.
10733 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
10734 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
10736 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
10737 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
10738 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
10739 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
10741 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
10742 the gap of the current buffer.
10744 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
10745 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
10748 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
10749 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
10750 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
10751 it back in after any modifications have been made.
10753 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
10755 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
10756 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
10757 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
10758 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
10759 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
10761 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
10762 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
10763 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
10764 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
10765 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
10767 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
10768 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
10769 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
10771 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
10772 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
10773 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
10774 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
10775 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
10778 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
10779 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
10780 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
10781 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
10783 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
10785 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
10786 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
10787 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
10788 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
10790 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
10791 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
10792 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
10793 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
10794 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
10795 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
10796 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
10799 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
10802 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
10803 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
10804 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
10805 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
10806 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
10808 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
10809 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
10810 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
10811 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
10813 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
10814 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
10815 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
10816 something that most users not do.
10818 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
10819 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
10820 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
10823 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
10824 pasting operations.
10826 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
10827 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
10828 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
10829 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
10832 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
10833 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
10834 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
10835 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
10836 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
10839 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
10840 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
10841 to be confused by TeX commands.
10843 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
10844 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
10845 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
10846 of various alternative replacements and actions.
10848 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
10849 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
10850 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
10851 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
10852 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
10854 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
10855 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
10857 ** Changes in input method usage.
10859 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
10860 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
10863 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
10865 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
10866 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
10868 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
10869 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
10871 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
10873 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
10875 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
10876 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
10878 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
10879 given in the following case:
10880 o When you are using a complex input method.
10881 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
10883 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
10884 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
10885 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
10886 setting it to t is helpful.
10888 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
10890 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
10892 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
10893 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
10894 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
10895 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
10898 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
10899 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
10900 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
10903 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
10905 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
10907 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
10908 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
10910 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
10911 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
10912 its owner and group.
10914 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
10915 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
10917 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
10918 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
10920 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
10921 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
10922 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
10923 by the left edge of the rectangle.
10925 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
10926 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
10927 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
10928 for writing keyboard macros.
10930 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
10931 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
10932 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
10933 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
10934 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
10937 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
10939 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
10940 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
10943 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
10944 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
10945 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
10946 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
10948 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
10949 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
10950 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
10952 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
10953 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
10954 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
10955 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
10957 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
10958 failure if the command produces no output.
10960 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
10961 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
10964 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
10965 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
10966 function and variable names.
10968 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
10969 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
10970 file-coding-system-alist.
10972 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
10973 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
10974 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
10975 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
10976 according to the current fontset.
10978 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
10980 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
10981 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
10982 nonascii-insert-offset.
10984 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
10985 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
10986 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
10987 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
10989 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
10990 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
10992 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
10993 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
10995 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
10996 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
10999 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
11000 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
11002 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
11003 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
11004 all variables that have documentation.
11006 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
11007 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
11008 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
11009 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
11010 it should show; the default is 20.
11012 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
11013 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
11016 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
11017 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
11018 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
11019 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
11020 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
11021 Newly added options are included as well.
11023 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
11024 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
11025 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
11027 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
11030 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
11031 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
11033 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
11034 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
11037 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
11038 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
11041 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
11042 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
11043 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
11044 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
11047 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
11049 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
11050 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
11051 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
11053 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
11054 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
11055 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
11060 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
11061 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
11063 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
11064 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
11066 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
11067 read and post multi-lingual articles.
11069 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
11070 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
11071 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
11072 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
11073 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
11074 made invisible again.
11076 ** Mail reading and sending changes
11078 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
11079 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
11080 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
11083 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
11084 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
11085 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
11086 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
11087 rmail-default-body-file.
11089 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
11090 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
11091 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
11093 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
11094 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
11095 is evaluated to insert the signature.
11097 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
11098 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
11099 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
11100 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
11101 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
11102 especially interested in trying feedmail.
11104 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
11105 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
11106 provided by feedmail are:
11108 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
11109 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
11110 there is also a queue for draft messages
11112 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
11113 be prompted for confirmation
11115 **** does smart filling of address headers
11117 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
11118 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
11119 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
11121 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
11122 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
11123 /usr/lib/sendmail, and Emacs Lisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
11124 function for something else (10-20 lines of Lisp code).
11128 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
11129 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
11131 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
11132 run Dired on the directory name at point.
11134 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
11135 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
11136 for a specified regexp.
11140 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
11143 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
11144 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
11147 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
11148 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
11149 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
11150 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
11152 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
11153 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
11154 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
11155 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
11156 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
11158 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
11159 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
11160 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
11161 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
11162 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
11164 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
11165 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
11166 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
11167 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
11169 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
11170 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
11171 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
11173 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
11174 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
11175 session to resolve them.
11177 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
11178 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
11179 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
11182 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
11183 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
11184 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
11185 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
11186 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
11187 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
11190 ** Changes in Font Lock
11192 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
11193 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
11194 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
11195 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
11196 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
11198 ** Frame name display changes
11200 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
11201 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
11202 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
11203 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
11205 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
11206 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
11209 ** Comint (subshell) changes
11211 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
11212 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
11213 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
11215 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
11217 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
11218 that is, the line after the last line you got.
