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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2000-08-14
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
4
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
7
8 \f
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
10
11 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
12
13 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
14
15 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
16 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
17
18 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
19 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
20 to list them.
21
22 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
23 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
24
25 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
26 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
27
28 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
29 support 64-bit executables. See etc/MACHINES for instructions.
30
31 \f
32 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
33
34 * When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
35 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
36
37 ** Polish and German translations of Emacs' reference card have been
38 added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex' and `de-refcard.tex'.
39 Postscript files are included.
40
41 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
42 `dired-ref.tex'.
43
44 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
45 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
46
47 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
48 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
49 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
50 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
51 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
52 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
53
54 +++
55 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
56 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
57 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
58 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
59
60 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
61 a version-dependent component.
62
63 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
64 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
65 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
66 character is still bound as before.
67
68 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
69 using that menu.
70
71 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
72 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
73
74 +++
75 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
76 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
77 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
78 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
79 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
80 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
81 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
82
83 +++
84 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
85 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
86 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
87 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
88 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
89 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
90 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
91 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
92 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
93
94 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
95 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
96
97 +++
98 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
99 point in a pop-up window.
100
101 +++
102 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
103 displays all characters in that character set.
104
105 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
106 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
107
108 +++
109 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
110 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
111 defined on newcomment.el.
112
113 +++
114 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
115
116 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
117 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
118
119 +++
120 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
121 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
122 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
123 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
124
125 +++
126 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
127 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
128 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
129 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
130
131 +++
132 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
133 on the display using several methods
134
135 +++
136 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
137 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
138 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
139
140 +++
141 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
142 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
143
144 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
145
146 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
147 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
148
149 +++
150 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
151 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
152 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
153 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
154
155 +++
156 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
157 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
158 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
159
160 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
161 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
162
163 +++
164 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
165 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
166 this behavior.
167
168 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
169 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
170 Emacs dump core.
171
172 +++
173 ** New X resources recognized
174
175 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
176 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
177 is useful for debugging X problems.
178
179 Example:
180
181 emacs.synchronous: true
182
183 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
184 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
185 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
186 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
187 visual class names are
188
189 TrueColor
190 PseudoColor
191 DirectColor
192 StaticColor
193 GrayScale
194 StaticGray
195
196 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
197 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
198 meaning.
199
200 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
201 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
202 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
203 visual.
204
205 Example:
206
207 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
208
209 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
210 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
211 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
212 resource values are `true' or `on'.
213
214 Example:
215
216 emacs.privateColormap: true
217
218 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
219 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
220 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
221
222 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
223 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
224 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
225 be customized.
226
227 +++
228 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
229
230 +++
231 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
232 all frames except the selected one.
233
234 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
235 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
236
237 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
238 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
239 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
240 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
241
242 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
243 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
244
245 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
246 read mail from the menu etc.
247
248 +++
249 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
250 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
251
252 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
253
254 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
255 macros
256
257 Key binding Macro
258 -------------------------
259 C-c C-c C-s @strong
260 C-c C-c C-e @emph
261 C-c C-c u @url
262 C-c C-c q @quotation
263 C-c C-c m @email
264
265 ** Changes in Outline mode.
266
267 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
268 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
269 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
270
271 ** Changes to Emacs Server
272
273 +++
274 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
275 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
276 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
277 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
278 buffers to kill, as before.
279
280 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
281 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
282 this way.
283
284 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
285
286 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
287 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
288 use. Default is 1000.
289
290 +++
291 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
292 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
293
294 +++
295 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
296 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
297 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
298 buffers.
299
300 +++
301 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
302 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
303 .emacs file.
304
305 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
306 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
307
308 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
309 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
310 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
311
312 ** Faces and frame parameters.
313
314 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
315 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
316 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
317 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
318 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
319 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
320 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
321
322 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
323 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
324 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
325 `default' face and vice versa.
326
327 +++
328 ** New face `menu'.
329
330 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
331 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
332 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
333
334 +++
335 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
336
337 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
338 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
339 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
340 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
341
342 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
343 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
344 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
345
346 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
347 `ScreenGamma'.
348
349 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
350
351 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
352 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
353 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
354 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
355 the text.
356
357 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
358
359 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
360 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
361 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
362 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
363 specify a font.
364
365 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
366 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
367 under Lisp changes, below.
368
369 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
370
371 +++
372 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
373 of its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid;
374 otherwise, it is hollow.
375
376 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
377 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
378 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
379 customizing face `fringe'.
380
381 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
382 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
383
384 ** LessTif support.
385
386 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see <http://www.lesstif.org>).
387 You will need a version 0.88.1 or later.
388
389 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
390
391 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
392 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
393 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
394 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
395 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
396 Emacs.
397
398 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
399 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
400 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
401 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
402 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
403 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
404
405 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
406 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
407 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
408 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
409 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
410 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
411
412 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
413 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
414 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
415 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
416 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
417
418 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
419
420 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
421 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
422 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
423
424 +++
425 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
426
427 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
428 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
429 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
430 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
431 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
432 whitespace.
433
434 +++
435 ** Busy-cursor.
436
437 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
438 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
439
440 +++
441 ** Blinking cursor
442
443 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
444 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
445 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
446 the group `cursor'.
447
448 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
449
450 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
451 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
452 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
453 details.
454
455 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
456 have to do anything to activate it.
457
458 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
459
460 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
461 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
462 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
463 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
464
465 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
466
467 +++
468 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
469
470 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
471
472 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
473 LessTif/Motif one.
474
475 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
476 LessTif and Motif.
477
478 +++
479 ** Hscrolling in C code.
480
481 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
482 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
483 customized.
484
485 ** Tool bar support.
486
487 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
488 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
489
490 +++
491 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
492
493 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
494 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
495 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
496 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
497 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
498
499 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
500
501 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
502 buffers.
503
504 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
505 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
506
507 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
508
509 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
510 `*') toggles the status.
511
512 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
513
514 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
515
516 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
517 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
518 non-nil.
519
520 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
521
522 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
523 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
524 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
525 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
526 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
527 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
528 on terminals.
529
530 ** Sound support
531
532 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
533 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
534 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
535
536 +++
537 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
538 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
539 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
540 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
541 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
542 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
543
544 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
545
546 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
547
548 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
549 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
550 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
551
552 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
553 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
554
555 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
556 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
557 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
558
559 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
560
561 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
562 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
563 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
564 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
565
566 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
567 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
568 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
569 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
570
571 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
572 notably at the end of lines.
573
574 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
575 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
576
577 +++
578 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
579
580 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
581 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
582 after each match to get the replacement text.
583
584 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
585 you edit the replacement string.
586
587 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
588 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
589 lisp-complete-symbol.
590
591 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
592
593 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
594 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
595 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
596 window size by setting the following variable:
597
598 - User option: max-mini-window-height
599
600 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
601 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
602 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
603
604 Default is 0.25.
605
606 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
607
608 ** Changes to hideshow.el
609
610 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
611 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
612
613 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
614
615 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
616 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
617 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
618 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
619 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
620 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
621
622 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
623 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
624 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
625 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
626
627 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
628
629 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
630 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
631 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
632 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
633 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
634
635 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
636 something like this in your .emacs.
637
638 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
639 (lambda ()
640 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
641
642 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
643
644 +++
645 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
646 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
647 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
648
649 +++
650 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
651 buffer.
652
653 +++
654 New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries in
655 a log file.
656
657 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
658 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
659
660 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
661 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
662 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be cutomized.
663 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
664
665 ** Changes in Font Lock
666
667 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
668 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
669 mode.
670
671 ** Comint (subshell) changes
672
673 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
674 distiguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
675 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
676 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
677 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
678 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
679 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
680 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
681
682 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
683 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
684
685 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
686 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
687 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
688
689 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
690 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
691 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
692
693 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and scheme-interaction-mode
694 now highlight user input and program prompts, and support choosing
695 previous input with mouse-2. To control these feature, see the
696 user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
697
698 ** Changes to Rmail mode
699
700 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
701 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
702 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
703 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
704 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
705 as correspondent.
706
707 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
708 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
709 regexp matching your mail addresses.
710
711 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
712 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
713 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
714 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
715 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
716
717 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
718 like `j'.
719
720 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
721 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
722 digest message.
723
724 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
725 in which folder to put messages automatically.
726
727 ** Changes to TeX mode
728
729 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
730 `latex-mode'.
731
732 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
733
734 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
735 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
736 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
737 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
738 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
739 can be edited from that buffer.
740
741 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
742 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
743 `A' to use all marked entries).
744
745 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
746 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
747
748 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
749 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
750 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
751 been cited.
752
753 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
754 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
755 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
756 in column 1 are always made leaves.
757
758 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
759 has the following new features:
760
761 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
762 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
763 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
764 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
765
766 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
767 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
768 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
769 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
770 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
771 defaults to 1.
772
773 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
774 file names.
775
776 +++
777 ** Tooltips.
778
779 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
780 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
781 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
782
783 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
784 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
785 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
786 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
787
788 +++
789 ** Customize changes
790
791 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
792 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
793 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
794
795 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
796 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
797 default).
798
799 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
800 between custom options. Example:
801
802 (defcustom default-input-method nil
803 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
804 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
805 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
806 :group 'mule
807 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
808 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
809
810 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
811 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
812 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
813
814 ** New features in evaluation commands
815
816 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
817 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
818 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
819 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
820 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
821
822 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
823 code when called with a prefix argument.
824
825 ** Ispell changes
826
827 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
828 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
829 spell-checks the current buffer.
830
831 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
832 added.
833
834 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
835 correction is made and re-checked.
836
837 *** An Italian and a Portuguese dictionary definition has been added.
838
839 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
840 cases.
841
842 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
843 on syntax errors.
844
845 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
846 end of the buffer.
847
848 ** Dired changes
849
850 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
851 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
852 is, delete only empty directories.
853
854 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
855 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
856 copy directories recursively.
857
858 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
859 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
860 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
861
862 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
863 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
864 directory.
865
866 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
867 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
868 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
869 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
870 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
871
872 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
873 from ls switches.
874
875 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
876 use the -f option when sending mail.
877
878 ** CC mode changes.
879
880 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
881 current user setups (although it's believed that these
882 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
883 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
884 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
885 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
886 release.
887
888 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
889 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
890 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
891 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
892 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
893 have to bother.
894
895 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
896 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
897 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
898 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
899 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
900 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
901
902 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
903 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
904 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
905 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
906 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
907 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
908 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
909 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
910
911 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
912 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
913 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
914 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
915 above.
916
917 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
918 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
919 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
920 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
921 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
922 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
923 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
924 function documentation for more info.
925
926 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
927 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
928 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
929 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
930 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
931 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
932 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
933 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
934
935 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
936
937 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
938 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
939
940 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
941 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
942 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
943 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
944 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
945 style system.
946
947 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
948 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
949 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
950 as far as possible.
951
952 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
953 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
954 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
955 chapter about this in the manual.
956
957 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
958 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
959 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
960 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
961 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
962
963 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
964 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
965 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
966
967 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
968 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
969
970 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
971 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
972 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
973 inside CC Mode.
974
975 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
976 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
977 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
978 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
979 cc-mode/).
980
981 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
982 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
983 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
984 literals.
985
986 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
987 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
988 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
989 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
990 this function.
991
992 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
993 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
994 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
995 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
996 Thanks to Eric Eide.
997
998 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
999 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1000 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1001
1002 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1003
1004 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1005 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1006 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1007 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1008
1009 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1010 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1011 the column specified by comment-column.
1012
1013 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1014 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1015 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1016 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1017 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1018 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1019
1020 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1021 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1022 arguments.
1023
1024 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1025
1026 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1027 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1028 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1029 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1030 Provan).
1031
1032 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1033
1034 ** Makefile mode changes
1035
1036 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1037
1038 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1039 Fontlock mode is active.
1040
1041 ** Isearch changes
1042
1043 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1044 so that searches can be resumed.
1045
1046 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1047 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1048 that started the search.
1049
1050 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1051 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1052
1053 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1054
1055 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1056 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1057 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1058 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1059 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1060 `secondary-selection'.
1061
1062 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1063 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1064 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1065 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1066 usual snappy response.
1067
1068 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1069 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1070 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1071 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1072
1073 ** Changes in sort.el
1074
1075 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1076 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1077 new user-option sort-numberic-base can be used to specify a default
1078 numeric base.
1079
1080 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1081
1082 +++
1083 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1084 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1085 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1086
1087 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1088 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1089
1090 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1091 output ^M at the end of lines.
1092
1093 ** Shell script mode changes.
1094
1095 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1096 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1097 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1098
1099 ** Etags changes.