11219 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
11221 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
11222 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
11223 the following line.
11225 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
11226 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
11227 previously sent input.
11229 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
11230 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
11231 as the search string.
11233 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
11234 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
11238 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
11239 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
11240 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
11243 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
11244 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
11245 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
11246 style is still the default however.
11248 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
11250 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
11251 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
11252 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
11254 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
11255 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
11257 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
11258 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
11260 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
11261 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
11263 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
11264 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
11266 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
11267 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
11268 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
11269 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
11271 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
11273 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
11274 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
11275 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
11277 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
11278 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
11279 expanding dynamically.
11281 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
11282 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
11284 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
11285 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
11286 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
11287 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
11289 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
11291 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11293 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
11294 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
11295 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
11296 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
11297 against the first word in the title.
11299 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
11300 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
11301 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
11302 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
11303 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
11304 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
11306 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
11307 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
11308 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
11309 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
11311 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
11313 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
11314 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
11315 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
11316 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
11317 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
11318 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
11320 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
11321 Editing group once the package is loaded.
11323 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
11324 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
11325 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
11327 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
11328 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
11332 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
11333 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
11334 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
11336 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
11337 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
11338 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
11339 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
11342 o URLs are automatically skipped
11343 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
11345 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
11347 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
11349 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
11350 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
11351 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
11352 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
11354 *** New recursive parser.
11356 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
11357 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
11358 recursive parser scans the individual files.
11360 *** Parsing only part of a document.
11362 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
11363 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
11364 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
11366 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
11368 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
11370 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
11372 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
11374 *** Using multiple selection buffers
11376 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
11377 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
11379 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
11381 *** References to external documents.
11383 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
11384 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
11385 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
11386 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
11387 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
11388 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
11389 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
11391 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
11393 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
11394 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
11396 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
11397 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
11399 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
11401 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
11402 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
11404 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
11406 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
11407 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
11408 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
11409 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
11410 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
11411 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
11414 *** Support for the varioref package
11416 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
11420 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
11421 and citations are created. These hooks are
11422 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
11423 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
11425 *** Citations outside LaTeX
11427 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
11428 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
11430 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
11432 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
11433 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
11436 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
11438 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
11439 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
11440 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
11441 directories that contain the same file name.
11443 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
11444 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
11445 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
11446 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
11447 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
11448 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
11449 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
11452 ** New modes and packages
11454 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
11455 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
11456 it, but some do not.
11458 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
11461 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
11462 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
11463 around in a buffer.
11465 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
11467 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
11468 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
11469 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
11470 established system of notation similar to Chess.
11472 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
11473 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
11474 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
11476 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
11477 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
11478 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
11479 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
11480 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
11483 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
11484 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
11486 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
11487 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
11488 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
11489 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
11491 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
11493 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
11494 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
11495 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
11496 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
11497 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
11498 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
11499 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
11500 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
11501 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
11502 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
11503 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
11505 Platform-specific modes:
11507 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
11508 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
11509 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
11510 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
11511 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
11512 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
11513 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
11514 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
11515 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
11517 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11519 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
11520 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
11521 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
11522 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
11524 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
11525 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
11526 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
11528 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
11529 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
11530 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
11531 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
11533 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
11534 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
11535 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
11538 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
11539 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
11540 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
11541 current input method for reading this one event.
11543 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
11544 now control whether to output certain characters as
11545 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
11546 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
11547 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
11548 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
11550 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11552 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
11553 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
11555 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
11556 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
11557 always increases point by 1.
11559 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
11560 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
11562 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
11564 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
11565 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
11566 default value changed. For example,
11568 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
11573 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
11576 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
11577 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
11578 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
11579 `:version' in the top level group.
11581 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
11583 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
11584 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
11586 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
11587 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
11588 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
11591 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
11592 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
11595 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
11596 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
11597 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
11599 ** Frame-local variables.
11601 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
11602 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
11603 local bindings for that variable.
11605 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
11606 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
11607 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
11610 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
11611 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
11612 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
11613 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
11615 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
11616 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
11617 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
11618 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
11620 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
11621 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
11622 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
11623 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
11624 See the documentation in sregex.el.
11626 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
11627 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
11628 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
11629 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
11631 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
11632 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
11634 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
11635 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
11636 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
11638 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
11639 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
11640 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
11641 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
11643 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
11644 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
11647 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
11648 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
11649 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
11650 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
11651 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
11653 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
11654 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
11655 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
11656 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
11658 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
11659 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
11660 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
11661 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
11662 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
11664 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
11665 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
11666 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
11667 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
11669 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
11670 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
11671 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
11673 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
11674 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
11675 was directed to display this buffer.
11677 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
11678 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
11679 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
11680 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
11681 set-window-configuration.
11683 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
11684 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
11685 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
11686 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
11688 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
11689 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
11690 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
11692 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
11693 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
11694 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
11696 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
11697 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
11699 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
11700 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
11702 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
11703 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
11704 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
11706 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
11707 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
11708 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
11709 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
11713 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
11714 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
11717 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
11718 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
11719 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
11720 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
11721 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
11723 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
11725 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
11726 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
11727 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
11728 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
11731 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
11732 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
11733 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
11734 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
11735 The supported properties include
11737 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11739 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11740 item should appear in the menu.