1100
1101 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1102
1103 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1104 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1105 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1106 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1107 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1108
1109 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1110 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1111
1112 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1113 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1114
1115 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1116 types.
1117
1118 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1119
1120 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1121
1122 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1123 are now tagged.
1124
1125 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1126 variables are tagged.
1127
1128 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1129
1130 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1131 for PSWrap.
1132
1133 ** Changes in etags.el
1134
1135 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1136 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1137 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1138
1139 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1140 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1141
1142 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1143 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1144 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1145 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1146
1147 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1148
1149 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1150 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1151
1152 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1153
1154 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1155 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1156 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1157
1158 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1159 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1160
1161 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1162 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1163
1164 +++
1165 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1166 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1167 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1168
1169 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1170 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1171 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1172 There is currently no specific input method support for them.
1173
1174 +++
1175 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1176 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1177 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1178
1179 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1180
1181 +++
1182 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1183
1184 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignore-regexps'
1185 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1186 expression from that list, are not checked.
1187
1188 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1189 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1190 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1191 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1192
1193 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1194
1195 ** New modes and packages
1196
1197 +++
1198 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1199 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1200 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1201 on certain projects.
1202
1203 *** The new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1204 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1205
1206 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1207
1208 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1209 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1210 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1211 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1212 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1213 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1214 corresponding file is read.
1215
1216 +++
1217 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1218 Emacs is idle.
1219
1220 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1221 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1222
1223 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1224 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1225 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1226
1227 +++
1228 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1229 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1230 separate Texinfo file.
1231
1232 +++
1233 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1234 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1235 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1236 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1237 enter checkin log messages.
1238
1239 +++
1240 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1241 without invoking external programs.
1242
1243 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1244 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1245 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1246 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1247 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1248
1249 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1250 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1251
1252 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1253 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1254
1255 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1256 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1257 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1258 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1259 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1260 single step.
1261
1262 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1263 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1264 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1265 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1266
1267 +++
1268 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1269 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1270 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1271
1272 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1273 PostScript.
1274
1275 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1276
1277 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1278
1279 ; comment (until end of line)
1280 A non-terminal
1281 "C" terminal
1282 ?C? special
1283 $A default non-terminal
1284 $"C" default terminal
1285 $?C? default special
1286 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1287 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1288 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1289 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1290 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1291 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1292 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1293 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1294 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1295 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1296 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1297 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1298 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1299 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1300 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1301
1302 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1303
1304 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1305 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1306 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1307 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1308 equal signs of assignments.
1309
1310 +++
1311 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1312 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1313
1314 +++
1315 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1316 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1317 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1318 customize the package.
1319
1320 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1321
1322 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1323 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1324 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1325 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1326 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1327 which answers different needs.
1328
1329 +++
1330 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1331 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1332 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1333 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1334 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1335 to be enabled.
1336
1337 +++
1338 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1339 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1340
1341 +++
1342 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1343
1344 +++
1345 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1346
1347 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1348
1349 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1350 Pascal) language.
1351
1352 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1353 the text at point.
1354
1355 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1356
1357 +++
1358 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1359
1360 *** whitespace.el ???
1361
1362 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1363 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1364 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1365 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1366 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1367 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1368 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1369
1370 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1371
1372 Here is an example of columns:
1373
1374 horse apple bus
1375 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1376 porcupine strawberry airplane
1377
1378 Doing the following settings:
1379
1380 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1381 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1382 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1383 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1384
1385
1386 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1387
1388 M-x delimit-columns-region
1389
1390 It results:
1391
1392 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1393 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1394 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1395
1396 delim-col has the following options:
1397
1398 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1399 before all columns.
1400
1401 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1402 between each column.
1403
1404 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1405 after all columns.
1406
1407 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1408 each column.
1409
1410 delim-col has the following commands:
1411
1412 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1413 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1414
1415 +++
1416 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1417 were operated on recently.
1418
1419 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1420
1421 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1422 recentf at Emacs startup.
1423
1424 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1425 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1426 file list can be displayed:
1427
1428 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1429 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1430 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1431
1432 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1433 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1434
1435 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1436 text.
1437
1438 +++
1439 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1440 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1441 specific to Message mode.
1442
1443 +++
1444 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1445 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1446 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1447
1448 +++
1449 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1450 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1451 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1452
1453 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1454 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1455
1456 +++
1457 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1458
1459 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1460 minibuffer with completion.
1461
1462 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1463 with the diary features.
1464
1465 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1466 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1467
1468 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1469 Fill mode.
1470
1471 ** Withdrawn packages
1472
1473 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1474 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1475
1476 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1477
1478 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1479
1480 \f
1481 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1482 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1483
1484 +++
1485 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
1486 is running in batch mode. For example,
1487
1488 (message "%s" (read t))
1489
1490 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
1491 to standard output.
1492
1493 +++
1494 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
1495 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
1496
1497 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1498 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1499 frame or window.
1500
1501 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1502 were added
1503
1504 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1505
1506 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1507 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1508
1509 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1510
1511 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1512 comparison is done with `eq'.
1513
1514 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1515
1516 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1517 has been changed.
1518
1519 +++
1520 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1521 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1522 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1523
1524 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1525 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1526
1527 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1528 function was declared obsolete.
1529
1530 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1531 retained as an alias).
1532
1533 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1534 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1535 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1536
1537 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1538
1539 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1540
1541 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1542 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1543
1544 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1545
1546 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1547
1548 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1549
1550 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1551 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1552 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1553 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1554 returned.
1555
1556 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1557 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1558 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1559 minibuffer even if it is active.
1560
1561 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1562 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1563 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1564 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1565 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1566 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1567
1568 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1569 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1570 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1571 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1572 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1573 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1574 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1575
1576 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1577 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1578 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1579
1580 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1581 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1582 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1583 Default value is nil.
1584
1585 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1586 meaning no limit.
1587
1588 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1589 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1590 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1591
1592 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1593 of a primitive.
1594
1595 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1596 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1597 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1598 than replacing the local map.
1599
1600 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1601 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1602
1603 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1604
1605 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1606 promised long ago.
1607
1608 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1609 \f
1610 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1611
1612 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1613 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1614 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1615 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1616
1617 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
1618 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
1619 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
1620 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
1621
1622 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1623 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1624 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1625 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1626
1627 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1628 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1629 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1630
1631 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1632 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1633 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1634 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1635 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1636 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1637 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1638 eight-bit-graphic.
1639
1640 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1641
1642 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1643 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1644 character set as previously.
1645
1646 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1647 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1648 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1649
1650 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1651 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1652 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1653 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1654
1655 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1656 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1657
1658 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1659 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1660 "fontset-default".
1661
1662 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1663 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1664
1665 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1666 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1667 buffers and strings.
1668
1669 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1670 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1671 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1672 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1673 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1674 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1675 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1676 also been deleted.
1677
1678 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1679 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1680 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1681
1682 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1683 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1684 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1685 may differ between buffer and string text.
1686
1687 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1688 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1689
1690 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1691 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1692 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1693 `composition' from STRING.
1694
1695 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1696 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1697
1698 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1699 obsolete.
1700
1701 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1702 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1703 character set is not used.
1704
1705 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1706 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1707 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1708
1709 +++
1710 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1711 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1712 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1713
1714 +++
1715 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1716 that offset in the file before writing.
1717
1718 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1719 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1720
1721 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1722 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1723 from which the command was issued.
1724
1725 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1726 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1727 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1728 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1729 operate on.
1730
1731 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1732 to `window-buffer-height'.
1733
1734 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1735
1736 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1737 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1738 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1739
1740 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1741 respectively.
1742
1743 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1744 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1745
1746 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1747 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1748 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1749
1750 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1751 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1752 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1753 is currently displayed in some window.
1754
1755 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1756 argument function's results.
1757
1758 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1759 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1760
1761 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1762 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1763
1764 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1765 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1766
1767 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1768 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1769 as follows:
1770
1771 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1772 nil don't display a cursor
1773 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1774 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1775 others display a box cursor.
1776
1777 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1778 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1779 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1780 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1781
1782 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1783 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1784 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1785 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1786
1787 Example:
1788
1789 (string-to-syntax "()")
1790 => (4 . 41)
1791
1792 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1793 other than 10.
1794
1795 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1796 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1797
1798 #b1111
1799 => 15
1800 #b-1111
1801 => -15
1802
1803 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1804
1805 #o666
1806 => 438
1807
1808 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1809
1810 #xbeef
1811 => 48815
1812
1813 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1814
1815 #2R-111
1816 => -7
1817 #25rah
1818 => 267
1819
1820 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1821 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1822 and isn't a string.
1823
1824 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1825 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1826 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1827 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1828
1829 +++
1830 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1831
1832 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1833 for a regexp in a string.
1834
1835 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1836 `mouse-position-function'.
1837
1838 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1839 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1840
1841 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1842 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1843
1844 +++
1845 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1846 returns it.
1847
1848 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1849 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1850
1851 +++
1852 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1853 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1854 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1855 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1856 mode.
1857
1858 +++
1859 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1860 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1861
1862 +++
1863 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1864 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1865 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1866 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1867 been performed."
1868
1869 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1870 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1871 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1872 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1873
1874 +++
1875 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1876 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1877 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1878
1879 +++
1880 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1881 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1882 specified table.
1883
1884 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1885
1886 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1887 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1888 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1889 what BODY returns.
1890
1891 +++
1892 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1893 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1894
1895 +++
1896 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1897 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1898
1899 +++
1900 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1901 instead of being optional.
1902
1903 +++
1904 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1905 modify read-only text.
1906
1907 +++
1908 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1909
1910 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1911 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1912 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1913 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1914 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1915
1916 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1917 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1918 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1919 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1920 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1921 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1922 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1923
1924 +++
1925 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1926 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1927 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1928 start sequences.
1929
1930 +++
1931 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1932 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1933
1934 +++
1935 ** New function `propertize'
1936
1937 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1938 strings with text properties.
1939
1940 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1941
1942 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1943 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1944 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1945 specified value of that property. Example:
1946
1947 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1948
1949 +++
1950 ** push and pop macros.
1951
1952 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1953 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1954 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1955
1956 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1957 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1958 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1959
1960 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1961
1962 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1963 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1964
1965 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1966 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1967 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1968 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1969
1970 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1971 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1972 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1973 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1974
1975 +++
1976 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1977 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1978
1979 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1980 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1981 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1982 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1983 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1984 space, and DEL.
1985 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1986 and DEL.
1987 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1988 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1989 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1990 [:alpha:] matches letters.
1991 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1992 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1993 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
1994 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
1995 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
1996 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
1997 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1998 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
1999 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2000 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
2001 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
2002
2003 +++
2004 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2005
2006 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2007
2008 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2009
2010 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2011 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2012
2013 :test TEST
2014
2015 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2016 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2017 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2018
2019 :size SIZE
2020
2021 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2022 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2023
2024 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2025
2026 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2027 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2028 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2029 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2030 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2031
2032 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2033
2034 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2035 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2036 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2037
2038 :weakness WEAK
2039
2040 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2041 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2042 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2043 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2044 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2045
2046 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2047
2048 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2049
2050 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2051
2052 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2053
2054 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2055
2056 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2057 values are shared.
2058
2059 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2060
2061 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2062
2063 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2064
2065 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2066
2067 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2068
2069 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2070
2071 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2072
2073 Returns the size of TABLE.
2074
2075 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2076
2077 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2078
2079 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2080
2081 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2082
2083 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2084
2085 Clear TABLE.
2086
2087 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2088
2089 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2090 not found.
2091
2092 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2093
2094 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2095 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2096
2097 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2098
2099 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2100
2101 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2102
2103 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2104 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2105
2106 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2107
2108 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2109
2110 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2111
2112 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2113 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2114 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2115 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2116 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2117
2118 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2119
2120 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2121 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2122 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
2123
2124 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
2125 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
2126
2127 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
2128 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
2129
2130 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2131 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2132
2133 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2134 'case-fold-string-hash))
2135
2136 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2137
2138 +++
2139 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2140
2141 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2142 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2143 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2144
2145 +++
2146 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2147
2148 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2149 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2150
2151 +++
2152 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2153 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2154 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2155 is too short to reach that column.
2156
2157 +++
2158 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2159 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2160 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2161 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2162
2163 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2164 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2165 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2166
2167 +++
2168 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2169 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2170
2171 +++
2172 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2173 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2174
2175 +++
2176 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2177 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2178 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2179 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2180 temporary-file-directory instead.
2181
2182 +++
2183 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2184 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2185 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2186 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2187
2188 +++
2189 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2190 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2191
2192 +++
2193 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2194
2195 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2196 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2197 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2198
2199 +++
2200 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2201
2202 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2203 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2204 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2205 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2206 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2207 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2208
2209 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2210 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2211 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2212 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2213
2214 +++
2215 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2216
2217 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2218 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2219 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2220 result string.
2221
2222 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2223 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2224
2225 Example:
2226
2227 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2228 (s2 "world"))
2229 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2230 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2231 (format s1 s2))
2232
2233 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2234
2235 +++
2236 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2237
2238 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2239 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2240 argument in it.
2241
2242 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2243 (arg "world"))
2244 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2245 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2246 (message msg arg))
2247
2248 +++
2249 ** Sound support
2250
2251 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2252 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2253
2254 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2255 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2256 to enable sound support.
2257
2258 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2259 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2260 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2261 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2262 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2263
2264 The following sound properties are supported:
2265
2266 - `:file FILE'
2267
2268 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2269 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2270
2271 - `:data DATA'
2272
2273 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2274 may be present, but not both.
2275
2276 - `:volume VOLUME'
2277
2278 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2279 0..1. This property is optional.
2280
2281 Other properties are ignored.
2282
2283 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2284
2285 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2286 a keyword symbol.
2287
2288 ** Changes to garbage collection
2289
2290 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2291 of live and free strings.
2292
2293 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2294 strings that have been consed so far.
2295
2296 \f
2297 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2298 Lisp Manual
2299
2300 +++
2301 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2302
2303 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2304 image.
2305
2306 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2307
2308 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2309
2310 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2311 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2312 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2313 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2314 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2315
2316 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2317 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2318
2319 +++
2320 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2321 optional.
2322
2323 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center'.
2324
2325 When this property is specified, the image is vertically centered
2326 around a centerline which would be the vertical center of text drawn
2327 at the position of the image, in the manner specified by the text
2328 properties and overlays that apply to the image.
2329
2330 \f
2331 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2332
2333 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2334 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2335 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2336 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2337
2338 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2339 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2340
2341 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2342 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2343 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2344 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2345 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2346 just display it black instead.
2347
2348 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2349 a line like
2350
2351 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2352
2353 in your `.emacs'.
2354
2355 ** New face implementation.
2356
2357 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2358 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2359
2360 +++
2361 *** New faces.
2362
2363 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2364
2365 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2366
2367 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2368 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2369
2370 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2371
2372 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2373
2374 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2375
2376 6. Foreground color.
2377
2378 7. Background color.
2379
2380 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2381
2382 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2383
2384 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2385
2386 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2387
2388 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2389 color.
2390
2391 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2392 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2393
2394 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2395 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2396 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2397 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2398 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2399 attributes mentioned above.
2400
2401 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2402 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2403 created frames.
2404
2405 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2406 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2407 `fully-specified'.
2408
2409 +++
2410 *** Face merging.
2411
2412 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2413 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2414 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2415 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2416 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2417 results in a fully-specified face.
2418
2419 +++
2420 *** Face realization.
2421
2422 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2423 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2424 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2425 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2426 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2427 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2428
2429 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2430 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2431 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2432 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2433
2434 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2435 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2436 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2437 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2438 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2439
2440 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2441 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2442 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2443 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2444 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2445 Emacs.
2446
2447 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2448 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2449 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2450 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2451
2452 ++++
2453 **** Clearing face caches.
2454
2455 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2456 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2457 unused fonts.
2458
2459 +++
2460 *** Font selection.
2461
2462 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2463 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2464 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2465
2466 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2467 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2468 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2469 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2470 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2471
2472 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2473 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2474 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2475
2476 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2477
2478 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2479 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2480 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2481 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2482 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2483 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2484 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2485
2486 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2487 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2488 face doesn't exist.
2489
2490 +++
2491 **** Scalable fonts
2492
2493 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2494 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2495 servers.
2496
2497 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2498 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2499 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2500 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2501 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2502 that list. Example:
2503
2504 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2505
2506 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2507
2508 +++
2509 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2510
2511 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2512
2513 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2514 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2515 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2516
2517 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2518 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2519 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2520 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2521 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2522 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2523 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2524 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2525 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2526 of the face font sort order.
2527
2528 - Function: x-font-family-list
2529
2530 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2531 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2532 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2533 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2534
2535 - Variable: font-list-limit
2536
2537 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2538 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2539 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2540
2541 +++
2542 *** Setting face attributes.
2543
2544 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2545 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2546 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2547 `face-attribute'.
2548
2549 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2550 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2551
2552 The following attributes are recognized:
2553
2554 `:family'
2555
2556 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2557 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2558 and `?' are allowed.
2559
2560 `:width'
2561
2562 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2563 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2564 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2565 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2566
2567 `:height'
2568
2569 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
2570 1/10 pt.
2571
2572 `:weight'
2573
2574 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2575 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2576 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2577
2578 `:slant'
2579
2580 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2581 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2582 `reverse-oblique'.
2583
2584 `:foreground', `:background'
2585
2586 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2587
2588 `:underline'
2589
2590 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2591 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2592 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2593 don't underline.
2594
2595 `:overline'
2596
2597 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2598 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2599 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2600 overline.
2601
2602 `:strike-through'
2603
2604 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2605 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2606 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2607 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2608
2609 `:box'
2610
2611 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2612 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2613 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2614 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2615 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2616 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2617 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2618 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2619 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2620 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2621 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2622 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2623 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2624 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2625 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2626 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2627 box.
2628
2629 `:inverse-video'
2630
2631 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2632 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2633
2634 `:stipple'
2635
2636 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2637 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2638 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2639 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2640 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2641 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2642
2643 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2644 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2645
2646 `:font'
2647
2648 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2649 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2650 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2651 versions of Emacs.
2652
2653 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2654 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2655 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2656
2657 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2658 `defface'.
2659
2660 *** Face attributes and X resources
2661
2662 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2663 from X resources:
2664
2665 Face attribute X resource class
2666 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2667 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2668 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2669 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2670 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2671 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2672 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2673 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2674 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2675 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2676 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2677 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2678 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2679 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2680 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2681 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2682 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2683 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2684 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2685 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2686
2687 +++
2688 *** Text property `face'.
2689
2690 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2691 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2692 specification can be
2693
2694 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2695
2696 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2697 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2698 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2699 for face attribute names.
2700
2701 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2702 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2703 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2704
2705 +++
2706 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2707
2708 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2709 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2710 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2711 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2712 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2713 used to clear the mapping table.
2714
2715 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2716
2717 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2718 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2719 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2720 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2721 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2722 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2723 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2724 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2725 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2726 modify their color-related behavior.
2727
2728 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2729 any frame type.
2730
2731 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2732
2733 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2734 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2735 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2736 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2737 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2738 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2739 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2740 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2741 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2742
2743 +++
2744 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2745
2746 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2747
2748 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2749 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2750 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2751
2752 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2753
2754 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2755 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2756 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
2757
2758 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2759 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2760 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2761 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2762 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2763 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2764 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2765 functions.
2766
2767 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2768 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2769 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2770
2771 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2772
2773 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
2774
2775 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2776
2777 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2778 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2779 constrained position if that is is different.
2780
2781 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2782 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2783 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2784 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
2785 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2786 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2787 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
2788 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
2789 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
2790
2791 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2792 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2793 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2794 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2795 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2796
2797 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
2798 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
2799
2800 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
2801
2802 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
2803
2804 Delete the field surrounding POS.
2805 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2806 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2807
2808 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2809
2810 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
2811 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2812 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2813 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
2814 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2815
2816 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2817
2818 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2819 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2820 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2821 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
2822 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2823
2824 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2825
2826 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2827 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2828 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2829
2830 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2831
2832 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2833 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2834 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2835
2836 +++
2837 ** Image support.
2838
2839 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2840 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2841 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2842 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2843
2844 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2845 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2846 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2847 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2848 area.
2849
2850 IMAGE is an image specification.
2851
2852 *** Image specifications
2853
2854 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
2855 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
2856 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
2857 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
2858 described below are ignored.
2859
2860 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
2861
2862 `:ascent ASCENT'
2863
2864 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
2865 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
2866 to use for its ascent.
2867
2868 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
2869 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
2870
2871 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
2872 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
2873 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
2874 overlays that apply to the image.
2875
2876 `:margin MARGIN'
2877
2878 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2879 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2880
2881 `:relief RELIEF'
2882
2883 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2884 around an image.
2885
2886 `:algorithm ALGO'
2887
2888 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2889 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2890 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2891 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2892
2893 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2894
2895 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2896 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2897 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2898 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2899 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2900 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2901 background of the image.
2902
2903 `:file FILE'
2904
2905 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2906 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2907 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2908 may be present in the image specification.
2909
2910 `:data DATA'
2911
2912 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2913 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2914 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2915 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2916
2917 *** Supported image types
2918
2919 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2920
2921 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2922 properties supported are
2923
2924 `:foreground FG'
2925
2926 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2927 is the frame's foreground.
2928
2929 `:background FG'
2930
2931 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2932 the frame's background color.
2933
2934 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2935 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2936 instead of a `:file' property.
2937
2938 `:width WIDTH'
2939
2940 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2941
2942 `:height HEIGHT'
2943
2944 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2945
2946 `:data DATA'
2947
2948 DATA must be either
2949
2950 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2951 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2952
2953 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2954
2955 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2956 bitmap.
2957
2958 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
2959 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
2960 in the file.
2961
2962 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2963
2964 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2965 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2966 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2967 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2968
2969 Additional image properties supported are:
2970
2971 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2972
2973 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2974 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2975 name.
2976
2977 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2978 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2979
2980 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2981 to display compressed images.
2982
2983 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2984
2985 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
2986 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
2987 defined.
2988
2989 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
2990
2991 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
2992 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
2993 are:
2994
2995 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
2996
2997 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
2998 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2999 properties defined.
3000
3001 **** GIF, image type `gif'
3002
3003 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
3004 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
3005
3006 Additional image properties supported are:
3007
3008 `:index INDEX'
3009
3010 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3011 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
3012
3013 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3014 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3015 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3016 every 0.1 seconds.
3017
3018 (defun show-anim (file max)
3019 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3020 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3021
3022 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
3023 (when (= idx max)
3024 (setq idx 0))
3025 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
3026 (save-excursion
3027 (set-buffer buffer)
3028 (goto-char (point-min))
3029 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
3030 (insert-image img "x"))
3031 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
3032
3033 **** PNG, image type `png'
3034
3035 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
3036 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3037 properties defined.
3038
3039 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
3040
3041 Additional image properties supported are:
3042
3043 `:pt-width WIDTH'
3044
3045 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
3046 integer. This is a required property.
3047
3048 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
3049
3050 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
3051 must be a integer. This is an required property.
3052
3053 `:bounding-box BOX'
3054
3055 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
3056 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
3057 files. This is an required property.
3058
3059 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
3060 lisp/gs.el.
3061
3062 *** Lisp interface.
3063
3064 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
3065 which are supported in the current configuration.
3066
3067 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
3068 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
3069 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
3070 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
3071 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
3072
3073 *** Simplified image API, image.el
3074
3075 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
3076 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
3077 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
3078 define an image based on available image types. The functions
3079 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
3080 buffer.
3081
3082 +++
3083 ** Display margins.
3084
3085 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
3086 and images.
3087
3088 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
3089 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
3090 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
3091 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
3092 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3093 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3094 of the display margins.
3095
3096 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
3097 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
3098 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
3099 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
3100 in this file).
3101
3102 +++
3103 ** Help display
3104
3105 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
3106 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
3107 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
3108 that have a `help-echo' property.
3109
3110 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
3111 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
3112 the window in which the help was found.
3113
3114 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
3115 `help-echo' text property was found.
3116
3117 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
3118 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
3119
3120 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
3121 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
3122 mouse.
3123
3124 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
3125 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
3126
3127 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
3128 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
3129 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
3130 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
3131 used as help string.
3132
3133 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
3134 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
3135 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
3136
3137 +++
3138 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3139
3140 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3141 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3142
3143 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3144 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3145 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3146 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3147 used.
3148
3149 (global-set-key [A-down]
3150 #'(lambda ()
3151 (interactive)
3152 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3153 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3154 (global-set-key [A-up]
3155 #'(lambda ()
3156 (interactive)
3157 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3158 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3159
3160 +++
3161 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3162
3163 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3164 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3165 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3166 is called with one argument, POS.
3167
3168 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3169 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3170 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3171 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3172 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3173
3174 +++
3175 ** Tool bar support.
3176
3177 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3178 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3179 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3180 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3181 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3182 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3183
3184 *** Tool bar item definitions
3185
3186 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3187 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3188 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3189
3190 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3191 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3192 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3193 property (see below).
3194
3195 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3196 binding are currently ignored.
3197
3198 The following properties are recognized:
3199
3200 `:enable FORM'.