11742 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
11743 which will be REAL-BINDING.
11744 It should return a binding to use instead.
11746 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
11747 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
11748 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
11749 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
11750 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
11753 This means that the command normally has no
11754 keyboard equivalent.
11755 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
11756 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
11757 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
11758 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
11759 value says whether this button is currently selected.
11761 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
11762 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
11764 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
11768 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
11769 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
11770 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
11771 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
11773 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
11775 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11776 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
11777 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
11778 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
11779 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
11780 forward, away from the user.
11782 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11784 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
11785 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
11786 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
11787 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
11788 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
11790 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
11792 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11793 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
11794 that were dragged and dropped.
11796 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11798 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
11800 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
11801 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
11802 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
11804 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
11805 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
11806 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
11808 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
11809 in Emacs 19 and before.
11811 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
11812 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
11814 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
11815 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
11816 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
11817 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
11819 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
11820 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
11821 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
11822 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
11823 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
11825 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
11826 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
11827 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
11828 consistent with the new representation.
11830 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
11831 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
11832 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
11833 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
11835 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
11836 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
11837 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
11839 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
11840 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
11841 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
11843 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
11844 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
11845 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
11847 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
11848 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
11850 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
11851 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
11853 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
11854 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
11855 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
11856 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
11858 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
11859 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
11861 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
11862 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
11863 buffer or string being searched.
11865 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
11866 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
11867 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
11868 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
11869 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
11870 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
11871 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
11873 *** Structure of coding system changed.
11875 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
11876 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
11877 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
11878 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
11879 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
11880 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
11881 define-coding-system-alias.
11883 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
11884 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
11885 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
11886 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
11887 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
11888 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
11889 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
11892 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
11893 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
11894 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
11895 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
11897 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
11898 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
11899 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
11900 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
11902 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
11903 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
11904 This function requires a user interaction.
11906 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
11907 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
11908 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
11909 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
11910 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
11911 select-safe-coding-system.
11913 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
11914 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
11915 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
11918 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
11919 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
11920 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
11922 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
11923 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
11924 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
11925 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
11927 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
11928 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
11929 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
11932 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
11933 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
11935 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
11936 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
11937 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
11938 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
11939 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
11940 range of characters.
11942 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
11943 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
11945 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
11946 in the current buffer at position POS.
11948 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
11949 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
11950 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
11951 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
11952 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
11953 binding input-method-function to nil.
11955 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
11956 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
11957 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
11958 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
11959 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
11961 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
11962 subsequent events of a key sequence.
11964 *** You can customize any language environment by using
11965 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
11967 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
11968 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
11969 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
11970 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
11971 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
11973 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
11975 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
11976 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
11977 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
11980 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
11981 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
11983 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
11984 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
11985 in your .emacs file.)
11987 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
11988 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
11990 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
11991 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
11993 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
11994 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
11997 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
11998 delete the character before point, as usual.
12000 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
12001 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
12002 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
12004 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
12005 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
12006 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
12007 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
12008 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
12011 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
12012 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
12013 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
12014 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
12015 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
12017 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
12018 and is an alias for it.
12020 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
12021 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
12023 ** Scrolling changes
12025 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
12026 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
12028 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
12029 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
12032 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
12033 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
12034 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
12035 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
12037 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
12038 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
12039 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
12040 recenters the window.
12042 ** International character set support (MULE)
12044 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
12045 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
12046 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
12047 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
12048 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
12049 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
12051 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
12052 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
12053 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
12054 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
12055 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
12057 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
12058 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
12059 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
12060 language, to make it possible to type them.
12062 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
12063 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
12065 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
12066 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
12068 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
12070 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
12072 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
12073 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
12074 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
12075 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
12076 characters for their work until they want to change.
12080 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
12081 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
12082 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
12083 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
12084 support several input methods.
12086 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
12087 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
12090 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
12091 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
12092 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
12093 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
12094 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
12097 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
12098 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
12099 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
12100 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
12101 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
12103 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
12104 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
12105 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
12106 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
12108 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
12109 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
12110 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
12111 the first guess is wrong.
12113 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
12114 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
12116 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
12117 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
12118 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
12119 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
12121 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
12122 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
12123 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
12124 translate automatically to and from either one.
12126 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
12128 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
12129 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
12130 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
12133 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
12134 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
12135 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
12136 multibyte characters in that buffer.
12138 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
12139 character conversion as well.
12141 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
12143 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
12144 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
12145 requires using many fonts.
12147 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
12148 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
12150 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
12151 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
12152 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
12153 you would use a font.
12155 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
12156 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
12157 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
12159 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
12160 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
12163 *** Defining fontsets.
12165 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
12166 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
12167 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
12169 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
12170 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
12171 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
12172 standard fontset are created automatically.
12174 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
12175 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
12176 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
12177 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
12178 name is `fontset-startup'.