3201
3202 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3203 or disabled.
3204
3205 `:visible FORM'
3206
3207 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3208
3209 `:filter FUNCTION'
3210
3211 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3212 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3213 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3214
3215 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3216
3217 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3218 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3219
3220 `:image IMAGES'
3221
3222 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3223 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3224 meaning of each of the four elements:
3225
3226 Index Use when item is
3227 ----------------------------------------
3228 0 enabled and selected
3229 1 enabled and deselected
3230 2 disabled and selected
3231 3 disabled and deselected
3232
3233 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3234 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3235
3236 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3237
3238 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3239 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3240
3241 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3242
3243 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3244 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3245 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3246
3247 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3248 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3249
3250 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3251 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3252 pixels. Default is 1.
3253
3254 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3255 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3256
3257 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3258
3259 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3260 a tool bar item. If
3261
3262 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3263 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3264 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3265
3266 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3267
3268 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3269
3270 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3271 item.
3272
3273 ** Mode line changes.
3274
3275 +++
3276 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3277
3278 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3279 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3280 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3281
3282 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3283 a `local-map' text property.
3284
3285 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3286 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3287
3288 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3289 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3290 `local-map' property.
3291
3292 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3293 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3294 example.
3295
3296 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3297 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3298
3299 +++
3300 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3301 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3302
3303 +++
3304 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3305
3306 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3307 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3308 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3309 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3310 line.
3311
3312 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3313 `header-line'.
3314
3315 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3316 position in the header-line.
3317
3318 +++
3319 ** Text property `display'
3320
3321 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3322 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3323 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3324 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3325
3326 *** Variable width and height spaces
3327
3328 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3329 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3330 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3331 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3332 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3333 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3334 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3335
3336 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3337 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3338 properties described below.
3339
3340 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3341 characters having the `display' property.
3342
3343 - :width WIDTH
3344
3345 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3346 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3347
3348 - :relative-width FACTOR
3349
3350 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3351 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3352 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3353 width of that character by FACTOR.
3354
3355 - :align-to HPOS
3356
3357 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3358 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3359
3360 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3361
3362 - :height HEIGHT
3363
3364 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3365 normal line height.
3366
3367 - :relative-height FACTOR
3368
3369 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3370 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3371
3372 - :ascent ASCENT
3373
3374 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3375 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3376 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3377 equal to 100.
3378
3379 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3380
3381 *** Images
3382
3383 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3384 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3385 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3386 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3387 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3388 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3389 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3390 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3391 as display specification.
3392
3393 *** Other display properties
3394
3395 - :space-width FACTOR
3396
3397 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3398 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3399 integer or float.
3400
3401 - :height HEIGHT
3402
3403 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3404
3405 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3406 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3407 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3408 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3409 a font is available counts as a step.
3410
3411 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3412 as tall as the frame's default font.
3413
3414 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3415 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3416
3417 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3418 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3419
3420 - :raise FACTOR
3421
3422 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3423 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3424 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3425 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3426 `:height' subproperty.
3427
3428 *** Conditional display properties
3429
3430 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3431 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3432 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3433 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3434 the text having the `display' property.
3435
3436 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3437 `(:when t SPEC)'.
3438
3439 +++
3440 ** New menu separator types.
3441
3442 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3443 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3444 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3445 to specify other menu separator types.
3446
3447 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3448
3449 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3450 separator occurs.
3451
3452 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3453
3454 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3455
3456 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3457
3458 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3459
3460 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3461
3462 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3463
3464 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3465
3466 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3467
3468 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3469
3470 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3471 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3472
3473 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3474
3475 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3476
3477 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3478
3479 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3480
3481 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3482
3483 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3484
3485 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3486
3487 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3488
3489 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3490
3491 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3492
3493 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3494
3495 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3496
3497 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3498
3499 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3500
3501 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3502 the corresponding single-line separators.
3503
3504 +++
3505 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3506
3507 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3508 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3509 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3510 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3511 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3512 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3513 default foreground is black.
3514
3515 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3516 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3517 `ScrollBarBackground').
3518
3519 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3520 settings for scroll bar colors.
3521
3522 +++
3523 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3524 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3525
3526 ---
3527 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3528 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3529 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3530 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3531 the original window start.
3532
3533 ---
3534 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3535 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3536 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3537
3538 +++
3539 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3540
3541 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3542 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3543 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3544 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3545
3546 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3547 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3548
3549 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3550
3551 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3552 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3553 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3554 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3555 temporarily to nil, for example
3556
3557 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3558 (enlarge-window 10))
3559
3560 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3561 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3562
3563 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3564 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3565 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3566 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3567 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3568 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3569
3570
3571 ^L
3572 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3573
3574 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3575 input.
3576
3577 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3578
3579 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3580
3581 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3582 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3583 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3584 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3585 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3586
3587 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3588 been added.
3589
3590 ^L
3591 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3592
3593 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3594
3595 ^L
3596 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3597
3598 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3599 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3600 \f
3601 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3602
3603 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3604
3605 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3606 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3607 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3608
3609 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3610 is the one that is used.
3611
3612 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3613 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3614 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3615 separate from the command's regular output.
3616 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3617 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3618 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3619 the buffer name.
3620
3621 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3622 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3623 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3624 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3625
3626 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3627 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3628 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3629 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3630
3631 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3632 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3633 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3634 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3635
3636 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3637 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3638 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3639 they never ignore case.
3640
3641 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3642 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3643 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3644 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3645 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3646 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3647 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3648
3649 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3650 the same format that was used in the file before.
3651
3652 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3653 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3654
3655 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3656 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3657 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3658
3659 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3660 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3661 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3662 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3663 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3664 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3665 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3666
3667 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3668 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3669 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3670 format. You can now customize these variables.
3671
3672 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3673 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3674 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3675 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3676
3677 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3678 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3679 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3680
3681 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3682 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3683 doesn't have any effect.
3684
3685 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3686 not one per buffer.
3687
3688 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3689 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3690 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3691
3692 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3693 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3694 `auto-show-mode' command.
3695
3696 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3697 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3698 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3699 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3700 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3701
3702 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3703 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3704
3705 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3706 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3707 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3708
3709 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3710 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3711 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3712 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3713
3714 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3715
3716 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3717 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3718 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3719 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3720 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3721
3722 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3723 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3724
3725 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3726 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3727 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3728 `?' on other systems.
3729
3730 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3731 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3732 Unix.
3733
3734 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3735 current codepage when it starts.
3736
3737 ** Mail changes
3738
3739 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3740 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3741 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3742 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3743 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3744 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3745 latin-1:
3746
3747 MIME-version: 1.0
3748 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3749 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3750
3751 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3752 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3753 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3754 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3755 buffer-file-coding-system.
3756
3757 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3758 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3759 mail.
3760
3761 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3762 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3763 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3764 list of possible coding systems.
3765
3766 ** CC Mode changes
3767
3768 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3769 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3770 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3771 docstring for details.
3772
3773 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3774 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3775 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3776 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3777 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3778
3779 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3780 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3781
3782 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3783 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3784
3785 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3786 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3787 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3788 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3789 anonymous classes.
3790
3791 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3792 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3793
3794 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3795 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3796 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3797 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3798
3799 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3800 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3801 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3802 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3803 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3804
3805 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3806
3807 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
3808
3809 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
3810 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
3811
3812 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
3813
3814 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
3815 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
3816 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
3817 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
3818 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
3819
3820 ** Gnus changes.
3821
3822 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
3823 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
3824 Gnus manual for the full story.
3825
3826 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
3827 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
3828 group, which is created automatically.
3829
3830 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
3831 values.
3832
3833 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
3834
3835 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
3836 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
3837
3838 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
3839 `C-u C-c C-c'.
3840
3841 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
3842
3843 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
3844 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
3845
3846 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
3847
3848 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
3849 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
3850
3851 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
3852 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
3853
3854 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
3855 control over simplification.
3856
3857 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
3858
3859 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
3860 limit.
3861
3862 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
3863
3864 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
3865
3866 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
3867 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
3868 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
3869
3870 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
3871 `a' forces normal posting method.
3872
3873 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
3874 -- `W d'.
3875
3876 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
3877 to a non-nil value.
3878
3879 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
3880 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
3881
3882 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
3883 has been added.
3884
3885 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
3886
3887 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
3888
3889 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
3890 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
3891
3892 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
3893 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
3894
3895 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
3896
3897 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
3898 been added.
3899
3900 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
3901 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
3902
3903 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
3904 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
3905
3906 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
3907
3908 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
3909
3910 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
3911
3912 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
3913
3914 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
3915 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
3916 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
3917
3918 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
3919 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
3920 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
3921 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
3922 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3923
3924 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3925 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3926 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3927 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3928
3929 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3930 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3931 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3932 mismatch.
3933
3934 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3935
3936 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3937 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3938
3939 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3940 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3941 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3942 removed from the label.
3943
3944 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3945 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3946
3947 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3948 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3949
3950 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3951 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3952 expressions.
3953
3954 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3955
3956 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3957
3958 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3959 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3960
3961 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3962 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3963 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3964
3965 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3966 changes with a special face.
3967
3968 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3969 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3970 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3971 \f
3972 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3973
3974 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3975 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3976 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3977 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3978 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3979
3980 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3981 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3982 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3983
3984 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3985 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
3986 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
3987 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
3988 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
3989 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
3990 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
3991 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
3992 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
3993
3994 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
3995 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
3996 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
3997 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
3998 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
3999 program.
4000
4001 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
4002 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
4003 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
4004 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
4005 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
4006 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
4007
4008 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
4009 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
4010 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
4011 was not documented clearly before.
4012
4013 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
4014 This includes Tetris and Snake.
4015 \f
4016 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
4017
4018 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
4019 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
4020 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
4021 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
4022
4023 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
4024 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
4025 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
4026
4027 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
4028
4029 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
4030 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
4031
4032 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
4033 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
4034 integers.
4035
4036 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
4037 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
4038 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
4039 file names and attributes are returned.
4040
4041 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
4042 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
4043 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
4044 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
4045 returns the result.
4046
4047 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
4048 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
4049
4050 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
4051
4052 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
4053 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
4054 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
4055 optionally.
4056
4057 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
4058 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
4059
4060 **
4061 The new function process-running-child-p
4062 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
4063 terminal to its own child process.
4064
4065 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
4066 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
4067 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
4068 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
4069
4070 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
4071 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
4072
4073 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
4074 :included is an alias for :visible.
4075
4076 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
4077 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
4078 to move or copy menu entries.
4079
4080 ** Multibyte editing changes
4081
4082 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
4083 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
4084 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
4085 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
4086 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
4087 (setq char (sref str idx)
4088 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
4089 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
4090
4091 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
4092 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
4093 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
4094
4095 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
4096 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
4097 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
4098
4099 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
4100
4101 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
4102 across the boundary.
4103
4104 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
4105 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
4106 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
4107 contains 8-bit characters.
4108 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
4109 contains invalid characters.
4110
4111 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
4112 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
4113 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
4114 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
4115 way.
4116
4117 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
4118 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
4119 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
4120 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
4121
4122 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
4123 compose Thai characters in a string.
4124
4125 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
4126 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
4127 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
4128 menus should always use the third argument.
4129
4130 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
4131 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
4132 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
4133 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
4134
4135 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
4136 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
4137 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
4138 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
4139
4140 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4141 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4142 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4143 echo area contents.
4144
4145 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4146
4147 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4148 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4149 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4150
4151 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4152 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4153 means to clear out that attribute.
4154
4155 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4156 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4157
4158 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4159 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4160 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4161 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4162
4163 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4164 the gap of the current buffer.
4165
4166 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4167 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4168 current buffer.
4169
4170 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4171 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4172 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4173 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4174 \f
4175 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4176
4177 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4178 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4179 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4180 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4181 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4182
4183 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4184 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4185 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4186 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4187 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4188
4189 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4190 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4191 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4192
4193 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4194 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4195 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4196 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4197 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4198 results.
4199
4200 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4201 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4202 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4203 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4204 \f
4205 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4206
4207 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4208 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4209 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4210 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4211
4212 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4213 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4214 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4215 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4216 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4217 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4218 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4219 region.
4220
4221 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4222 selective undo.
4223
4224 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4225 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4226 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4227 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4228 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4229
4230 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4231 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4232 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4233 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4234
4235 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4236 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4237 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4238 something that most users not do.
4239
4240 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4241 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4242 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4243 applications.
4244
4245 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4246 pasting operations.
4247
4248 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4249 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4250 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4251 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4252 `ps-printer-name'.
4253
4254 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4255 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4256 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4257 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4258 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4259 hits a new word.
4260
4261 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4262 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4263 to be confused by TeX commands.
4264
4265 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4266 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4267 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4268 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4269
4270 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4271 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4272 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4273 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4274 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4275
4276 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4277 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4278
4279 ** Changes in input method usage.
4280
4281 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4282 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4283 respectively.
4284
4285 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4286
4287 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4288 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4289
4290 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4291 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4292
4293 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4294
4295 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4296
4297 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4298 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4299
4300 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4301 given in the following case:
4302 o When you are using a complex input method.
4303 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4304
4305 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4306 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4307 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4308 setting it to t is helpful.
4309
4310 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4311
4312 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4313 keys:
4314 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4315 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4316 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4317 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4318 environment.
4319
4320 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4321 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4322 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4323 get
4324
4325 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4326
4327 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4328
4329 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4330 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4331
4332 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4333 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4334 its owner and group.
4335
4336 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4337 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4338
4339 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4340 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4341
4342 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4343 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4344 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4345 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4346
4347 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4348 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4349 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4350 for writing keyboard macros.
4351
4352 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4353 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4354 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4355 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4356 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4357 info.
4358
4359 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4360
4361 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4362 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4363 contents only.
4364
4365 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4366 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4367 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4368 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4369
4370 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4371 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4372 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4373
4374 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4375 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4376 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4377 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4378
4379 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4380 failure if the command produces no output.
4381
4382 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4383 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4384 the mouse.
4385
4386 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4387 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4388 function and variable names.
4389
4390 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4391 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4392 file-coding-system-alist.
4393
4394 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4395 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4396 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4397 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4398 according to the current fontset.
4399
4400 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4401
4402 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4403 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4404 nonascii-insert-offset.
4405
4406 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4407 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4408 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4409 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4410
4411 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4412 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4413
4414 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4415 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4416
4417 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4418 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4419 command keys.
4420
4421 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4422 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4423
4424 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4425 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4426 all variables that have documentation.
4427
4428 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4429 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4430 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4431 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4432 it should show; the default is 20.
4433
4434 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4435 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4436 of your input.
4437
4438 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4439 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4440 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4441 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4442 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4443 Newly added options are included as well.
4444
4445 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4446 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4447 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4448
4449 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4450 Customize menu.
4451
4452 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4453 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4454
4455 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4456 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4457 invoked.
4458
4459 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4460 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4461 The default is 1.
4462
4463 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4464 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4465 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4466 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4467 sensibly.
4468
4469 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4470
4471 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4472 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4473 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4474
4475 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4476 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4477 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4478 every night.
4479
4480 ** Desktop changes
4481
4482 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4483 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4484
4485 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4486 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4487
4488 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4489 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4490
4491 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4492 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4493 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4494 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4495 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4496 made invisible again.
4497
4498 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4499
4500 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4501 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4502 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4503 toggle.
4504
4505 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4506 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4507 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4508 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4509 rmail-default-body-file.
4510
4511 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4512 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4513 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4514
4515 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4516 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4517 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4518
4519 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4520 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4521 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4522 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4523 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4524 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4525
4526 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4527 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4528 provided by feedmail are:
4529
4530 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4531 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4532 there is also a queue for draft messages
4533
4534 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4535 be prompted for confirmation
4536
4537 **** does smart filling of address headers
4538
4539 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4540 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4541 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4542
4543 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4544 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4545 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4546 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4547
4548 ** Dired changes
4549
4550 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4551 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4552
4553 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4554 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4555
4556 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4557 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4558 for a specified regexp.
4559
4560 ** VC Changes
4561
4562 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4563 conveniently.
4564
4565 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4566 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4567 Dired.
4568
4569 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4570 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4571 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4572 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4573
4574 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4575 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4576 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4577 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4578 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4579
4580 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4581 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4582 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4583 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4584 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4585
4586 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4587 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4588 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4589 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4590
4591 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4592 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4593 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4594
4595 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4596 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4597 session to resolve them.
4598
4599 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4600 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4601 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4602 uses as well).
4603
4604 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4605 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4606 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4607 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4608 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4609 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4610 using ediff.
4611
4612 ** Changes in Font Lock
4613
4614 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4615 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4616 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4617 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4618 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4619
4620 ** Frame name display changes
4621
4622 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4623 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4624 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4625 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4626
4627 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4628 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4629 menu.
4630
4631 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4632
4633 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4634 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4635 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4636
4637 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4638
4639 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4640 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4641 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4642
4643 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4644 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4645 the following line.
4646
4647 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4648 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4649 previously sent input.
4650
4651 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4652 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4653 as the search string.
4654
4655 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4656 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4657
4658 ** C mode changes
4659
4660 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4661 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4662 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4663 definition.
4664
4665 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4666 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4667 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4668 style is still the default however.
4669
4670 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4671
4672 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4673 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4674 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4675
4676 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4677 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4678
4679 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4680 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4681
4682 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4683 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4684
4685 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4686 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4687
4688 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4689 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4690 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4691 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4692
4693 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4694
4695 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4696 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4697 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4698
4699 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4700 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4701 expanding dynamically.
4702
4703 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4704 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4705
4706 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4707 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4708 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4709 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4710
4711 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4712
4713 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4714
4715 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4716 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4717 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4718 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4719 against the first word in the title.
4720
4721 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4722 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4723 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4724 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4725 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4726 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4727
4728 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4729 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4730 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4731 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4732
4733 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4734
4735 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4736 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4737 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4738 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4739 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4740 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4741
4742 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4743 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4744
4745 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4746 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4747 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4748
4749 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4750 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4751
4752 ** Ispell changes.
4753
4754 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4755 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4756 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4757
4758 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4759 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4760 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4761 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4762 include:
4763
4764 o URLs are automatically skipped
4765 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4766
4767 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4768
4769 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4770
4771 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4772 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4773 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4774 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4775
4776 *** New recursive parser.
4777
4778 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4779 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4780 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4781
4782 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4783
4784 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4785 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4786 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4787
4788 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4789
4790 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4791
4792 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4793
4794 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4795
4796 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4797
4798 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4799 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4800
4801 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4802
4803 *** References to external documents.
4804
4805 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4806 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4807 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
4808 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
4809 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
4810 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
4811 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
4812
4813 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
4814
4815 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
4816 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
4817
4818 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
4819 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
4820
4821 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
4822
4823 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
4824 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
4825
4826 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
4827
4828 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
4829 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
4830 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
4831 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
4832 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
4833 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
4834 more.
4835
4836 *** Support for the varioref package
4837
4838 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
4839
4840 *** New hooks
4841
4842 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
4843 and citations are created. These hooks are
4844 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
4845 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
4846
4847 *** Citations outside LaTeX
4848
4849 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
4850 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
4851
4852 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
4853
4854 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
4855 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
4856 fontified, use
4857
4858 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
4859
4860 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
4861 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
4862 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
4863 directories that contain the same file name.
4864
4865 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
4866 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
4867 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
4868 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
4869 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
4870 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
4871 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
4872 directory.
4873
4874 ** New modes and packages
4875
4876 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
4877 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
4878 it, but some do not.
4879
4880 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
4881 code.
4882
4883 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
4884 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
4885 around in a buffer.
4886
4887 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
4888
4889 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
4890 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
4891 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
4892 established system of notation similar to Chess.
4893
4894 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
4895 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
4896 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
4897
4898 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
4899 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
4900 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
4901 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
4902 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
4903 the like.
4904
4905 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
4906 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
4907
4908 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
4909 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
4910 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
4911 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
4912
4913 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
4914
4915 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
4916 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
4917 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
4918 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
4919 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
4920 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
4921 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
4922 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
4923 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
4924 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
4925 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
4926
4927 Platform-specific modes:
4928
4929 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4930 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4931 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4932 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4933 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4934 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4935 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4936 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4937 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4938 \f
4939 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4940
4941 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4942 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4943 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4944 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4945
4946 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4947 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4948 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4949
4950 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4951 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4952 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4953 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4954
4955 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4956 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4957 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4958 environment.
4959
4960 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4961 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4962 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4963 current input method for reading this one event.
4964
4965 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4966 now control whether to output certain characters as
4967 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4968 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4969 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4970 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4971 \f
4972 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4973
4974 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4975 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4976
4977 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4978 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4979 always increases point by 1.
4980
4981 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4982 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4983
4984 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4985
4986 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
4987 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
4988 default value changed. For example,
4989
4990 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
4991 :type 'integer
4992 :group 'foo
4993 :version "20.3")
4994
4995 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
4996 :version "20.3")
4997
4998 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
4999 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
5000 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
5001 `:version' in the top level group.
5002
5003 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
5004
5005 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
5006 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
5007
5008 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
5009 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
5010 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
5011 to themselves.
5012
5013 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
5014 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
5015 values whatever.
5016
5017 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
5018 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
5019 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
5020
5021 ** Frame-local variables.
5022
5023 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
5024 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
5025 local bindings for that variable.
5026
5027 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
5028 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
5029 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
5030 parameter name.
5031
5032 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
5033 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
5034 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
5035 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
5036
5037 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
5038 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
5039 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
5040 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
5041
5042 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
5043 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
5044 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
5045 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
5046 See the documentation in sregex.el.
5047
5048 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
5049 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
5050 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
5051 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
5052
5053 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
5054 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
5055
5056 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
5057 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
5058 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
5059
5060 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
5061 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
5062 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
5063 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
5064
5065 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
5066 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
5067 empty input.
5068
5069 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
5070 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
5071 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
5072 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
5073 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
5074
5075 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
5076 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
5077 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
5078 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
5079
5080 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
5081 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
5082 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
5083 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
5084 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
5085
5086 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
5087 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
5088 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
5089 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
5090
5091 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
5092 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
5093 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
5094
5095 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
5096 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
5097 was directed to display this buffer.
5098
5099 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
5100 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
5101 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
5102 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
5103 set-window-configuration.
5104
5105 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
5106 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
5107 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
5108 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
5109
5110 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
5111 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
5112 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
5113
5114 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
5115 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
5116 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
5117
5118 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
5119 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
5120
5121 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
5122 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
5123
5124 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
5125 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
5126 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
5127
5128 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
5129 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
5130 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
5131 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
5132
5133 ** Menu changes
5134
5135 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
5136 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
5137 better supported.
5138
5139 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
5140 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5141 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5142 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5143 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5144
5145 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5146
5147 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5148 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5149 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5150 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5151
5152 The format is:
5153 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5154 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5155 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5156 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5157 The supported properties include
5158
5159 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5160 item is enabled.
5161 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5162 item should appear in the menu.
5163 :filter FILTER-FN
5164 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5165 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5166 It should return a binding to use instead.
5167 :keys DESCRIPTION
5168 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5169 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5170 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5171 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5172 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5173 keyboard binding.
5174 :key-sequence nil
5175 This means that the command normally has no
5176 keyboard equivalent.
5177 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5178 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5179 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5180 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5181 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5182
5183 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5184 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5185
5186 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5187
5188 ** New event types
5189
5190 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5191 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5192 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5193 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5194
5195 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5196
5197 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5198 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5199 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5200 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5201 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5202 forward, away from the user.
5203
5204 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5205
5206 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5207 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5208 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5209 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5210 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5211
5212 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5213
5214 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5215 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5216 that were dragged and dropped.
5217
5218 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5219
5220 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5221
5222 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5223 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5224 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5225
5226 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5227 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5228 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5229
5230 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5231 in Emacs 19 and before.
5232
5233 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5234 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5235
5236 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5237 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5238 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5239 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5240
5241 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5242 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5243 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5244 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5245 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5246
5247 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5248 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5249 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5250 consistent with the new representation.
5251
5252 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5253 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5254 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5255 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5256
5257 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5258 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5259 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5260
5261 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5262 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5263 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5264
5265 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5266 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5267 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5268
5269 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5270 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5271
5272 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5273 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5274
5275 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5276 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5277 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5278 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5279
5280 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5281 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5282
5283 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5284 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5285 buffer or string being searched.
5286
5287 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5288 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5289 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5290 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5291 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5292 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5293 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5294
5295 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5296
5297 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5298 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5299 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5300 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5301 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5302 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5303 define-coding-system-alias.
5304
5305 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5306 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5307 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5308 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5309 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5310 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5311 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5312 `iso-8859-1'.
5313
5314 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5315 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5316 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5317 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5318
5319 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5320 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5321 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5322 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5323
5324 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5325 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5326 This function requires a user interaction.
5327
5328 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5329 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5330 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5331 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5332 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5333 select-safe-coding-system.
5334
5335 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5336 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5337 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5338 was done.
5339
5340 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5341 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5342 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5343
5344 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5345 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5346 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5347 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5348
5349 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5350 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5351 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5352 converted.
5353
5354 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5355 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5356
5357 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5358 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5359 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5360 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5361 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5362 range of characters.