12180 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
12181 The resource value should have this form:
12182 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
12183 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
12184 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
12185 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
12186 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
12187 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
12188 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
12189 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
12190 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
12192 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
12193 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
12194 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
12196 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
12197 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
12198 following resource,
12199 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
12200 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
12201 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
12202 Here is the substitution rule:
12203 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
12204 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
12205 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
12206 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
12207 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
12209 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
12210 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
12211 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
12213 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
12214 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
12215 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
12216 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
12219 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
12220 defaults for a particular choice of language.
12222 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
12223 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
12224 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
12225 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
12226 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
12227 system for new files that you create.
12229 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
12230 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
12231 whole Emacs session.
12233 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
12234 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
12235 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
12237 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
12238 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
12239 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
12240 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
12241 coding systems that Emacs supports.
12243 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
12244 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
12245 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
12246 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
12247 is used for *the immediately following command*.
12249 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
12250 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
12252 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
12253 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
12255 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
12256 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
12258 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
12259 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
12260 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
12261 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
12264 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
12265 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
12266 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
12267 translated into that character code.
12269 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
12270 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
12272 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
12274 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
12275 the coding system for keyboard input.
12277 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
12278 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
12279 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
12281 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
12283 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
12284 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
12285 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
12286 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
12287 designed to work with terminals.
12289 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
12290 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
12291 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
12292 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
12293 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
12294 in the corresponding buffer.
12296 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
12298 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
12299 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
12300 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
12302 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
12303 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
12304 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
12307 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
12308 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
12310 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
12311 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
12312 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
12313 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
12315 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
12316 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
12317 related information.
12319 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
12320 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
12323 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
12324 information about the support for a particular language.
12325 You specify the language as an argument.
12327 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
12328 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
12331 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
12332 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
12333 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
12334 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
12336 A alternativnyj (Russian)
12338 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
12339 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
12340 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
12341 E euc-japan (Japanese)
12342 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12343 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
12344 K euc-korea (Korean)
12347 S shift_jis (Japanese)
12350 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
12351 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12352 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
12353 v viqr (Vietnamese)
12356 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
12357 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
12358 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
12359 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
12361 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
12362 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
12364 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
12365 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
12366 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
12367 Rmail files themselves.
12369 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
12370 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
12372 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
12375 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
12376 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
12377 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
12378 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
12379 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
12381 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
12382 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
12383 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
12386 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
12387 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
12388 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
12389 without any conversion.
12391 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
12392 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
12393 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
12394 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
12396 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
12397 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
12399 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
12400 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
12402 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
12403 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
12405 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
12406 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
12407 in the buffer before point.
12409 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
12410 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
12413 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
12414 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
12416 ** File locking works with NFS now.
12418 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
12419 in the same directory as FILENAME.
12421 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
12422 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
12423 can become a bottleneck.
12425 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
12426 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
12427 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
12428 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
12429 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
12430 so useful that the change is worth while.
12432 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
12433 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
12434 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
12435 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
12437 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
12438 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
12441 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
12442 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
12443 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
12445 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
12446 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
12447 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
12449 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
12450 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
12451 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
12453 ** Changes in View mode.
12455 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
12456 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
12458 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
12459 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
12461 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
12464 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
12465 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
12467 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
12468 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
12469 not just the selected window.
12471 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
12472 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
12473 turns View mode on or off.
12475 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
12476 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
12477 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
12479 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
12480 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
12482 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
12483 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
12484 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
12485 which version to compare with.
12487 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
12488 blocks if a match is inside the block.
12490 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
12491 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
12492 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
12493 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
12495 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
12496 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
12497 blocks, all of them or none.
12499 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
12500 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
12501 confirmation first.
12503 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
12504 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
12505 However, the mode will not be changed if
12506 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
12507 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
12508 not suitable for ordinary files, or
12509 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
12511 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
12513 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
12514 these commands do not change the major mode.
12516 ** M-x occur changes.
12518 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
12519 it performs a case-sensitive search.
12521 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
12522 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
12523 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
12525 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
12526 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
12527 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
12528 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
12529 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
12531 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
12532 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
12533 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
12534 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
12536 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12537 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
12538 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
12540 ** Outline mode changes.
12542 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
12544 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
12546 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
12547 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
12548 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
12549 was already active.
12551 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
12552 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
12553 get confused by it.
12555 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
12556 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
12558 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
12560 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
12561 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
12562 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
12563 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
12565 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
12566 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
12567 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
12569 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
12570 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
12573 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
12574 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
12575 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
12576 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
12578 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
12579 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
12580 can be. The default value is 30.
12582 ** Changes in Mail mode.
12584 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
12585 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
12586 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
12587 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
12588 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
12591 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
12592 compose-mail-other-frame.
12594 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
12595 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
12596 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
12597 buffer that shows the original message.
12599 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
12600 with separator lines around the contents.
12602 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
12603 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
12604 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
12605 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
12607 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
12609 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
12610 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
12611 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
12612 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
12614 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
12615 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
12618 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
12619 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
12622 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
12623 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
12624 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
12625 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
12627 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
12628 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
12629 be taken to be magic.
12631 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
12632 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
12633 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
12635 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
12636 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
12638 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
12639 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
12641 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
12643 new key dired.el binding old key
12644 ------- ---------------- -------
12645 * c dired-change-marks c
12647 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
12648 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
12649 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
12651 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
12652 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
12653 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
12654 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
12655 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
12656 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
12660 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
12661 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
12662 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
12663 each time you run it.
12665 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
12666 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
12668 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
12669 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
12670 means to move in the opposite direction.
12672 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
12673 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
12675 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
12676 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
12677 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
12678 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
12683 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
12685 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
12688 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
12689 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
12691 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
12694 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
12696 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
12698 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
12700 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
12701 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
12702 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
12704 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
12706 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
12708 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
12709 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
12711 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
12712 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
12713 used to pick articles.
12715 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
12716 another have been added.
12718 `M-x gnus-change-server'
12720 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
12721 generating lines in buffers.
12723 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
12726 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
12728 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
12730 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
12732 *** Scores can be decayed.
12734 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
12736 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
12737 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
12739 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
12742 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
12744 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
12745 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
12747 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
12749 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
12750 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
12752 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
12753 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
12755 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
12758 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
12759 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
12761 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
12763 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
12765 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
12767 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
12769 Use the `Y c' command.
12771 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
12773 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
12775 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
12777 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
12778 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
12780 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
12782 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
12784 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
12785 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
12787 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
12789 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
12790 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
12791 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
12792 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
12795 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
12796 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
12797 particular news group. This can be done by:
12799 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
12801 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
12802 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
12803 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
12804 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
12805 for reading and posting).
12807 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
12808 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
12809 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
12810 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
12813 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
12814 default. Here are some of these default settings:
12816 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
12817 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
12818 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
12819 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
12820 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
12822 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
12823 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
12825 ** CC mode changes.
12827 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
12828 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
12829 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
12830 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
12831 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
12834 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
12835 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
12836 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
12837 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
12838 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
12839 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
12841 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
12842 of the current buffer.
12844 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
12845 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
12846 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
12848 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
12849 style that the Python developers like.
12851 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
12852 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
12853 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
12855 ** VC Changes [new]
12857 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
12858 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
12859 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
12861 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
12862 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
12865 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
12866 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
12868 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
12869 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
12870 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
12871 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
12873 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
12874 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
12876 ** Calendar changes.
12878 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
12879 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
12880 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
12881 following/previous years.
12883 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
12884 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
12885 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
12886 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
12887 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
12888 supposed attribute of God.
12890 ** ps-print changes
12892 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
12895 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
12897 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
12898 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
12899 printer system has this behavior, set variable
12900 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
12902 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
12903 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
12904 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
12906 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
12907 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
12909 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
12910 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
12911 printing for your printer.
12913 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
12914 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
12916 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
12917 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
12919 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
12920 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
12921 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
12922 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
12923 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
12924 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
12925 The default value is nil.
12927 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
12928 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
12930 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
12931 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
12932 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
12933 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
12934 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
12935 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
12936 color). The default is 0 ("black").
12938 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
12939 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
12941 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
12942 The default is 0 ("black").
12944 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
12945 The default is 0 ("black").
12947 border-width Specify the border width.
12948 The default is 0.4.
12950 Any other property is ignored.
12952 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
12953 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
12956 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
12957 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
12958 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
12959 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
12960 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
12961 controlling headers.
12963 *** Color management (subgroup)
12965 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
12968 *** Face Management (subgroup)
12970 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
12971 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
12972 background should be used. Valid values are:
12974 t always use face background color.
12975 nil never use face background color.
12976 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
12978 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
12980 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
12983 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
12984 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
12986 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
12989 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
12990 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
12991 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
12993 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
12997 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
13001 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
13005 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
13009 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
13011 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
13013 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
13016 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
13017 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
13018 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
13020 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
13021 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13022 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13023 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13024 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13028 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13029 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13030 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13033 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13034 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13035 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
13036 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
13037 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
13038 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13039 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13040 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13041 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
13042 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
13043 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
13046 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13048 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
13051 *** Printer management (subgroup)
13053 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
13054 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
13055 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
13056 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
13059 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
13060 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
13061 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
13063 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
13064 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
13067 *** Page settings (subgroup)
13069 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
13070 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
13071 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
13072 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
13073 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
13074 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
13077 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
13078 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
13079 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
13081 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
13082 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
13083 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
13084 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
13085 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
13086 its TO, are ignored.
13088 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
13089 pages. Valid values are:
13091 nil print all pages.
13093 `even-page' print only even pages.
13095 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
13097 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
13098 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13099 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
13100 print only the even sheet of paper.
13102 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
13103 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13104 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
13105 only the odd sheet of paper.
13107 Any other value is treated as nil.
13109 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
13110 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
13111 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
13113 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
13115 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
13116 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
13118 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
13119 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13120 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
13121 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13122 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13123 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13124 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13126 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
13127 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13128 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
13129 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
13130 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
13131 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
13132 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
13134 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
13136 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
13137 messages should be sent.
13139 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
13140 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
13141 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
13143 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
13145 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
13146 points for line numbers.
13148 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
13149 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
13151 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
13152 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
13153 to 2, the printing will look like:
13165 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
13166 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
13169 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
13170 zebra stripe is to be printed.