5363
5364 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5365 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5366
5367 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5368 in the current buffer at position POS.
5369
5370 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5371 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5372 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5373 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5374 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5375 binding input-method-function to nil.
5376
5377 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5378 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5379 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5380 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5381 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5382
5383 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5384 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5385
5386 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5387 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5388
5389 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5390 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5391 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5392 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5393 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5394 \f
5395 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5396
5397 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5398 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5399 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5400 tree structure.
5401
5402 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5403 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5404
5405 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5406 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5407 in your .emacs file.)
5408
5409 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5410 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5411
5412 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5413 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5414
5415 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5416 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5417 kills the region.
5418
5419 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5420 delete the character before point, as usual.
5421
5422 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5423 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5424 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5425
5426 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5427 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5428 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5429 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5430 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5431 past.)
5432
5433 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5434 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5435 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5436 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5437 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5438
5439 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5440 and is an alias for it.
5441
5442 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5443 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5444
5445 ** Scrolling changes
5446
5447 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5448 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5449
5450 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5451 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5452 where it started.
5453
5454 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5455 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5456 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5457 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5458
5459 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5460 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5461 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5462 recenters the window.
5463
5464 ** International character set support (MULE)
5465
5466 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5467 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5468 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5469 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5470 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5471 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5472
5473 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5474 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5475 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5476 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5477 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5478
5479 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5480 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5481 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5482 language, to make it possible to type them.
5483
5484 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5485 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5486
5487 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5488 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5489
5490 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5491
5492 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5493
5494 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5495 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5496 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5497 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5498 characters for their work until they want to change.
5499
5500 *** Input methods
5501
5502 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5503 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5504 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5505 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5506 support several input methods.
5507
5508 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5509 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5510 work.
5511
5512 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5513 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5514 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5515 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5516 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5517 letter.
5518
5519 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5520 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5521 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5522 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5523 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5524
5525 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5526 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5527 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5528 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5529
5530 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5531 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5532 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5533 the first guess is wrong.
5534
5535 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5536 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5537
5538 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5539 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5540 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5541 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5542
5543 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5544 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5545 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5546 translate automatically to and from either one.
5547
5548 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5549
5550 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5551 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5552 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5553 what you want.
5554
5555 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5556 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5557 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5558 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5559
5560 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5561 character conversion as well.
5562
5563 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5564
5565 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5566 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5567 requires using many fonts.
5568
5569 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5570 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5571
5572 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5573 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5574 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5575 you would use a font.
5576
5577 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5578 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5579 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5580
5581 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5582 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5583 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5584 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5585 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5586
5587 *** Defining fontsets.
5588
5589 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5590 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5591 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5592
5593 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5594 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5595 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5596 standard fontset are created automatically.
5597
5598 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5599 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5600 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5601 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5602 name is `fontset-startup'.
5603
5604 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5605 The resource value should have this form:
5606 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5607 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5608 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5609 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5610 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5611 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5612 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5613 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5614 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5615
5616 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5617 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5618 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5619
5620 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5621 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5622 following resource,
5623 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5624 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5625 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5626 Here is the substitution rule:
5627 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5628 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5629 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5630 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5631 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5632
5633 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5634 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5635 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5636
5637 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5638 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5639 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5640 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5641 fontsets.
5642
5643 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5644 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5645
5646 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5647 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5648 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5649 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5650 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5651 system for new files that you create.
5652
5653 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5654 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5655 whole Emacs session.
5656
5657 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5658 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5659 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5660
5661 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5662 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5663 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5664 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5665 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5666
5667 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5668 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5669 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5670 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5671 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5672
5673 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5674 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5675
5676 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5677 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5678
5679 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5680 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5681
5682 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5683 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5684 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5685 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5686 of the file.
5687
5688 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5689 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5690 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5691 translated into that character code.
5692
5693 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5694 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5695
5696 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5697
5698 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5699 the coding system for keyboard input.
5700
5701 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5702 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5703 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5704
5705 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5706
5707 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5708 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5709 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5710 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5711 designed to work with terminals.
5712
5713 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5714 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5715 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5716 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5717 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5718 in the corresponding buffer.
5719
5720 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5721
5722 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5723 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5724 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5725
5726 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5727 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5728 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5729 want to use.
5730
5731 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5732 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5733
5734 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5735 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5736 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5737 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5738
5739 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5740 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5741 related information.
5742
5743 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5744 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5745 scripts.
5746
5747 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5748 information about the support for a particular language.
5749 You specify the language as an argument.
5750
5751 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5752 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5753 first dash.
5754
5755 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5756 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5757 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5758 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5759
5760 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5761 B big5 (Chinese)
5762 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5763 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5764 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5765 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5766 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5767 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5768 K euc-korea (Korean)
5769 R koi8 (Russian)
5770 Q tibetan
5771 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5772 T lao
5773 T tis620 (Thai)
5774 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5775 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5776 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5777 v viqr (Vietnamese)
5778 z hz (Chinese)
5779
5780 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5781 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5782 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5783 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5784
5785 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5786 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5787
5788 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5789 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5790 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5791 Rmail files themselves.
5792
5793 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5794 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5795
5796 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5797 for sending mail:
5798
5799 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5800 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5801 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5802 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5803 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5804
5805 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5806 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5807 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
5808 translations.
5809
5810 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
5811 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
5812 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
5813 without any conversion.
5814
5815 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
5816 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
5817 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
5818 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
5819
5820 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
5821 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
5822
5823 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
5824 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
5825
5826 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
5827 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
5828
5829 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
5830 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
5831 in the buffer before point.
5832
5833 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
5834 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
5835 you are using.
5836
5837 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
5838 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
5839
5840 ** File locking works with NFS now.
5841
5842 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
5843 in the same directory as FILENAME.
5844
5845 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
5846 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
5847 can become a bottleneck.
5848
5849 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
5850 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
5851 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
5852 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
5853 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
5854 so useful that the change is worth while.
5855
5856 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
5857 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
5858 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
5859 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
5860
5861 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
5862 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
5863 show-paren-mode.
5864
5865 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
5866 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
5867 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
5868
5869 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
5870 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
5871 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
5872
5873 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
5874 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
5875 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
5876
5877 ** Changes in View mode.
5878
5879 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
5880 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
5881
5882 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
5883 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
5884
5885 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
5886 previous state.
5887
5888 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
5889 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
5890
5891 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
5892 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
5893 not just the selected window.
5894
5895 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
5896 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
5897 turns View mode on or off.
5898
5899 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
5900 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
5901 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
5902
5903 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
5904 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
5905
5906 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
5907 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
5908 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
5909 which version to compare with.
5910
5911 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
5912 blocks if a match is inside the block.
5913
5914 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
5915 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
5916 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
5917 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
5918
5919 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
5920 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
5921 blocks, all of them or none.
5922
5923 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
5924 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
5925 confirmation first.
5926
5927 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5928 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5929 However, the mode will not be changed if
5930 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5931 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5932 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5933 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5934
5935 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5936
5937 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5938 these commands do not change the major mode.
5939
5940 ** M-x occur changes.
5941
5942 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5943 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5944
5945 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5946 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5947 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5948
5949 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5950 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5951 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5952 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5953 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5954
5955 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5956 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5957 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5958 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5959
5960 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5961 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5962 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5963
5964 ** Outline mode changes.
5965
5966 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5967
5968 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5969
5970 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5971 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5972 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5973 was already active.
5974
5975 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5976 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5977 get confused by it.
5978
5979 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5980 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5981
5982 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5983
5984 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5985 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
5986 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
5987 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
5988
5989 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
5990 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
5991 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
5992
5993 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
5994 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
5995 values.
5996
5997 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
5998 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
5999 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
6000 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
6001
6002 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
6003 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
6004 can be. The default value is 30.
6005
6006 ** Changes in Mail mode.
6007
6008 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
6009 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
6010 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
6011 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
6012 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
6013 behavior.
6014
6015 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
6016 compose-mail-other-frame.
6017
6018 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
6019 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
6020 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
6021 buffer that shows the original message.
6022
6023 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
6024 with separator lines around the contents.
6025
6026 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
6027 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
6028 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
6029 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
6030
6031 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
6032
6033 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
6034 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
6035 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
6036 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
6037
6038 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
6039 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
6040 /etc/passwd.
6041
6042 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
6043 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
6044 /etc/passwd.
6045
6046 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
6047 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
6048 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
6049 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
6050
6051 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
6052 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
6053 be taken to be magic.
6054
6055 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
6056 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
6057 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
6058
6059 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
6060 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
6061
6062 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
6063 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
6064
6065 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
6066
6067 new key dired.el binding old key
6068 ------- ---------------- -------
6069 * c dired-change-marks c
6070 * m dired-mark m
6071 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
6072 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
6073 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
6074 * u dired-unmark u
6075 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
6076 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
6077 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
6078 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
6079 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
6080 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
6081
6082 ** Rmail changes.
6083
6084 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
6085 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
6086 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
6087 each time you run it.
6088
6089 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
6090 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
6091
6092 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
6093 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
6094 means to move in the opposite direction.
6095
6096 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
6097 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
6098
6099 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
6100 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
6101 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
6102 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
6103 for output.
6104
6105 ** Gnus changes.
6106
6107 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
6108
6109 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
6110 Gnus.
6111
6112 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
6113 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
6114
6115 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
6116 article mode line.
6117
6118 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
6119
6120 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
6121
6122 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
6123
6124 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
6125 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
6126 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
6127
6128 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
6129
6130 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
6131
6132 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
6133 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
6134
6135 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
6136 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
6137 used to pick articles.
6138
6139 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
6140 another have been added.
6141
6142 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6143
6144 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6145 generating lines in buffers.
6146
6147 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6148 `M-C-_'.
6149
6150 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6151
6152 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6153
6154 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6155
6156 *** Scores can be decayed.
6157
6158 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6159
6160 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6161 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6162
6163 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6164 the native server.
6165
6166 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6167
6168 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6169 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6170
6171 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6172
6173 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6174 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6175
6176 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6177 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6178
6179 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6180 a group.
6181
6182 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6183 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6184
6185 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6186
6187 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6188
6189 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6190
6191 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6192
6193 Use the `Y c' command.
6194
6195 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6196
6197 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6198
6199 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6200
6201 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6202 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6203
6204 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6205
6206 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6207
6208 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6209 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6210
6211 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6212
6213 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6214 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6215 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6216 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6217 this issue.)
6218
6219 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6220 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6221 particular news group. This can be done by:
6222
6223 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6224
6225 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6226 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6227 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6228 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6229 for reading and posting).
6230
6231 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6232 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6233 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6234 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6235 there.
6236
6237 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6238 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6239
6240 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6241 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6242 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6243 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6244 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6245
6246 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6247 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6248
6249 ** CC mode changes.
6250
6251 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6252 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6253 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6254 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6255 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6256 loaded.
6257
6258 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6259 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6260 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6261 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6262 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6263 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6264
6265 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6266 of the current buffer.
6267
6268 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6269 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6270 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6271
6272 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6273 style that the Python developers like.
6274
6275 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6276 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6277 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6278
6279 ** VC Changes [new]
6280
6281 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6282 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6283 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6284
6285 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6286 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6287 developers.
6288
6289 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6290 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6291
6292 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6293 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6294 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6295 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6296
6297 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6298 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6299
6300 ** Calendar changes.
6301
6302 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6303 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6304 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6305
6306 ** ps-print changes
6307
6308 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6309
6310 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6311
6312 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6313 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6314 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6315 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6316 It defaults to `letter'.
6317 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6318
6319 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6320 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6321 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6322
6323 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6324 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6325 It defaults to 1.
6326
6327 *** Horizontal layout
6328
6329 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6330 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6331 All are measured in points.
6332
6333 *** Vertical layout
6334
6335 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6336 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6337 All are measured in points.
6338
6339 *** Headers
6340
6341 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6342 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6343 margin above the text.
6344
6345 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6346 framing box is printed around the header.
6347
6348 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6349 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6350
6351 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6352 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6353 `ps-header-font-size'.
6354
6355 *** Font managing
6356
6357 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6358 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6359 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6360 elements to this alist.
6361
6362 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6363 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6364
6365 ** hideshow changes.
6366
6367 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6368 C++, ; for lisp).
6369
6370 *** Support for java-mode added.
6371
6372 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6373 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6374
6375 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6376 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6377 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6378
6379 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6380 robust and a lot faster.
6381
6382 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6383
6384 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6385 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6386 documentation for more details.
6387
6388 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6389
6390 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6391 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6392 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6393 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6394 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6395
6396 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6397 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6398 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6399 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6400
6401 ** Font Lock mode
6402
6403 *** Custom support
6404
6405 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6406 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6407 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6408 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6409 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6410 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6411
6412 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6413
6414 *** Maximum decoration
6415
6416 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6417 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6418 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6419 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6420 to get the old behavior.