13172 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
13174 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
13175 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
13176 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
13177 3, the output will look like:
13191 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
13192 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
13194 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
13195 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13198 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
13199 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13202 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
13204 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
13205 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
13207 ** hideshow changes.
13209 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
13212 *** Support for java-mode added.
13214 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
13215 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
13217 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
13218 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
13219 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
13221 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
13222 robust and a lot faster.
13224 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
13226 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
13227 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
13228 documentation for more details.
13230 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
13232 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
13233 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
13234 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
13235 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
13236 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
13238 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
13239 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
13240 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
13241 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
13247 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
13248 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
13249 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
13250 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
13251 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
13252 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
13254 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
13256 *** Maximum decoration
13258 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
13259 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
13260 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
13261 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
13262 to get the old behavior.
13266 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
13268 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
13269 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
13271 *** Configurable support
13273 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
13274 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
13275 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
13276 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
13277 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
13278 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
13279 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
13281 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
13282 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
13283 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
13285 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
13287 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
13288 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
13291 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
13293 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
13299 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
13300 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
13301 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
13302 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
13304 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
13306 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
13307 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
13308 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
13310 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
13312 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
13313 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
13314 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
13315 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
13316 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
13317 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
13318 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
13320 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
13321 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
13322 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
13323 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
13324 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
13325 the command M-o M-o (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
13327 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
13329 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
13330 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
13331 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
13332 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
13334 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
13337 ** Ada mode changes.
13339 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
13340 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
13341 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
13342 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
13345 *** There are two new commands:
13346 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
13347 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
13349 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
13350 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
13351 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
13353 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
13354 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
13355 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
13357 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
13358 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
13359 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
13360 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
13362 ** Scheme mode changes.
13364 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
13365 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
13366 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
13367 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
13370 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
13371 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
13372 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
13373 variables as buffer-local variables.
13375 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
13376 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
13378 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
13380 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
13381 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
13382 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
13383 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
13385 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
13386 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
13389 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
13390 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
13391 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
13392 option takes precedence.
13394 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
13395 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
13396 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
13398 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
13399 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
13402 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
13403 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
13405 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
13406 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
13409 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
13410 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
13411 these register values no longer become completely useless.
13412 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
13413 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
13414 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
13416 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
13417 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
13418 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
13419 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
13421 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
13422 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
13423 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
13424 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
13425 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
13427 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
13428 since it applies only to the current frame.
13430 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
13431 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
13432 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
13434 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
13435 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
13436 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
13437 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
13438 instead of just the file you are editing.
13442 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
13443 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
13444 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
13445 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
13446 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
13449 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
13450 knows which kind of label is needed.
13452 C-c ) reftex-reference
13453 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
13454 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
13456 C-c [ reftex-citation
13457 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
13458 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
13460 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
13461 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
13464 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
13465 can quickly jump to every section.
13467 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
13468 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
13469 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
13470 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
13471 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
13473 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
13475 *** Info documentation is now available.
13477 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
13478 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
13480 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
13481 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
13483 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
13484 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
13486 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
13487 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
13488 appropriate functions.
13490 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
13491 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
13493 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
13496 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
13497 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
13499 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
13500 shall be delimited.
13502 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
13503 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
13504 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
13506 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
13507 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
13508 prefixed with `ALT'.
13510 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
13511 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
13512 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
13515 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
13516 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
13517 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
13519 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
13520 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
13522 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
13523 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
13524 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
13526 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
13528 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
13530 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
13531 from alien sources.
13533 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
13534 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
13537 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
13540 *** Added support for imenu.
13542 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
13543 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
13544 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
13545 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
13547 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
13548 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
13550 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
13552 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
13554 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
13555 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
13556 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
13559 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
13560 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
13562 ** browse-url changes
13564 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
13565 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
13566 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
13567 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
13568 customization variables.
13570 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
13572 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
13573 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
13574 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
13576 ** Changes in Ediff
13578 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
13579 pops up the Info file for this command.
13581 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
13582 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
13583 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
13586 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
13587 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
13588 files in the same directory.
13590 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
13591 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
13592 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
13594 ** Changes in Viper
13596 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
13597 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
13599 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
13600 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
13601 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
13602 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
13603 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
13604 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
13605 color when Viper is in insert state.
13606 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
13607 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
13608 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
13612 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
13613 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
13614 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
13615 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
13616 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
13618 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
13620 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
13621 constructs are tagged. Files are recognized by the extension .java.
13623 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
13624 recognized by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
13625 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
13627 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
13628 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
13629 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
13630 methods and protocols.
13632 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognized by the extension
13633 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
13634 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
13637 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
13638 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
13639 at least M times and as many as N times.
13641 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
13642 in files has changed slightly.
13644 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
13645 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
13646 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
13647 with old time-stamp-format values.
13649 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
13650 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
13651 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
13654 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
13655 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
13656 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
13657 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
13658 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
13659 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
13661 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
13662 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
13663 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
13665 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
13666 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
13667 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
13668 recommended now will continue to work then.