6421
6422 *** New support
6423
6424 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6425
6426 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6427 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6428
6429 *** Configurable support
6430
6431 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6432 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6433 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6434 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6435 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6436 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6437 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6438
6439 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6440 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6441 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6442
6443 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6444
6445 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6446 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6447 for any mode.
6448
6449 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6450
6451 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6452
6453 in your ~/.emacs.
6454
6455 *** New faces
6456
6457 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6458 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6459 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6460 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6461
6462 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6463
6464 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6465 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6466 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6467
6468 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6469
6470 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6471 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6472 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6473 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6474 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6475 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6476 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6477
6478 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6479 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6480 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6481 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6482 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6483 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6484
6485 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6486
6487 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6488 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6489 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6490 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6491
6492 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6493 settings.
6494
6495 ** Ada mode changes.
6496
6497 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6498 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6499 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6500 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6501 stubs.
6502
6503 *** There are two new commands:
6504 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6505 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6506
6507 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6508 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6509 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6510
6511 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6512 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6513 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6514
6515 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6516 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6517 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6518 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6519
6520 ** Scheme mode changes.
6521
6522 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6523 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6524 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6525 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6526 have any effect.
6527
6528 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6529 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6530 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6531 variables as buffer-local variables.
6532
6533 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6534 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
6535
6536 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6537
6538 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6539 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6540 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6541 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6542
6543 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6544 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6545 buffer in Emacs.
6546
6547 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6548 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6549 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6550 option takes precedence.
6551
6552 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6553 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6554 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6555
6556 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6557 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6558 the current defun.
6559
6560 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6561 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6562
6563 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6564 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6565 necessary).
6566
6567 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6568 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6569 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6570 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6571 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6572 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6573
6574 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6575 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6576 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6577 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6578
6579 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6580 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6581 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6582 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6583 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6584
6585 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6586 since it applies only to the current frame.
6587
6588 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6589 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6590 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6591
6592 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6593 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6594 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6595 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6596 instead of just the file you are editing.
6597
6598 ** RefTeX mode
6599
6600 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6601 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6602 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6603 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6604 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6605
6606 C-c ( reftex-label
6607 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6608 knows which kind of label is needed.
6609
6610 C-c ) reftex-reference
6611 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6612 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6613
6614 C-c [ reftex-citation
6615 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6616 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6617
6618 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6619 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6620
6621 C-c = reftex-toc
6622 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6623 can quickly jump to every section.
6624
6625 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6626 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6627 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6628 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6629 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6630
6631 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6632
6633 *** Info documentation is now available.
6634
6635 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6636 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6637
6638 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6639 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6640
6641 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6642 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6643
6644 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6645 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6646 appropriate functions.
6647
6648 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6649 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6650
6651 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6652 been cleaned.
6653
6654 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6655 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6656
6657 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6658 shall be delimited.
6659
6660 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6661 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6662 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6663
6664 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6665 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6666 prefixed with `ALT'.
6667
6668 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6669 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6670 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6671 documentation).
6672
6673 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6674 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6675 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6676
6677 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6678 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6679
6680 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6681 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6682 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6683
6684 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6685
6686 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6687
6688 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6689 from alien sources.
6690
6691 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6692 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6693 crossref entries.
6694
6695 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6696 region.
6697
6698 *** Added support for imenu.
6699
6700 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6701 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6702 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6703 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6704
6705 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6706 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6707
6708 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6709
6710 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6711
6712 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6713 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6714 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6715 as an argument.
6716
6717 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6718 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6719
6720 ** browse-url changes
6721
6722 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6723 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6724 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6725 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6726 customization variables.
6727
6728 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6729
6730 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6731 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6732 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6733
6734 ** Changes in Ediff
6735
6736 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6737 pops up the Info file for this command.
6738
6739 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6740 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6741 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6742 directories).
6743
6744 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6745 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6746 files in the same directory.
6747
6748 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6749 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6750 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6751
6752 ** Changes in Viper
6753
6754 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6755 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6756 instead of vip-.
6757 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6758 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6759 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6760 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6761 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6762 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6763 color when Viper is in insert state.
6764 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6765 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6766 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6767
6768 ** Etags changes.
6769
6770 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6771 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6772 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6773 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6774 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6775
6776 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6777
6778 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6779 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6780
6781 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6782 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6783 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6784
6785 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6786 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6787 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6788 methods and protocols.
6789
6790 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6791 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6792 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6793 paragraph name.
6794
6795 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6796 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6797 at least M times and as many as N times.
6798
6799 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6800 in files has changed slightly.
6801
6802 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6803 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6804 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6805 with old time-stamp-format values.
6806
6807 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
6808 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
6809 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
6810 reasons.
6811
6812 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
6813 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
6814 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
6815 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
6816 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
6817 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
6818
6819 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
6820 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
6821 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
6822
6823 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
6824 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
6825 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
6826 recommended now will continue to work then.
6827
6828 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
6829 details.
6830
6831 ** There are some additional major modes:
6832
6833 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
6834 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
6835 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
6836
6837 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
6838 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
6839 into Emacs.
6840
6841 ** New Lisp packages include:
6842
6843 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
6844
6845 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
6846 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
6847
6848 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
6849
6850 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
6851 in shell buffers.
6852
6853 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
6854 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
6855 and `elint-defun'.
6856
6857 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
6858 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
6859 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
6860 strings or comments.
6861
6862 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
6863 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
6864 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
6865 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
6866 at these points.
6867
6868 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
6869 can visit them by short forms of their names.
6870
6871 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
6872 Emacs Lisp function at point.
6873
6874 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
6875
6876 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
6877 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
6878
6879 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
6880
6881 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
6882
6883 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
6884
6885 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
6886 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
6887
6888 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
6889 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
6890 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
6891 original place after inserting the copy.
6892
6893 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
6894 on the buffer.
6895
6896 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
6897 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
6898 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
6899
6900 Enable mouse-drag with:
6901 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
6902 -or-
6903 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
6904
6905 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
6906 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
6907
6908 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
6909 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
6910
6911 *** ogonek
6912
6913 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
6914 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
6915 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
6916 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
6917 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
6918 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
6919 instance) and vice versa.
6920
6921 To use this package load it using
6922 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
6923 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
6924 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
6925 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
6926 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
6927 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6928
6929 *** Interface to ph.
6930
6931 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6932
6933 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6934 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6935 these servers.
6936
6937 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6938
6939 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6940 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6941 while the real cursor does not move.
6942
6943 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6944 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6945
6946 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6947 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6948
6949 ** movemail change
6950
6951 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6952 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6953 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6954 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6955
6956 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6957 \f
6958 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6959
6960 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6961
6962 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6963 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6964 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6965 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6966 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6967
6968 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6969 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6970 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6971 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6972 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6973 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6974 \f
6975 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6976
6977 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6978 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6979 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6980 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6981
6982 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6983 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6984
6985 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
6986 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
6987 "win".
6988
6989 ** Basic Lisp changes
6990
6991 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
6992 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
6993
6994 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
6995 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
6996 or by the user.
6997
6998 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
6999
7000 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
7001
7002 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
7003 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
7004
7005 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
7006 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
7007 its argument.
7008
7009 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
7010
7011 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
7012
7013 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
7014
7015 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
7016 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
7017 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
7018 `format' function.
7019
7020 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
7021 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
7022 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
7023
7024 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
7025 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
7026 adding one of these suffixes.
7027
7028 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
7029 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
7030 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
7031
7032 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
7033 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
7034
7035 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
7036
7037 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
7038 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
7039
7040 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
7041 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
7042
7043 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
7044
7045 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
7046 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
7047
7048 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
7049 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
7050 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
7051 works using `save-current-buffer'.
7052
7053 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
7054 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
7055 of the last form.
7056
7057 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
7058 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
7059 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
7060 as the last form.
7061
7062 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
7063 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
7064 matches.
7065
7066 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
7067
7068 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
7069 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
7070 Then it returns that string.
7071
7072 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
7073
7074 (with-output-to-string
7075 (princ "The buffer is ")
7076 (princ (buffer-name)))
7077
7078 returns "The buffer is foo".
7079
7080 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
7081 is non-nil.
7082
7083 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
7084 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
7085 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
7086
7087 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
7088 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
7089
7090 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
7091 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
7092 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
7093 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
7094 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
7095 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
7096
7097 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
7098 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
7099 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
7100 characters".
7101
7102 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
7103 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
7104 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
7105 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
7106 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
7107
7108 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
7109 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
7110 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
7111 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
7112
7113 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
7114 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
7115
7116 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
7117
7118 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
7119 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
7120 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
7121 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
7122 guaranteed.
7123
7124 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
7125 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
7126 character).
7127
7128 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
7129
7130 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
7131 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
7132 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
7133 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
7134 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
7135
7136 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
7137
7138 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
7139 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
7140 more than the number of characters.
7141
7142 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7143 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7144 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7145 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7146 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7147 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7148
7149 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7150 and returns a string containing those characters.
7151
7152 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7153 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7154 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7155 character, sref signals an error.
7156
7157 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7158 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7159 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7160
7161 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7162 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7163 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7164
7165 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7166 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7167 to a vector of the characters in it.
7168
7169 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7170 of a string. You call it as follows:
7171
7172 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7173
7174 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7175 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7176 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7177 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7178 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7179
7180 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7181 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7182
7183 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7184 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7185
7186 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7187 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7188 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7189 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7190
7191 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7192
7193 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7194
7195 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7196 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7197 are not included in the resulting value.
7198
7199 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7200 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7201 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7202 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7203
7204 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7205 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7206 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7207 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7208 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7209 column START-COLUMN.
7210
7211 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7212 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7213 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7214 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7215 changed text, before the change.
7216
7217 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7218 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7219 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7220
7221 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7222
7223 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7224
7225 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7226 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7227
7228 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7229 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7230 which identify the character within that character set.
7231
7232 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7233 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7234 opposite of split-char.
7235
7236 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7237 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7238
7239 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7240 of all the characters in a string.
7241
7242 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7243 and specifying coding systems.
7244
7245 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7246 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7247 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7248 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7249 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7250 as what to do about code conversion.)
7251
7252 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7253 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7254
7255 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7256 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7257 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7258
7259 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7260 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7261 to match against a file name.
7262
7263 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7264 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7265 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7266 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7267 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7268 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7269
7270 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7271 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7272
7273 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7274 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7275
7276 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7277 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7278 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7279 service names.
7280
7281 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7282 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7283 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7284 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7285 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7286 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7287
7288 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7289 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7290
7291 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7292 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7293 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7294 start the subprocess.
7295
7296 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7297 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7298 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7299 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7300 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7301
7302 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7303 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7304 subprocess.
7305
7306 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7307 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7308 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7309 connection permanently or until overridden.
7310
7311 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7312 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7313 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7314 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7315 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7316 system for one operation at a time.
7317
7318 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7319 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7320
7321 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7322 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7323 The value is a cons cell,
7324 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7325 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7326 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7327 input to the subprocess.
7328
7329 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7330 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7331
7332 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7333 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7334 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7335
7336 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7337 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7338 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7339 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7340 customization.
7341
7342 Thus, instead of writing
7343
7344 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7345 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7346
7347 you would now write this:
7348
7349 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7350 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7351 :type 'boolean
7352 :group foo)
7353
7354 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7355 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7356 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7357 for a description of them.
7358
7359 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7360 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7361
7362 (defgroup ispell nil
7363 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7364 :group 'processes)
7365
7366 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7367 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7368 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7369 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7370 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7371
7372 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7373 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7374 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7375 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7376 first-level subgroups.
7377
7378 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7379
7380 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7381 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7382
7383 ** easy-mmode
7384
7385 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7386 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7387 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7388 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7389 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7390 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7391
7392 ** Text property changes
7393
7394 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7395 text property.
7396
7397 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7398 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7399 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7400 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7401 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7402
7403 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7404 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7405 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7406 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7407
7408 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7409 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7410 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7411
7412 ** Changes in invisibility features
7413
7414 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7415 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7416 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7417 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7418 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7419 make the overlay visible.
7420
7421 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7422 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7423 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7424 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7425 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7426 t when it should hide it.
7427
7428 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7429
7430 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7431 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7432 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7433 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7434 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7435 Here is an example of how to do this:
7436
7437 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7438 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7439 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7440 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7441
7442 ...
7443 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7444
7445 ...
7446 ;; When done with the overlays:
7447 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7448 ;; Or respectively:
7449 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7450
7451 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7452
7453 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7454 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7455 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7456 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7457
7458 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7459 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7460 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7461
7462 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7463 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7464
7465 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7466 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7467
7468 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7469 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7470 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7471
7472 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7473 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7474 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7475 determine the syntax type of the character.