13670 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
13673 ** There are some additional major modes:
13675 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
13676 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
13677 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
13679 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
13680 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
13683 ** New Lisp packages include:
13685 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
13687 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
13688 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
13690 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
13692 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
13695 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
13696 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
13699 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
13700 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
13701 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
13702 strings or comments.
13704 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
13705 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
13706 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
13707 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
13710 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
13711 can visit them by short forms of their names.
13713 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
13714 Emacs Lisp function at point.
13716 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
13718 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
13719 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
13721 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
13723 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
13725 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
13727 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
13728 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
13730 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
13731 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
13732 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
13733 original place after inserting the copy.
13735 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
13738 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
13739 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
13740 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
13742 Enable mouse-drag with:
13743 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
13745 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
13747 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
13748 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
13750 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
13751 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
13755 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
13756 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
13757 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
13758 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
13759 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
13760 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
13761 instance) and vice versa.
13763 To use this package load it using
13764 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
13765 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
13766 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
13767 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
13768 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
13769 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
13771 *** Interface to ph.
13773 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
13775 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
13776 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
13779 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
13781 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
13782 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
13783 while the real cursor does not move.
13785 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
13786 for visiting your favorite web sites.
13788 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
13789 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
13793 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
13794 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
13795 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
13796 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
13798 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
13800 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
13802 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
13804 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
13805 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
13806 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
13807 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
13808 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
13810 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
13811 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
13812 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
13813 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
13814 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
13815 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
13817 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
13819 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
13820 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
13821 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
13822 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
13824 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
13825 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
13827 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
13828 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
13831 ** Basic Lisp changes
13833 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
13834 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
13836 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
13837 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
13840 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
13842 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
13844 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
13845 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
13847 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
13848 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
13851 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
13853 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
13855 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
13857 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
13858 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
13859 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
13862 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
13863 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
13864 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
13866 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
13867 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
13868 adding one of these suffixes.
13870 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
13871 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
13872 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
13874 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
13875 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
13877 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
13879 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
13880 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
13882 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
13883 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
13885 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
13887 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
13888 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
13890 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
13891 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
13892 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
13893 works using `save-current-buffer'.
13895 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
13896 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
13899 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
13900 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
13901 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
13904 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
13905 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
13908 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
13910 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
13911 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
13912 Then it returns that string.
13914 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
13916 (with-output-to-string
13917 (princ "The buffer is ")
13918 (princ (buffer-name)))
13920 returns "The buffer is foo".
13922 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
13925 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
13926 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
13927 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
13929 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
13930 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
13932 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
13933 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
13934 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
13935 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
13936 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
13937 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
13939 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
13940 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
13941 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
13944 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
13945 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
13946 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
13947 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
13948 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
13950 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
13951 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
13952 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
13953 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
13955 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
13956 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
13958 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
13960 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
13961 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
13962 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
13963 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
13966 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
13967 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
13970 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
13972 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
13973 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
13974 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
13975 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
13976 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
13978 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
13980 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
13981 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
13982 more than the number of characters.
13984 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
13985 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
13986 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
13987 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
13988 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
13989 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
13991 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
13992 and returns a string containing those characters.
13994 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
13995 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
13996 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
13997 character, sref signals an error.
13999 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
14000 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
14001 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14003 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
14004 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
14005 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14007 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
14008 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
14009 to a vector of the characters in it.
14011 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
14012 of a string. You call it as follows:
14014 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
14016 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
14017 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
14018 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
14019 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
14020 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
14022 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
14023 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14025 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
14026 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14028 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
14029 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
14030 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
14031 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
14033 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
14035 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
14037 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
14038 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
14039 are not included in the resulting value.
14041 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
14042 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
14043 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
14044 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
14046 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
14047 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
14048 character extends across that column), then the padding character
14049 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
14050 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
14051 column START-COLUMN.
14053 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
14054 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
14055 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
14056 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
14057 changed text, before the change.
14059 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
14060 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
14061 one character set for each script, not for each language.
14063 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
14065 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
14067 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
14068 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
14070 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
14071 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
14072 which identify the character within that character set.
14074 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
14075 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
14076 opposite of split-char.
14078 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
14079 of all the characters between BEG and END.
14081 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
14082 of all the characters in a string.
14084 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
14085 and specifying coding systems.
14087 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
14088 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
14089 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
14090 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
14091 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
14092 as what to do about code conversion.)
14094 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
14095 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
14097 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14098 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14099 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
14101 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14102 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
14103 to match against a file name.
14105 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14106 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14107 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14108 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14109 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14110 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14112 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14113 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14115 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
14116 the coding system to use for network sockets.
14118 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14119 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
14120 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
14123 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14124 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14125 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14126 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14127 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14128 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14130 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14131 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14133 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14134 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14135 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
14136 start the subprocess.
14138 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
14139 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
14140 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
14141 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
14142 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
14144 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
14145 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
14148 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
14149 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
14150 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
14151 connection permanently or until overridden.
14153 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
14154 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
14155 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
14156 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
14157 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
14158 system for one operation at a time.
14160 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
14161 files, subprocesses or network connections.
14163 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
14164 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
14165 The value is a cons cell,
14166 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
14167 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
14168 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
14169 input to the subprocess.
14171 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
14172 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
14174 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
14175 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
14176 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
14178 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
14179 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
14180 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
14181 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
14184 Thus, instead of writing
14186 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
14187 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
14189 you would now write this:
14191 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
14192 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
14196 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
14197 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
14198 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
14199 for a description of them.
14201 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
14202 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
14204 (defgroup ispell nil
14205 "Spell checking using Ispell."
14208 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
14209 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
14210 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
14211 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
14212 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
14214 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
14215 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
14216 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
14217 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
14218 first-level subgroups.
14220 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
14222 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
14223 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
14227 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
14228 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
14229 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
14230 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
14231 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
14232 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
14234 ** Text property changes
14236 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
14239 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
14240 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
14241 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
14242 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
14243 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
14245 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
14246 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
14247 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
14248 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
14250 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
14251 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
14252 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
14254 ** Changes in invisibility features
14256 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
14257 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
14258 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
14259 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
14260 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
14261 make the overlay visible.
14263 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
14264 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
14265 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
14266 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
14267 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
14268 t when it should hide it.
14270 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
14272 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
14273 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
14274 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
14275 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
14276 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
14277 Here is an example of how to do this:
14279 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
14280 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14281 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
14282 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14285 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
14288 ;; When done with the overlays:
14289 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14290 ;; Or respectively:
14291 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14293 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
14295 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
14296 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
14297 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
14298 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
14300 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
14301 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
14302 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
14304 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
14305 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
14307 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
14308 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
14310 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
14311 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
14312 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
14314 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
14315 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
14316 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
14317 determine the syntax type of the character.
14319 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
14320 of the current buffer.
14322 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
14323 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
14324 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
14326 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
14327 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
14328 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
14329 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
14330 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
14332 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
14335 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
14336 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
14337 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
14339 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
14340 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
14341 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
14342 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
14343 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
14345 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
14346 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
14347 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
14349 ** Changes in face features
14351 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
14352 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
14354 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
14355 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
14357 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
14358 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
14360 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
14361 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
14363 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
14364 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
14365 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
14366 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
14369 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
14370 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
14372 ** Changes in file-handling functions
14374 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
14375 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
14376 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
14377 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
14379 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
14382 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
14383 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
14385 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
14386 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
14388 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
14389 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
14391 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
14392 character code conversion as well as other things.
14394 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
14395 (formerly it did not).
14397 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
14398 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
14400 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
14401 instead of constant strings.
14403 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
14404 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
14405 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
14407 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
14408 in the same way as before.
14410 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
14411 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
14412 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
14414 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
14415 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
14416 else, and returns nil.
14418 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
14419 directory cannot be listed.
14421 ** Changes in minibuffer input
14423 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
14424 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
14425 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
14426 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
14429 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
14430 It is available through the history command M-n.
14432 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
14433 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
14434 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
14435 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
14436 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
14438 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
14439 argument in this way.
14441 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
14442 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
14443 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
14445 ** Echo area features
14447 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
14448 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
14449 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
14450 after the echo area is cleared.
14452 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
14453 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
14455 ** Keyboard input features
14457 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
14458 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
14460 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
14461 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
14462 by keyboard macros.
14464 ** Frame-related changes
14466 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
14467 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
14468 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
14470 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
14471 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
14472 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
14474 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
14475 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
14476 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
14477 in the selected frame.
14479 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
14480 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
14481 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
14483 ** X Windows features
14485 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
14486 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
14487 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
14489 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
14490 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
14492 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
14493 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
14494 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
14496 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
14497 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
14499 ** Subprocess features
14501 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
14502 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
14505 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
14506 and returns the output from the command as a string.
14508 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
14509 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
14511 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
14512 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
14514 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
14515 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
14516 goes after the other menu items.
14518 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
14519 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
14520 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
14523 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
14524 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
14526 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
14527 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
14530 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
14531 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
14532 but its hook is still run.
14534 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
14535 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
14537 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
14538 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
14539 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
14541 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
14542 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
14543 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
14546 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
14547 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
14549 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
14550 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
14551 functions like display-time.
14553 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
14554 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
14556 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
14557 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
14558 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
14560 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
14561 if there is an error in compilation.
14563 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
14564 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
14565 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
14566 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
14568 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
14569 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
14570 the *scratch* buffer.
14572 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
14573 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
14574 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
14575 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
14577 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
14578 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
14579 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
14581 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
14582 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
14583 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
14584 and compose-mail-other-frame.
14586 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
14587 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
14588 full name of the specified user will be returned.
14590 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
14591 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
14592 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
14593 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
14594 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
14597 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
14598 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
14599 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
14600 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
14602 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
14603 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
14604 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
14605 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
14607 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
14609 ** imenu.el changes.
14611 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
14612 item from menu created by imenu.
14614 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
14615 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
14616 select one of those items.
14618 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
14620 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
14621 Copyright information:
14623 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
14624 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
14626 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
14627 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
14628 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
14629 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
14631 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
14632 of this document, or of portions of it,
14633 under the above conditions, provided also that they
14634 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
14638 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
14641 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793