7476
7477 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7478 of the current buffer.
7479
7480 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7481 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7482 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7483
7484 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7485 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7486 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7487 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7488 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7489
7490 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7491 text property.
7492
7493 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7494 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7495 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7496
7497 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7498 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7499 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7500 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7501 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7502
7503 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7504 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7505 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7506
7507 ** Changes in face features
7508
7509 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7510 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7511
7512 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7513 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7514
7515 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7516 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7517
7518 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7519 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7520
7521 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7522 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7523 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7524 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7525 overlay property).
7526
7527 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7528 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7529
7530 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7531
7532 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7533 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7534 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7535 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7536
7537 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7538 begins with ~.
7539
7540 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7541 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7542
7543 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7544 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7545
7546 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7547 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7548
7549 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7550 character code conversion as well as other things.
7551
7552 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7553 (formerly it did not).
7554
7555 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7556 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7557
7558 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7559 instead of constant strings.
7560
7561 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7562 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7563 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7564
7565 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7566 in the same way as before.
7567
7568 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7569 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7570 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7571
7572 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7573 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7574 else, and returns nil.
7575
7576 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7577 directory cannot be listed.
7578
7579 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7580
7581 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7582 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7583 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7584 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7585 ways:
7586
7587 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7588 It is available through the history command M-n.
7589
7590 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7591 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7592 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7593 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7594 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7595
7596 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7597 argument in this way.
7598
7599 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7600 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7601 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7602
7603 ** Echo area features
7604
7605 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7606 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7607 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7608 after the echo area is cleared.
7609
7610 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7611 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7612
7613 ** Keyboard input features
7614
7615 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7616 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7617
7618 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7619 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7620 by keyboard macros.
7621
7622 ** Frame-related changes
7623
7624 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7625 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7626 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7627
7628 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7629 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7630 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7631
7632 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7633 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7634 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7635 in the selected frame.
7636
7637 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7638 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7639 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7640
7641 ** X Windows features
7642
7643 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7644 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7645 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7646
7647 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7648 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7649
7650 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7651 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7652 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7653
7654 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7655 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7656
7657 ** Subprocess features
7658
7659 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7660 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7661 automatically.
7662
7663 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7664 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7665
7666 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7667 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7668
7669 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7670 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7671
7672 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7673 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7674 goes after the other menu items.
7675
7676 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7677 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7678 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7679 are in use.
7680
7681 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7682 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7683
7684 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7685 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7686 form.
7687
7688 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7689 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7690 but its hook is still run.
7691
7692 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7693 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7694
7695 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7696 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7697 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7698
7699 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7700 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7701 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7702 warned.
7703
7704 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7705 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7706
7707 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7708 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7709 functions like display-time.
7710
7711 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7712 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7713
7714 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7715 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7716 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7717
7718 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7719 if there is an error in compilation.
7720
7721 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7722 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7723 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7724 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7725
7726 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7727 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7728 the *scratch* buffer.
7729
7730 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7731 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7732 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7733 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7734
7735 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7736 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7737 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7738
7739 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7740 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7741 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7742 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7743
7744 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7745 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7746 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7747
7748 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7749 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7750 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7751 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7752 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7753 files at all.
7754
7755 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7756 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7757 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7758 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7759
7760 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7761 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7762 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7763 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7764
7765 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7766
7767 ** imenu.el changes.
7768
7769 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7770 item from menu created by imenu.
7771
7772 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7773 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7774 select one of those items.
7775 \f
7776 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7777 \f
7778 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7779
7780 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7781 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7782
7783 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7784 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7785 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7786 \f
7787 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7788
7789 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7790 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7791
7792 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7793 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7794 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7795 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7796 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7797 all caps.
7798
7799 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7800 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7801
7802 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7803 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7804 as in previous Emacs versions.
7805
7806 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7807 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
7808 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
7809 frames.
7810
7811 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
7812 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
7813 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
7814 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
7815 accident.
7816
7817 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
7818 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
7819 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
7820 line and then executing the macro.
7821
7822 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
7823
7824 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
7825 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
7826 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
7827 characters.
7828
7829 ** Font Lock mode
7830
7831 *** Font Lock support modes
7832
7833 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
7834 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
7835 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
7836 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
7837 Font Lock mode is enabled.
7838
7839 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
7840
7841 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
7842
7843 in your ~/.emacs.
7844
7845 *** lazy-lock
7846
7847 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
7848 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
7849 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
7850 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
7851 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
7852 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
7853 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
7854
7855 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
7856
7857 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
7858
7859 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
7860
7861 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7862
7863 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
7864 paren and key.
7865
7866 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
7867 supported.
7868
7869 ** Gnus changes.
7870
7871 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
7872 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
7873 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
7874 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
7875
7876 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
7877 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
7878
7879 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
7880 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
7881 obsolete.
7882
7883 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
7884 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
7885
7886 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
7887
7888 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
7889
7890 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
7891
7892 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
7893 referred.
7894
7895 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
7896
7897 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
7898
7899 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
7900
7901 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
7902
7903 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
7904 buffers.
7905
7906 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
7907
7908 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
7909
7910 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
7911
7912 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
7913
7914 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
7915
7916 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
7917
7918 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
7919
7920 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
7921 is possible.
7922
7923 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
7924
7925 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
7926 groups of groups.
7927
7928 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7929
7930 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7931 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7932
7933 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7934
7935 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7936
7937 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7938
7939 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7940
7941 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7942 expiration times.
7943
7944 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7945
7946 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7947 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7948
7949 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7950 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7951 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7952
7953 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7954 articles with the `*' command.
7955
7956 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7957
7958 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7959
7960 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7961
7962 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7963
7964 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7965 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7966
7967 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7968 buffer.
7969
7970 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7971
7972 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7973
7974 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7975
7976 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7977
7978 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7979
7980 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7981
7982 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7983
7984 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7985
7986 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
7987
7988 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
7989 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
7990
7991 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
7992 refetching.
7993
7994 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
7995
7996 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
7997 buffer to allow easier treatment.
7998
7999 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
8000
8001 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
8002
8003 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
8004
8005 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
8006 articles.
8007
8008 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
8009
8010 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
8011
8012 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
8013 cited text to hide is now customizable.
8014
8015 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
8016
8017 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
8018
8019 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
8020
8021 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
8022
8023 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
8024
8025 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
8026 in greater detail.
8027 \f
8028 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
8029
8030 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
8031 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
8032 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
8033 exists.
8034
8035 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
8036 as well as lists.
8037
8038 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
8039 of a given keymap.
8040
8041 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
8042 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
8043 keymap or nil.
8044
8045 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
8046 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
8047 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
8048 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
8049 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
8050 alias.
8051 \f
8052 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
8053
8054 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
8055
8056 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
8057 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
8058 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
8059 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
8060 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
8061
8062 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
8063 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
8064 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
8065
8066 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
8067
8068 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
8069 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
8070 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
8071 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
8072 chapter of the manual for details.
8073
8074 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
8075 customization variables take effect.
8076
8077 ** Marking with the mouse.
8078
8079 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
8080 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
8081 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
8082
8083 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
8084
8085 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
8086
8087 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
8088 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
8089
8090 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
8091 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
8092 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
8093 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
8094 applications, these problems are significant.
8095
8096 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
8097 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
8098 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
8099 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
8100 other DOS application as a subprocess.
8101
8102 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
8103 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
8104
8105 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
8106 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
8107 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
8108 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
8109 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
8110 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
8111
8112 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
8113
8114 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
8115 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
8116 minibuffer contains.
8117
8118 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
8119
8120 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
8121 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
8122 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
8123 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
8124
8125 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
8126 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
8127 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
8128 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
8129
8130 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
8131 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
8132
8133 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
8134 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
8135 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
8136
8137 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
8138 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
8139 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
8140 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8141
8142 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8143
8144 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8145 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8146
8147 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8148
8149 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8150 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8151 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8152 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8153 immediately after the selected one.
8154
8155 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8156 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8157
8158 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8159
8160 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8161 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8162 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8163 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8164 recover-session.
8165
8166 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8167 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8168 will not work.
8169
8170 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8171 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8172 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8173 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8174 now that the bug is fixed.
8175
8176 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8177
8178 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8179 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8180 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8181 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8182
8183 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8184 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8185 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8186 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8187
8188 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8189 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8190 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8191
8192 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8193 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8194 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8195 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8196 remain normal.
8197
8198 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8199 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8200
8201 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8202 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8203 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8204 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8205
8206 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8207 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8208 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8209 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8210 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8211 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8212
8213 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8214 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8215 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8216 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8217
8218 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8219 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8220 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8221
8222 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8223 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8224 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8225 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8226 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8227 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8228 to a limitation in font-lock).
8229
8230 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8231
8232 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8233 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8234 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8235 this example:
8236
8237 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8238 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8239
8240 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8241
8242 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8243
8244 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8245
8246 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8247
8248 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8249 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8250 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8251 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8252 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8253 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8254
8255 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8256 does the same job.
8257
8258 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8259 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8260
8261 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8262 text.
8263
8264 ** Font Lock mode
8265
8266 *** Global Font Lock mode
8267
8268 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8269 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8270 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8271 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8272 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8273
8274 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8275
8276 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8277
8278 in your ~/.emacs.
8279
8280 *** Local Refontification
8281
8282 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8283 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8284 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8285 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8286
8287 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8288 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8289 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8290 above and below point.
8291
8292 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8293
8294 ** Follow mode
8295
8296 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8297 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8298 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8299 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8300 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8301 follow-mode.
8302
8303 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8304
8305 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8306 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8307
8308 ** hide-show changes.
8309
8310 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8311 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8312 normal hooks.
8313
8314 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8315 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8316
8317 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8318 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8319 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8320
8321 ** MSDOS Changes
8322
8323 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8324 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8325
8326 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8327 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8328
8329 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8330
8331 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8332 pressing both mouse buttons.
8333
8334 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8335 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8336 are:
8337
8338 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8339 now works.
8340
8341 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8342
8343 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8344 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8345
8346 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8347
8348 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8349
8350 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8351
8352 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8353
8354 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8355 \f
8356 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8357
8358 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8359 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8360 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8361 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8362 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8363
8364 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8365
8366 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8367 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8368 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8369 be different.
8370
8371 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8372 than `system-type'.
8373
8374 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8375
8376 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8377 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8378
8379 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8380 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8381
8382 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8383 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8384 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8385
8386 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8387 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8388 like this:
8389
8390 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8391
8392 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8393 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8394 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8395
8396 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8397 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8398 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8399
8400 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8401 up if too much time passes.
8402
8403 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8404
8405 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8406 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8407 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8408 form in BODY.
8409
8410 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8411 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8412 call looks like this:
8413
8414 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8415
8416 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8417 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8418 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8419 ARGS.
8420
8421 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8422 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8423 command.
8424
8425 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8426 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8427 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8428 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8429
8430 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8431 idle for SECS seconds.
8432
8433 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8434 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8435 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8436 instead.
8437
8438 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8439 there is no answer within a certain time.
8440
8441 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8442
8443 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8444 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8445 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8446
8447 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8448 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8449 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8450 arguments in between are ignored.
8451
8452 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8453 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8454
8455 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8456 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8457 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8458 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8459 version.
8460
8461 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8462 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8463 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8464 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8465 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8466 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8467
8468 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8469 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8470 systems with limited file name syntax.
8471
8472 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8473 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8474 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8475 completions.el:
8476
8477 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8478 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8479 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8480
8481 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8482 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8483 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8484 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8485 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8486
8487 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8488 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8489 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8490
8491 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8492 marker from its buffer position.
8493
8494 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8495 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8496 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8497
8498 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8499 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8500 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8501 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8502 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8503 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8504
8505 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8506 errors that happen often during editing.
8507
8508 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8509 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8510 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8511
8512 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8513 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8514
8515 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8516 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8517 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8518 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8519 and not get-buffer-window.
8520
8521 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8522 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8523 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8524
8525 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8526 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8527 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8528 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8529 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8530 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8531 over and over for the same text.
8532
8533 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8534
8535 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8536 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8537
8538 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8539 ;; $HEADER: text $
8540
8541 in addition to the normal
8542
8543 ;; HEADER: text
8544
8545 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8546 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8547 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8548
8549
8550 \f
8551 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
8552
8553 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8554 Copyright information:
8555
8556 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8557
8558 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8559 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8560 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8561 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8562
8563 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8564 of this document, or of portions of it,
8565 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8566 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8567 \f
8568 Local variables:
8569 mode: outline
8570 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
8571 end: