1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
3 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 For older news, see the file ONEWS
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9 `view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
12 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
13 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
14 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
15 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
18 * Installation Changes in Emacs 22.1
21 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
22 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
26 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
29 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
30 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
31 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
34 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with Lisp code.
37 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
38 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
39 place for game scores to be stored. You can control this with the
40 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
41 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
42 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
43 in each user's home directory.
46 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
47 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
51 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
53 The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual in Info format is built as part of the
54 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
55 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
56 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
59 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
62 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
63 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
64 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
65 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
68 ** New translations of the Emacs Tutorial are available in the
69 following languages: Brasilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese (both
70 with simplified and traditional characters), French, and Italian.
71 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose one of them in case your language setup
72 doesn't automatically select the right one.
75 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
78 ** Emacs now includes support for loading image libraries on demand.
79 (Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
80 the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
81 setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
84 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
87 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
90 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
93 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
94 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
97 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
100 ** Mac OS 9 port now uses the Carbon API by default. You can also
101 create non-Carbon build by specifying `NonCarbon' as a target. See
102 the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
105 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
106 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
109 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
110 much pure storage it will approximately need.
112 ** The script etc/emacs-buffer.gdb can be used with gdb to retrieve the
113 contents of buffers from a core dump and save them to files easily, should
117 * Startup Changes in Emacs 22.1
120 ** New command line option -Q or --quick.
121 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
122 the fancy startup screen.
125 ** New command line option -D or --basic-display.
126 Disables the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, and
130 ** New command line option -nbc or --no-blinking-cursor disables
131 the blinking cursor on graphical terminals.
134 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
135 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
136 can start with this line:
138 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
141 ** The option --directory DIR now modifies `load-path' immediately.
142 Directories are added to the front of `load-path' in the order they
143 appear on the command line. For example, with this command line:
145 emacs -batch -L .. -L /tmp --eval "(require 'foo)"
147 Emacs looks for library `foo' in the parent directory, then in /tmp, then
148 in the other directories in `load-path'. (-L is short for --directory.)
151 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
152 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
155 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
156 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
157 an interactively callable function.
160 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
161 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
162 affects the initial frame.
165 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
166 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
167 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
168 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
169 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
172 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
173 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
174 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
175 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
176 `inhibit-splash-screen').
179 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
180 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
181 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
185 You can now put the init files .emacs and .emacs_SHELL under
186 ~/.emacs.d or directly under ~. Emacs will find them in either place.
189 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
190 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
191 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
192 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
193 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
195 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
198 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
199 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
200 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
201 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
204 ** C-u M-g M-g switches to the most recent previous buffer,
205 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
207 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
208 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
211 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
212 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
213 the operating system or your X server.
216 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
219 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
220 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
224 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
225 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
228 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
229 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
230 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
233 ** The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
234 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
237 ** In incremental search, C-w is changed. M-%, C-M-w and C-M-y are special.
239 See below under "incremental search changes".
242 ** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
244 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
245 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
246 directory with Dired.
249 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
250 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
251 it remains unchanged.
254 ** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
255 M-o M-o requests refontification.
258 ** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
260 See below for more details.
263 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
264 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
265 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
266 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
267 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
268 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
270 * Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
273 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
274 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
277 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
278 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
279 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
280 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
283 ** C-u M-g M-g switches to the most recent previous buffer,
284 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
286 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
287 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
290 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
291 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
292 the operating system or your X server.
295 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
298 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
299 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
303 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
304 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
307 ** You can now switch buffers in a cyclic order with C-x C-left and
308 (prev-buffer) and C-x C-right (next-buffer). C-x left and C-x right
312 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
315 ** M-SPC (just-one-space) when given a numeric argument N
316 converts whitespace around point to N spaces.
319 ** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
320 `insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
323 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
324 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
327 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
328 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
329 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
330 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
333 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
334 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
335 in Indented-Text mode.
338 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variable references.
340 Substrings of the form `$foo' and `${foo}' in the specified new value
341 now refer to the value of environment variable foo. To include a `$'
342 in the value, use `$$'.
345 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
346 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
350 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
353 ** The command `list-faces-display' now accepts a prefix arg.
354 When passed, the function prompts for a regular expression and lists
355 only faces matching this regexp.
357 ** Mark command changes:
360 *** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
361 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
362 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
365 *** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times.
367 If you type C-M-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h
368 (mark-paragraph), or C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region
369 extends each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC
370 M-C-SPC, for example. This feature also works for
371 mark-end-of-sentence, if you bind that to a key. It also extends the
372 region when the mark is active in Transient Mark mode, regardless of
373 the last command. To start a new region with one of marking commands
374 in Transient Mark mode, you can deactivate the active region with C-g,
375 or set the new mark with C-SPC.
378 *** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
380 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
381 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
385 *** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
386 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
387 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
388 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
389 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
392 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
393 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
394 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
397 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
398 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
399 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
403 *** Movement commands `beginning-of-buffer', `end-of-buffer',
404 `beginning-of-defun', `end-of-defun' do not set the mark if the mark
405 is already active in Transient Mark mode.
407 ** Help command changes:
410 *** Changes in C-h bindings:
412 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
414 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
417 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
418 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
420 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
421 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
423 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
425 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
426 run by the key sequence.
428 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
429 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
432 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
433 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
435 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
436 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
438 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
439 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
441 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
442 new-kill-line is on C-k
445 *** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
446 arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
447 default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
448 `help-default-arg-highlight'.
451 *** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
452 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
455 *** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
456 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
457 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
458 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
459 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
460 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
461 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node').
464 *** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
465 description various information about a character, including its
466 encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
467 widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
468 clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
471 *** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
472 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
475 *** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
476 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
477 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
478 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
479 keyboard oriented alternative.
482 *** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
483 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
484 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
485 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
486 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
489 *** The apropos commands now accept a list of words to match.
490 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
491 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
495 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
496 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
497 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
498 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
499 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
502 ** Incremental Search changes:
505 *** Vertical scrolling is now possible within incremental search.
506 To enable this feature, customize the new user option
507 `isearch-allow-scroll'. User written commands which satisfy stringent
508 constraints can be marked as "scrolling commands". See the Emacs manual
512 *** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
513 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
514 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
515 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
518 *** C-y in incremental search now grabs the next line if point is already
519 at the end of a line.
522 *** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
523 Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
524 and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
527 *** M-% typed in isearch mode invokes `query-replace' or
528 `query-replace-regexp' (depending on search mode) with the current
529 search string used as the string to replace.
532 *** Isearch no longer adds `isearch-resume' commands to the command
533 history by default. To enable this feature, customize the new
534 user option `isearch-resume-in-command-history'.
536 ** Replace command changes:
539 *** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
540 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
541 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
544 *** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
545 `replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
546 where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
547 time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
548 `query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
549 to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
550 All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
551 replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
552 can be edited for each replacement.
555 *** query-replace uses isearch lazy highlighting when the new user option
556 `query-replace-lazy-highlight' is non-nil.
559 *** The current match in query-replace is highlighted in new face
560 `query-replace' which by default inherits from isearch face.
562 ** File operation changes:
565 *** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
566 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
567 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
568 is only rarely needed.
571 *** In processing a local variables list, Emacs strips the prefix and
572 suffix are from every line before processing all the lines.
575 *** find-file-read-only visits multiple files in read-only mode,
576 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
579 *** find-alternate-file replaces the current file with multiple files,
580 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
583 *** Auto Compression mode is now enabled by default.
586 *** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
588 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
589 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
590 directory with Dired.
593 *** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
594 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
595 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you can in fact alter the
599 *** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
600 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
603 *** The commands copy-file, rename-file, make-symbolic-link and
604 add-name-to-file, when given a directory as the "new name" argument,
605 convert it to a file name by merging in the within-directory part of
606 the existing file's name. (This is the same convention that shell
607 commands cp, mv, and ln follow.) Thus, M-x copy-file RET ~/foo RET
608 /tmp RET copies ~/foo to /tmp/foo.
611 *** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
612 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
613 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
616 *** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
617 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
618 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
621 *** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
622 Emacs asks for confirmation.
625 *** require-final-newline now has two new possible values:
627 `visit' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's needed
628 when visiting the file.
630 `visit-save' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's
631 needed when visiting the file, and also add a newline if it's needed
632 when saving the file.
635 *** The new option mode-require-final-newline controls how certain
636 major modes enable require-final-newline. Any major mode that's
637 designed for a kind of file that should normally end in a newline
638 sets require-final-newline based on mode-require-final-newline.
639 So you can customize mode-require-final-newline to control what these
642 ** Minibuffer changes:
645 *** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
646 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
647 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
651 *** Enhanced visual feedback in `*Completions*' buffer.
653 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
654 have in common and where they begin to differ.
656 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
657 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
658 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
659 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
660 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
661 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
662 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
663 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
666 *** File-name completion can now ignore specified directories.
667 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
668 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
669 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
670 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
671 candidate is a directory.
674 *** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
675 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
676 it remains unchanged.
679 *** New user option `history-delete-duplicates'.
680 If set to t when adding a new history element, all previous identical
681 elements are deleted.
683 ** Redisplay changes:
686 *** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
687 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
688 appears between the position information and the major mode.
691 *** New face `escape-glyph' highlights control characters and escape glyphs.
694 *** Non-breaking space and hyphens are now displayed with a special
695 face, either nobreak-space or escape-glyph. You can turn this off or
696 specify a different mode by setting the variable `nobreak-char-display'.
699 *** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
700 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
701 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
702 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
704 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
705 hscrolling scrolls the window when point gets too close to the
706 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
707 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
708 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
709 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
711 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
712 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
715 *** Moving or scrolling through images (and other lines) taller that
716 the window now works sensibly, by automatically adjusting the window's
720 *** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
721 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
722 the mode line of the currently selected window.
724 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
725 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
728 *** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
729 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
730 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
731 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
735 *** Angle icons in the fringes can indicate the buffer boundaries. In
736 addition, up and down arrow bitmaps in the fringe indicate which ways
737 the window can be scrolled.
739 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
740 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
741 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
743 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
744 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp.
746 The value can also be an alist which specifies the presence and
747 position of each bitmap individually.
749 For example, ((top . left) (t . right)) places the top angle bitmap
750 in left fringe, the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both
751 arrow bitmaps in right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the
752 left fringe, but no arrow bitmaps, use ((top . left) (bottom . left)).
755 *** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
756 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
757 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
758 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
759 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
761 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' can be set to nil to
762 revert to the old behavior of continuing such lines.
765 *** When a window has display margin areas, the fringes are now
766 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
767 outside those margins.
770 *** A window can now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
771 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
773 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
774 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
775 or when the frame is resized.
777 ** Cursor display changes:
780 *** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
781 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
784 *** The X resource cursorBlink can be used to turn off cursor blinking.
787 *** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
788 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
789 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
793 *** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
794 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
798 *** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
799 of the recognized cursor types.
804 *** `mode-line-highlight' is the standard face indicating mouse sensitive
805 elements on mode-line (and header-line) like `highlight' face on text
809 *** `shadow' face defines the appearance of the "shadowed" text, i.e.
810 the text which should be less noticeable than the surrounding text.
811 This can be achieved by using shades of grey in contrast with either
812 black or white default foreground color. This generic shadow face
813 allows customization of the appearance of shadowed text in one place,
814 so package-specific faces can inherit from it.
817 *** `vertical-border' face is used for the vertical divider between windows.
819 ** Font-Lock changes:
822 *** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
823 M-o M-o requests refontification.
826 *** All modes now support using M-x font-lock-mode to toggle
827 fontification, even those such as Occur, Info, and comint-derived
828 modes that do their own fontification in a special way.
830 The variable `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable
831 fontification in Info, remove `turn-on-font-lock' from
835 *** font-lock-lines-before specifies a number of lines before the
836 current line that should be refontified when you change the buffer.
837 The default value is 1.
840 *** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
841 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
842 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
843 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
844 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
847 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
850 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-comment-delimiter-face'.
853 *** Easy to overlook single character negation can now be font-locked.
854 You can use the new variable `font-lock-negation-char-face' and the face of
855 the same name to customize this. Currently the cc-modes, sh-script-mode,
856 cperl-mode and make-mode support this.
859 *** The default settings for JIT stealth lock parameters are changed.
860 The default value for the user option jit-lock-stealth-time is now 16
861 instead of 3, and the default value of jit-lock-stealth-nice is now
862 0.5 instead of 0.125. The new defaults should lower the CPU usage
863 when Emacs is fontifying in the background.
866 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
868 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
869 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
870 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
871 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
874 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
876 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
877 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
878 refontification takes place.
883 *** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
884 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
885 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
886 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
887 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
888 current date and time, current line and column number in the mode-line.
891 *** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
894 *** You can exit dialog windows and menus by typing C-g.
897 *** The menu item "Open File..." has been split into two items, "New File..."
898 and "Open File...". "Open File..." now opens only existing files. This is
899 to support existing GUI file selection dialogs better.
902 *** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, Mac, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
903 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
906 *** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
907 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+, Mac and W32).
910 *** The Lucid menus can display multilingual text in your locale. You have
911 to explicitly specify a fontSet resource for this to work, for example
912 `-xrm "Emacs*fontSet: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*,*"'.
915 *** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif now pops down when pressing
916 ESC, like they do for Gtk+, Mac and W32.
919 *** For Gtk+ version 2.4, you can make Emacs use the old file dialog
920 by setting the variable `x-use-old-gtk-file-dialog' to t. Default is to use
926 *** If you set the new variable `mouse-autoselect-window' to a non-nil
927 value, windows are automatically selected as you move the mouse from
928 one Emacs window to another, even within a frame. A minibuffer window
929 can be selected only when it is active.
932 *** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
933 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
934 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
935 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
936 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
940 *** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
942 Traditionally, Emacs uses a Mouse-1 click to set point and a Mouse-2
943 click to follow a link, whereas most other applications use a Mouse-1
944 click for both purposes, depending on whether you click outside or
945 inside a link. Now the behavior of a Mouse-1 click has been changed
946 to match this context-sentitive dual behavior. (If you prefer the old
947 behavior, set the user option `mouse-1-click-follows-link' to nil.)
949 Depending on the current mode, a Mouse-2 click in Emacs can do much
950 more than just follow a link, so the new Mouse-1 behavior is only
951 activated for modes which explicitly mark a clickable text as a "link"
952 (see the new function `mouse-on-link-p' for details). The Lisp
953 packages that are included in release 22.1 have been adapted to do
954 this, but external packages may not yet support this. However, there
955 is no risk in using such packages, as the worst thing that could
956 happen is that you get the original Mouse-1 behavior when you click
957 on a link, which typically means that you set point where you click.
959 If you want to get the original Mouse-1 action also inside a link, you
960 just need to press the Mouse-1 button a little longer than a normal
961 click (i.e. press and hold the Mouse-1 button for half a second before
964 Dragging the Mouse-1 inside a link still performs the original
965 drag-mouse-1 action, typically copy the text.
967 You can customize the new Mouse-1 behavior via the new user options
968 `mouse-1-click-follows-link' and `mouse-1-click-in-non-selected-windows'.
971 *** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
972 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
973 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
974 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
975 also disable mouse highlighting.
978 *** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
979 shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
980 variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
983 *** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
984 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
987 *** Emacs ignores mouse-2 clicks while the mouse wheel is being moved.
989 People tend to push the mouse wheel (which counts as a mouse-2 click)
990 unintentionally while turning the wheel, so these clicks are now
991 ignored. You can customize this with the mouse-wheel-click-event and
992 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
995 *** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
997 ** Multilingual Environment (Mule) changes:
1000 *** Language environment and various default coding systems are setup
1001 more correctly according to the current locale name. If the locale
1002 name doesn't specify a charset, the default is what glibc defines.
1003 This change can result in using the different coding systems as
1004 default in some locale (e.g. vi_VN).
1007 *** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1008 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1009 can mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1010 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1011 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1012 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1013 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1014 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1017 *** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
1018 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
1021 *** New command `recode-region' decodes the region again by a specified
1025 *** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
1029 *** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
1033 *** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
1034 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
1035 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
1039 *** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
1040 in the current input method to input a character at point.
1043 *** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
1044 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
1045 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
1046 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
1047 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
1048 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
1049 mule-unicode-... ones.
1051 By default this translation happens automatically on encoding.
1052 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
1053 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
1056 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
1057 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
1058 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
1059 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
1060 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
1063 *** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
1064 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
1065 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
1066 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
1069 *** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
1070 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
1071 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
1072 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
1073 automatically according to the locale.)
1076 *** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
1077 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
1078 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
1079 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
1080 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
1084 *** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
1088 *** Improved Thai support. A new minor mode `thai-word-mode' (which is
1089 automatically activated if you select Thai as a language
1090 environment) changes key bindings of most word-oriented commands to
1091 versions which recognize Thai words. Affected commands are
1095 M-DEL (backward-kill-word)
1096 M-t (transpose-words)
1097 M-q (fill-paragraph)
1100 *** Indian support has been updated.
1101 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
1102 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
1103 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
1107 *** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
1110 *** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
1111 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
1112 single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
1113 turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
1114 sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
1115 system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
1116 interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
1117 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
1118 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
1119 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
1120 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
1121 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
1124 *** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
1125 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
1126 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
1129 *** Many new coding systems are available in the `code-pages' library.
1130 These include complete versions of most of those in codepage.el, based
1131 on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now obsolete and is used
1132 only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. All coding systems defined in
1133 `code-pages' are auto-loaded.
1136 *** New variable `utf-translate-cjk-unicode-range' controls which
1137 Unicode characters to translate in `utf-translate-cjk-mode'.
1140 *** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
1141 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
1142 fontset appropriately.
1144 ** Customize changes:
1147 *** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
1148 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
1149 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
1153 *** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
1154 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
1155 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
1156 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
1157 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
1158 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
1159 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
1162 *** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
1163 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
1164 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
1165 under the "[State]" button.
1167 ** Buffer Menu changes:
1170 *** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
1171 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to `T' in Buffer Menu
1175 *** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1176 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1177 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1180 *** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
1181 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
1182 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
1184 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
1185 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
1186 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories are
1187 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
1188 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
1190 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
1191 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
1192 t, and the status is shown.
1194 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
1195 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
1200 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
1201 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
1202 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
1205 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
1206 with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
1209 *** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
1210 of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
1213 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
1214 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
1215 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
1216 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
1217 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
1218 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
1221 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
1222 into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
1225 *** In Dired-x, Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode.
1227 The mode toggling command is bound to M-o. A new command
1228 dired-mark-omitted, bound to * O, marks omitted files. The variable
1229 dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the mode toggling function
1233 *** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1234 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1235 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1236 directory listing into a buffer.
1241 *** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
1242 option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
1243 except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
1244 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
1245 overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
1247 The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
1248 support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
1250 `comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
1251 read-only and field properties. Hence, it always kill entire
1252 lines, including any prompts.
1254 `comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
1255 read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
1256 part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
1257 and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
1258 not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
1259 `kill-region' if read-only are involved: it copies the text to the
1260 kill-ring, but does not delete it.
1263 *** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
1264 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
1265 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
1266 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
1269 *** `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' has been renamed
1270 `comint-use-prompt-regexp'. The old name has been kept as an alias,
1271 but declared obsolete.
1273 ** M-x Compile changes:
1276 *** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
1278 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
1279 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
1280 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
1281 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
1283 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
1284 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
1285 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
1287 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
1288 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
1289 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
1290 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
1291 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
1293 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
1296 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1297 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1298 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1299 subprocesses inherit.
1302 *** New user option `compilation-disable-input'.
1303 If this is non-nil, send end-of-file as compilation process input.
1306 *** New options `next-error-highlight' and `next-error-highlight-no-select'
1307 specify the method of highlighting of the corresponding source line
1308 in new face `next-error'.
1311 *** A new minor mode `next-error-follow-minor-mode' can be used in
1312 compilation-mode, grep-mode, occur-mode, and diff-mode (i.e. all the
1313 modes that can use `next-error'). In this mode, cursor motion in the
1314 buffer causes automatic display in another window of the corresponding
1315 matches, compilation errors, etc. This minor mode can be toggled with
1319 *** When the left fringe is displayed, an arrow points to current message in
1320 the compilation buffer.
1323 *** The new variable `compilation-context-lines' controls lines of leading
1324 context before the current message. If nil and the left fringe is displayed,
1325 it doesn't scroll the compilation output window. If there is no left fringe,
1326 no arrow is displayed and a value of nil means display the message at the top
1329 ** Occur mode changes:
1332 *** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1333 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1337 *** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
1338 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
1341 *** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
1342 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
1343 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
1344 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
1345 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
1350 *** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1352 There's a new separate package grep.el, with its own submenu and
1353 customization group.
1356 *** M-x grep provides highlighting support.
1358 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
1359 can be saved and automatically revisited.
1362 *** `grep-find' is now also available under the name `find-grep' where
1363 people knowing `find-grep-dired' would probably expect it.
1366 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1367 `grep-scroll-output' override the corresponding compilation mode
1368 settings, for grep commands only.
1371 *** New option `grep-highlight-matches' highlightes matches in *grep*
1372 buffer. It uses a special feature of some grep programs which accept
1373 --color option to output markers around matches. When going to the next
1374 match with `next-error' the exact match is highlighted in the source
1375 buffer. Otherwise, if `grep-highlight-matches' is nil, the whole
1376 source line is highlighted.
1379 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1380 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1381 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1382 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1383 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1384 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1388 *** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
1389 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep automatically
1390 detects whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
1391 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
1392 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
1393 command lines to be used than was possible before.
1395 ** X Windows Support:
1398 *** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
1399 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
1400 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
1403 *** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1404 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1405 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1406 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1408 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1409 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1412 *** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which can
1413 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
1415 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
1416 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
1419 *** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
1420 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
1421 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
1422 and use the more appropriately result.
1425 *** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
1426 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
1427 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
1432 *** Emacs now responds to mouse-clicks on the mode-line, header-line and
1433 display margin, when run in an xterm.
1436 *** Improved key bindings support when running in an xterm.
1437 When emacs is running in an xterm more key bindings are available. The
1438 following should work:
1439 {C,S,C-S,A}-{right,left,up,down,prior,next,delete,insert,F1-12}.
1440 These key bindings work on xterm from X.org 6.8, they might not work on
1441 some older versions of xterm, or on some proprietary versions.
1443 ** Character terminal color support changes:
1446 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
1447 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
1448 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
1449 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
1450 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
1451 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
1452 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
1453 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
1454 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
1457 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
1458 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
1459 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
1460 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
1461 all of these colors.
1464 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
1465 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
1466 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
1467 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
1471 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
1473 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1
1476 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
1477 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
1478 program files that include other program files.
1480 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
1481 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
1485 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1487 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1488 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1489 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1490 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
1493 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1494 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1497 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1499 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1500 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1501 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1502 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1505 ** Image files are normally visited in Image mode, which lets you toggle
1506 between viewing the image and viewing the text using C-c C-c.
1509 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1511 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1512 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1513 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1514 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1515 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1516 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1518 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1519 rectangle highlighting: Use C-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1520 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1521 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1523 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1524 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1525 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1526 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1527 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1528 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1529 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1531 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1532 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1533 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1535 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1536 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1538 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1539 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1540 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1541 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1543 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1544 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1545 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you can customize the
1546 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1548 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1549 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1550 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1551 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1554 ** Org mode is now part of the Emacs distribution
1556 Org mode is a mode for keeping notes, maintaining ToDo lists, and
1557 doing project planning with a fast and effective plain-text system.
1558 It also contains a plain-text table editor with spreadsheet-like
1561 The Org mode table editor can be integrated into any major mode by
1562 activating the minor Orgtbl-mode.
1564 The documentation for org-mode is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1565 type "C-h i m org RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1566 available in `etc/orgcard.tex' and `etc/orgcard.ps'.
1569 ** The new package dns-mode.el add syntax highlight of DNS master files.
1570 The key binding C-c C-s (`dns-mode-soa-increment-serial') can be used
1571 to increment the SOA serial.
1574 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1575 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1576 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1577 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1578 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method can
1579 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1582 ** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
1583 source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
1586 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1587 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1588 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1589 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1590 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1592 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1593 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1594 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1595 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1596 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1597 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1599 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1600 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1601 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1602 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1603 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1604 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1605 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1606 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1607 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1611 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1612 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1614 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1615 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1616 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1617 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1619 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1622 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1623 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1624 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1625 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1626 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1629 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1630 the keyboard macro ring.
1632 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1633 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1635 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1636 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1637 this behavior via the variables kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1638 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1640 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1641 C-x C-k SPC steps through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1642 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1645 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
1646 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
1647 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
1650 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on Dired
1651 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
1654 ** The new package longlines.el provides a minor mode for editing text
1655 files composed of long lines, based on the `use-hard-newlines'
1656 mechanism. The long lines are broken up by inserting soft newlines,
1657 which are automatically removed when saving the file to disk or
1658 copying into the kill ring, clipboard, etc. By default, Longlines
1659 mode inserts soft newlines automatically during editing, a behavior
1660 referred to as "soft word wrap" in other text editors. This is
1661 similar to Refill mode, but more reliable. To turn the word wrap
1662 feature off, set `longlines-auto-wrap' to nil.
1665 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1667 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1668 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1669 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1670 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1671 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1672 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1675 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1676 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1677 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1678 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1680 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1683 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1684 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1685 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1689 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1690 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1691 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1692 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1695 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1696 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1699 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1700 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1701 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1702 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1703 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1704 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1707 ** The thumbs.el package allows you to preview image files as thumbnails
1708 and can be invoked from a Dired buffer.
1711 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1713 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1714 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1715 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1716 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1717 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1718 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1719 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1720 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1721 `rsync' to do the copying).
1723 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1724 `su' and `sudo'. Ange-FTP is still supported via the `ftp' method.
1726 If you want to disable Tramp you should set
1728 (setq tramp-default-method "ftp")
1731 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
1734 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1735 configuration files.
1738 ** The new package conf-mode.el handles thousands of configuration files, with
1739 varying syntaxes for comments (;, #, //, /* */ or !), assignment (var = value,
1740 var : value, var value or keyword var value) and sections ([section] or
1741 section { }). Many files under /etc/, or with suffixes like .cf through
1742 .config, .properties (Java), .desktop (KDE/Gnome), .ini and many others are
1746 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1749 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
1752 ** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
1753 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
1755 ** The new package scroll-lock.el provides the Scroll Lock minor mode
1756 for pager-like scrolling. Keys which normally move point by line or
1757 paragraph will scroll the buffer by the respective amount of lines
1758 instead and point will be kept vertically fixed relative to window
1759 boundaries during scrolling.
1761 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1:
1764 ** Changes to cmuscheme
1766 *** Emacs now offers to start Scheme if the user tries to
1767 evaluate a Scheme expression but no Scheme subprocess is running.
1769 *** If a file `.emacs_NAME' (where NAME is the name of the Scheme interpreter)
1770 exists in the user's home directory or in ~/.emacs.d, its
1771 contents are sent to the Scheme subprocess upon startup.
1773 *** There are new commands to instruct the Scheme interpreter to trace
1774 procedure calls (`scheme-trace-procedure') and to expand syntactic forms
1775 (`scheme-expand-current-form'). The commands actually sent to the Scheme
1776 subprocess are controlled by the user options `scheme-trace-command',
1777 `scheme-untrace-command' and `scheme-expand-current-form'.
1780 ** Makefile mode has submodes for automake, gmake, makepp and BSD make.
1782 The former two couldn't be differentiated before, and the latter two
1783 are new. Font-locking is robust now and offers new customizable
1787 ** In Outline mode, `hide-body' no longer hides lines at the top
1788 of the file that precede the first header line.
1791 ** Telnet now prompts you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
1794 ** The terminal emulation code in term.el has been improved; it can
1795 run most curses applications now.
1798 ** M-x diff uses Diff mode instead of Compilation mode.
1801 ** You can now customize `fill-nobreak-predicate' to control where
1802 filling can break lines. The value is now normally a list of
1803 functions, but it can also be a single function, for compatibility.
1805 Emacs provide two predicates, `fill-single-word-nobreak-p' and
1806 `fill-french-nobreak-p', for use as the value of
1807 `fill-nobreak-predicate'.
1810 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
1811 with special modes such as Tar mode.
1814 ** Commands `winner-redo' and `winner-undo', from winner.el, are now
1815 bound to C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an
1816 incompatible change.
1819 ** `global-whitespace-mode' is a new alias for `whitespace-global-mode'.
1822 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
1823 resync points in both windows.
1826 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1828 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry always
1829 starts a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1832 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
1833 when Emacs visits them.
1835 ** Info mode changes:
1838 *** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
1839 with the number appended to the `*info*' buffer name (e.g. "*info*<2>").
1842 *** isearch in Info uses Info-search and searches through multiple nodes.
1844 Before leaving the initial Info node isearch fails once with the error
1845 message [initial node], and with subsequent C-s/C-r continues through
1846 other nodes. When isearch fails for the rest of the manual, it wraps
1847 aroung the whole manual to the top/final node. The user option
1848 `Info-isearch-search' controls whether to use Info-search for isearch,
1849 or the default isearch search function that wraps around the current
1853 *** New search commands: `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S),
1854 `Info-search-backward', and `Info-search-next' which repeats the last
1855 search without prompting for a new search string.
1858 *** New command `Info-history-forward' (bound to r and new toolbar icon)
1859 moves forward in history to the node you returned from after using
1860 `Info-history-back' (renamed from `Info-last').
1863 *** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
1866 *** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
1867 from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
1870 *** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
1871 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
1875 *** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
1876 the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
1877 arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
1880 *** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
1881 and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
1884 *** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
1885 references and following them calls `browse-url'.
1888 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
1890 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
1891 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
1894 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
1896 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
1897 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
1898 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
1901 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
1904 *** `Info-index' offers completion.
1906 ** Lisp mode changes:
1909 *** Lisp mode now uses `font-lock-doc-face' for doc strings.
1912 *** C-u C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-prints the list after point.
1914 *** New features in evaluation commands
1917 **** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
1918 the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
1921 **** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
1922 in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
1923 by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
1924 function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
1925 `eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
1930 *** Font lock support.
1931 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
1932 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
1933 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
1934 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
1935 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
1936 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
1938 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
1939 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
1940 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
1941 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
1942 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
1943 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
1944 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
1945 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
1946 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
1948 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
1949 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
1950 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
1951 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
1952 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
1953 take the better part of a minute.
1955 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
1956 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
1957 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
1958 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
1959 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
1960 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
1962 **** Support for documentation comments.
1963 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
1964 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
1965 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
1966 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
1968 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
1969 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
1970 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
1971 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1973 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
1974 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
1975 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
1976 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
1979 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
1980 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
1981 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
1982 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
1983 not as configurable as it ought to be.
1985 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
1986 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
1987 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
1988 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
1989 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
1991 *** Support for the AWK language.
1992 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
1993 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
1994 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
1997 **** Indentation Engine
1998 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
2000 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
2001 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
2002 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
2003 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
2004 definition, or structured statement.
2006 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
2007 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
2008 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
2010 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
2011 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
2012 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
2013 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
2016 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
2017 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
2018 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
2019 the AWK language itself.
2021 **** Comment Commands
2022 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
2023 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
2025 **** Movement Commands
2026 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
2027 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
2028 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
2030 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
2031 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
2032 recognize these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
2035 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
2036 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
2037 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
2038 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
2040 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
2041 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
2042 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
2043 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
2044 composition-close, and incomposition.
2046 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
2047 The functions `c-hungry-backspace' and `c-hungry-delete-forward' can be
2048 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
2050 *** Better control over `require-final-newline'.
2052 The variable `c-require-final-newline' specifies which of the modes
2053 implemented by CC mode should insert final newlines. Its value is a
2054 list of modes, and only those modes should do it. By default the list
2055 includes C, C++ and Objective-C modes.
2057 Whichever modes are in this list will set `require-final-newline'
2058 based on `mode-require-final-newline'.
2060 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
2062 The elements in the syntactic context returned by `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2063 and stored in `c-syntactic-context' has been changed somewhat to allow
2064 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
2065 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
2067 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
2071 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
2073 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
2076 This change might affect code that call `c-guess-basic-syntax' directly,
2077 and custom lineup functions if they use `c-syntactic-context'. However,
2078 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
2079 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
2081 *** API changes for derived modes.
2083 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
2084 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
2085 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
2086 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
2087 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
2089 **** New language variable system.
2090 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
2092 **** New initialization functions.
2093 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
2094 give better control: `c-basic-common-init', `c-font-lock-init', and
2095 `c-init-language-vars'.
2097 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
2098 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
2099 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
2100 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
2102 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
2103 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
2104 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
2105 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
2106 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2108 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
2109 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
2110 its substatement. E.g:
2116 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
2118 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
2119 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
2120 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
2121 variable `c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros'. A new syntactic symbol
2122 `cpp-define-intro' has been added to control the initial indentation
2125 **** New lineup function `c-lineup-cpp-define'.
2127 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
2128 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
2129 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
2130 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
2131 much line `c-lineup-dont-change', which was used earlier, but handles
2132 empty lines within the macro better.
2134 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
2135 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
2136 `c-context-line-break' and `c-context-open-line'.
2138 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2139 `c-backslash-region' tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
2140 variable `c-backslash-max-column' which put a limit on how far out
2141 backslashes can be moved.
2143 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2144 This is controlled by the new variable `c-auto-align-backslashes'. It
2145 affects `c-context-line-break', `c-context-open-line' and newlines
2146 inserted in Auto-Newline mode.
2147 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
2149 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
2150 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
2151 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
2152 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
2153 backslash) in the macro.
2155 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
2156 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
2157 the variable `c-indent-comment-alist'. The indentation behavior based
2158 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
2159 and #endif but indentation to `comment-column' in most other cases
2160 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
2162 *** New function `c-context-open-line'.
2163 It's the open-line equivalent of `c-context-line-break'.
2165 *** New lineup functions
2167 **** `c-lineup-string-cont'
2168 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
2171 result = prefix + "A message "
2172 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
2174 **** `c-lineup-cascaded-calls'
2175 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
2177 **** `c-lineup-knr-region-comment'
2178 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
2179 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
2181 **** `c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg'
2182 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks.
2184 **** `c-lineup-argcont'
2185 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
2187 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
2188 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
2189 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
2190 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
2191 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
2192 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
2194 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
2195 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
2196 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
2197 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
2200 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
2201 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
2202 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
2203 happen when macros are involved.
2205 *** Improved the way `c-indent-exp' chooses the block to indent.
2206 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
2207 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
2208 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
2209 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
2210 line is left untouched.
2212 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
2213 The function `c-toggle-syntactic-indentation' can be used to toggle
2214 syntactic indentation.
2216 ** In sh-script, a continuation line is only indented if the backslash was
2217 preceded by a SPC or a TAB.
2220 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
2223 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
2224 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
2225 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
2226 C-c C-i b, and so on.
2228 ** Fortran mode changes:
2231 *** Fortran mode does more font-locking by default. Use level 3
2232 highlighting for the old default.
2235 *** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
2236 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
2237 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
2240 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have new navigation commands
2241 `f90-end-of-block', `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block',
2242 `f90-previous-block', `fortran-end-of-block',
2243 `fortran-beginning-of-block'.
2246 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have support for `hs-minor-mode' (hideshow).
2247 It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
2251 *** The new function `f90-backslash-not-special' can be used to change
2252 the syntax of backslashes in F90 buffers.
2255 ** Reftex mode changes
2257 *** Changes to RefTeX's table of contents
2259 The new command keys "<" and ">" in the TOC buffer promote/demote the
2260 section at point or all sections in the current region, with full
2261 support for multifile documents.
2263 The new command `reftex-toc-recenter' (`C-c -') shows the current
2264 section in the TOC buffer without selecting the TOC window.
2265 Recentering can happen automatically in idle time when the option
2266 `reftex-auto-recenter-toc' is turned on. The highlight in the TOC
2267 buffer stays when the focus moves to a different window. A dedicated
2268 frame can show the TOC with the current section always automatically
2269 highlighted. The frame is created and deleted from the toc buffer
2272 The toc window can be split off horizontally instead of vertically.
2273 See new option `reftex-toc-split-windows-horizontally'.
2275 Labels can be renamed globally from the table of contents using the
2278 The new command `reftex-goto-label' jumps directly to a label
2282 *** Changes related to citations and BibTeX database files
2284 Commands that insert a citation now prompt for optional arguments when
2285 called with a prefix argument. Related new options are
2286 `reftex-cite-prompt-optional-args' and `reftex-cite-cleanup-optional-args'.
2288 The new command `reftex-create-bibtex-file' creates a BibTeX database
2289 with all entries referenced in the current document. The keys "e" and
2290 "E" allow to produce a BibTeX database file from entries marked in a
2291 citation selection buffer.
2293 The command `reftex-citation' uses the word in the buffer before the
2294 cursor as a default search string.
2296 The support for chapterbib has been improved. Different chapters can
2297 now use BibTeX or an explicit `thebibliography' environment.
2299 The macros which specify the bibliography file (like \bibliography)
2300 can be configured with the new option `reftex-bibliography-commands'.
2302 Support for jurabib has been added.
2305 *** Global index matched may be verified with a user function
2307 During global indexing, a user function can verify an index match.
2308 See new option `reftex-index-verify-function'.
2311 *** Parsing documents with many labels can be sped up.
2313 Operating in a document with thousands of labels can be sped up
2314 considerably by allowing RefTeX to derive the type of a label directly
2315 from the label prefix like `eq:' or `fig:'. The option
2316 `reftex-trust-label-prefix' needs to be configured in order to enable
2317 this feature. While the speed-up is significant, this may reduce the
2318 quality of the context offered by RefTeX to describe a label.
2321 *** Miscellaneous changes
2323 The macros which input a file in LaTeX (like \input, \include) can be
2324 configured in the new option `reftex-include-file-commands'.
2326 RefTeX supports global incremental search.
2329 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
2330 to support use of font-lock.
2332 ** HTML/SGML changes:
2335 *** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
2339 *** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
2340 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
2341 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
2342 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
2343 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
2344 from the file name or buffer contents.
2347 *** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
2352 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
2355 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
2356 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
2357 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
2358 TeX commands to use at startup.
2361 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
2362 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
2365 *** New major mode Doctex mode, for *.dtx files.
2369 *** The new command `bibtex-url' browses a URL for the BibTeX entry at
2370 point (bound to C-c C-l and mouse-2, RET on clickable fields).
2372 *** The new command `bibtex-entry-update' (bound to C-c C-u) updates
2373 an existing BibTeX entry.
2375 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
2377 *** `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' can take values `plain',
2378 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
2379 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
2380 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
2381 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
2382 `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' is non-nil.
2384 *** If the new variable `bibtex-parse-keys-fast' is non-nil,
2385 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
2387 *** If the new variable `bibtex-autoadd-commas' is non-nil,
2388 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
2390 *** The new variable `bibtex-autofill-types' contains a list of entry
2391 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
2393 *** The new command `bibtex-complete' completes word fragment before
2394 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
2396 *** The new commands `bibtex-find-entry' and `bibtex-find-crossref'
2397 locate entries and crossref'd entries (bound to C-c C-s and C-c C-x).
2398 Crossref fields are clickable (bound to mouse-2, RET).
2400 *** In BibTeX mode the command `fill-paragraph' (M-q) fills
2401 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
2403 *** The new variables `bibtex-files' and `bibtex-file-path' define a set
2404 of BibTeX files that are searched for entry keys.
2406 *** The new command `bibtex-validate-globally' checks for duplicate keys
2407 in multiple BibTeX files.
2409 *** The new command `bibtex-copy-summary-as-kill' pushes summary
2410 of BibTeX entry to kill ring (bound to C-c C-t).
2413 ** In Enriched mode, `set-left-margin' and `set-right-margin' are now
2414 by default bound to `C-c [' and `C-c ]' instead of the former `C-c C-l'
2420 *** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
2421 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
2424 *** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
2425 and other common debugger commands.
2428 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
2429 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
2430 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
2431 state of your program. It can separate the input/output of your program from
2432 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
2433 Emacs 21/22 such as the toolbar, and bitmaps in the fringe to indicate
2436 Use M-x gdb to start GDB-UI.
2438 *** The variable tooltip-gud-tips-p has been removed. GUD tooltips can now be
2439 toggled independently of normal tooltips with the minor mode
2443 *** In graphical mode, with a C program, GUD Tooltips have been extended to
2444 display the #define directive associated with an identifier when program is
2448 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
2450 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
2451 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
2452 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
2453 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
2454 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
2456 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
2457 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
2458 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
2461 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
2464 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
2465 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
2466 Set `gud-jdb-use-classpath' to nil.
2468 Added Customization Variables
2470 *** `gud-jdb-command-name'. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
2472 *** `gud-jdb-use-classpath'. Allows selection of java source file searching
2473 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan `gud-jdb-directories' for
2474 java sources (previous method).
2476 *** `gud-jdb-directories'. List of directories to scan and search for java
2477 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
2482 *** The STARTTLS wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
2483 instead of the OpenSSL based `starttls' tool. For backwards
2484 compatibility, it prefers `starttls', but you can toggle
2485 `starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
2488 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
2490 ** Auto-Revert changes:
2493 *** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
2495 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
2496 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
2497 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it stays at
2498 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
2499 just put point at the end of the buffer and it stays there. This
2500 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior can
2503 If you are sure that the file will only change by growing at the end,
2504 then you can tail the file more efficiently by using the new minor
2505 mode Auto Revert Tail mode. The function `auto-revert-tail-mode'
2509 *** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
2510 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
2511 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
2512 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
2513 mode only reverts a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
2514 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
2515 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
2516 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
2517 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
2520 *** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
2521 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
2522 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
2523 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
2524 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
2529 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
2530 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
2533 The `recentf-keep' option replaces `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p'
2534 and provides a more general mechanism to customize which file names to
2535 keep in the recent list.
2537 With the more advanced option: `recentf-filename-handler', you can
2538 specify a function that transforms filenames handled by recentf. For
2539 example, if set to `file-truename', the same file will not be in the
2540 recent list with different symbolic links.
2542 To follow naming convention, `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag'
2543 replaces the misnamed option `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The
2544 old name remains available as alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2550 *** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, `desktop-save-mode'.
2553 *** The variable `desktop-enable' is obsolete.
2555 Customize `desktop-save-mode' to enable desktop saving.
2558 *** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
2562 *** The desktop package can be customized to restore only some buffers
2563 immediately, remaining buffers are restored lazily (when Emacs is
2568 - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
2569 - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
2570 - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
2572 - desktop-lazy-complete runs the desktop load to completion.
2573 - desktop-lazy-abort aborts lazy loading of the desktop.
2576 *** New customizable variables:
2577 - desktop-save. Determins whether the desktop should be saved when it is
2579 - desktop-file-name-format. Format in which desktop file names should be saved.
2580 - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
2581 - desktop-locals-to-save. List of local variables to save.
2582 - desktop-globals-to-clear. List of global variables that `desktop-clear' will clear.
2583 - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp. Regexp identifying buffers that `desktop-clear'
2585 - desktop-restore-eager. Number of buffers to restore immediately. Remaining buffers are
2586 restored lazily (when Emacs is idle).
2587 - desktop-lazy-verbose. Verbose reporting of lazily created buffers.
2588 - desktop-lazy-idle-delay. Idle delay before starting to create buffers.
2591 *** New command line option --no-desktop
2595 - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
2596 - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
2599 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
2601 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
2602 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
2603 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
2604 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
2605 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
2611 *** When comparing directories.
2612 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
2613 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
2614 from one directory to another.
2617 *** When comparing files or buffers.
2618 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
2619 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
2620 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
2624 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
2625 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
2626 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
2631 *** New regular expressions features
2633 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
2635 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
2636 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
2637 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
2638 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
2639 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
2640 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
2641 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
2642 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
2643 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
2644 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
2646 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in GCC.
2648 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
2649 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
2652 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
2654 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
2655 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
2656 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
2658 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
2660 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
2661 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
2663 *** New language parsing features
2665 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
2667 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
2669 **** The GCC __attribute__ keyword is now recognized and ignored.
2671 **** New language HTML.
2673 Tags are generated for `title' as well as `h1', `h2', and `h3'. Also,
2674 when `name=' is used inside an anchor and whenever `id=' is used.
2676 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
2678 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
2679 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
2681 **** New language Lua.
2683 All functions are tagged.
2685 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
2687 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
2688 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
2691 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
2693 **** New language PHP.
2695 Functions, classes and defines are tags. If the --members option is
2696 specified to etags, variables are tags also.
2698 **** New default keywords for TeX.
2700 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
2703 *** Honour #line directives.
2705 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
2706 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
2707 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
2708 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
2709 writes tags pointing to the source file.
2711 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
2713 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
2714 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
2715 reads from standard input and marks the produced tags as belonging to
2721 *** The key C-x C-q only changes the read-only state of the buffer
2722 (toggle-read-only). It no longer checks files in or out.
2724 We made this change because we held a poll and found that many users
2725 were unhappy with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this
2726 behavior, you can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your
2729 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
2731 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
2734 *** The new variable `vc-cvs-global-switches' specifies switches that
2735 are passed to any CVS command invoked by VC.
2737 These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which means they
2738 are inserted before the command name. For example, this allows you to
2739 specify a compression level using the `-z#' option for CVS.
2742 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
2745 *** VC-Annotate mode enhancements
2747 In VC-Annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
2748 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
2749 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
2751 P: annotates the previous revision
2752 N: annotates the next revision
2753 J: annotates the revision at line
2754 A: annotates the revision previous to line
2755 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
2756 L: shows the log of the revision at line
2757 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
2762 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
2763 between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
2767 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
2768 anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
2769 `checkout', `update' or `commit'. That means using cvs diff options
2773 ** The new variable `mail-default-directory' specifies
2774 `default-directory' for mail buffers. This directory is used for
2775 auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to "~/".
2778 ** The mode line can indicate new mail in a directory or file.
2780 See the documentation of the user option
2781 `display-time-mail-directory'.
2786 *** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
2788 *** The new commands rmail-end-of-message and rmail-summary end-of-message,
2789 by default bound to `/', go to the end of the current mail message in
2790 Rmail and Rmail summary buffers.
2793 *** Support for `movemail' from GNU mailutils was added to Rmail.
2795 This version of `movemail' allows to read mail from a wide range of
2796 mailbox formats, including remote POP3 and IMAP4 mailboxes with or
2797 without TLS encryption. If GNU mailutils is installed on the system
2798 and its version of `movemail' can be found in exec-path, it will be
2799 used instead of the native one.
2804 *** Gnus now includes Sieve and PGG
2806 Sieve is a library for managing Sieve scripts. PGG is a library to handle
2810 *** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
2812 See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "Oort Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
2817 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.84. There have been major changes since
2818 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
2820 ** Calendar changes:
2823 *** You can now use < and >, instead of C-x < and C-x >, to scroll
2824 the calendar left or right. (The old key bindings still work too.)
2827 *** There is a new calendar package, icalendar.el, that can be used to
2828 convert Emacs diary entries to/from the iCalendar format.
2831 *** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
2832 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
2833 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
2834 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
2835 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
2836 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
2837 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
2838 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
2839 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
2842 *** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
2843 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
2844 count backward from the end of the year.
2847 *** The new Calendar function `calendar-goto-iso-week' (g w)
2848 prompts for a year and a week number, and moves to the first
2849 day of that ISO week.
2852 *** The new variable `calendar-minimum-window-height' affects the
2853 window generated by the function `generate-calendar-window'.
2856 *** The functions `holiday-easter-etc' and `holiday-advent' now take
2857 optional arguments, in order to only report on the specified holiday
2858 rather than all. This makes customization of variables such as
2859 `christian-holidays' simpler.
2862 *** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
2863 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
2864 and `diary-header-line-format'.
2867 *** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed:
2868 use the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
2869 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
2870 `appt-issue-message', `appt-visible', and `appt-msg-window'.
2873 *** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
2874 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
2875 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
2876 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
2882 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
2883 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
2884 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
2885 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
2886 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
2888 The following values are supported:
2890 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
2904 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
2907 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
2908 your `.emacs' will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
2909 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
2911 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
2913 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
2914 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
2915 all identifiers ending in `_t' under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
2916 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
2918 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
2919 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
2921 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i.
2923 Most SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
2924 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
2926 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
2928 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
2929 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
2930 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
2931 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
2934 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
2935 called with the `-E' command line argument to use the operating system
2936 credentials to authenticate the user.
2938 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
2939 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
2940 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
2942 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
2943 Keyword higlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
2945 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
2946 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
2949 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
2950 appropriate `sql-interactive-mode' wrapper for the current setting of
2954 *** sql.el supports the SQLite interpreter--call 'sql-sqlite'.
2959 *** New ffap commands and keybindings:
2961 C-x C-r (`ffap-read-only'),
2962 C-x C-v (`ffap-alternate-file'), C-x C-d (`ffap-list-directory'),
2963 C-x 4 r (`ffap-read-only-other-window'), C-x 4 d (`ffap-dired-other-window'),
2964 C-x 5 r (`ffap-read-only-other-frame'), C-x 5 d (`ffap-dired-other-frame').
2967 *** FFAP accepts wildcards in a file name by default.
2969 C-x C-f passes the file name to `find-file' with non-nil WILDCARDS
2970 argument, which visits multiple files, and C-x d passes it to `dired'.
2973 ** In skeleton.el, `-' marks the `skeleton-point' without interregion interaction.
2975 `@' has reverted to only setting `skeleton-positions' and no longer
2976 sets `skeleton-point'. Skeletons which used @ to mark
2977 `skeleton-point' independent of `_' should now use `-' instead. The
2978 updated `skeleton-insert' docstring explains these new features along
2979 with other details of skeleton construction.
2982 ** New variable `hs-set-up-overlay' allows customization of the overlay
2983 used to effect hiding for hideshow minor mode. Integration with isearch
2984 handles the overlay property `display' specially, preserving it during
2985 temporary overlay showing in the course of an isearch operation.
2988 ** `hide-ifdef-mode' now uses overlays rather than selective-display
2989 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
2990 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
2993 ** `partial-completion-mode' now handles partial completion on directory names.
2996 ** The type-break package now allows `type-break-file-name' to be nil
2997 and if so, doesn't store any data across sessions. This is handy if
2998 you don't want the `.type-break' file in your home directory or are
2999 annoyed by the need for interaction when you kill Emacs.
3002 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
3004 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
3005 `ps-print', provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF
3006 fonts. See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
3009 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
3010 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
3011 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
3012 using strokes as an input method.
3014 ** Emacs server changes:
3017 *** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
3019 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
3020 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
3021 % emacsclient -s foo file1
3022 % emacsclient -s bar file2
3025 *** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
3026 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given Lisp
3027 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
3030 *** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
3033 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
3036 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
3038 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
3039 argument it toggles the mode. Turning off PC-Selection mode restores
3040 the global key bindings that were replaced by turning on the mode.
3043 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
3044 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
3047 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
3049 Emacs still works on terminals that require magic cookies in order to
3050 use standout mode, but they can no longer display mode-lines in
3054 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
3056 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
3057 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
3058 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
3060 ** battery.el changes:
3063 *** display-battery-mode replaces display-battery.
3066 *** battery.el now works on recent versions of OS X.
3069 ** calculator.el now has radix grouping mode.
3071 To enable this, set `calculator-output-radix' non-nil. In this mode a
3072 separator character is used every few digits, making it easier to see
3073 byte boundries etc. For more info, see the documentation of the
3074 variable `calculator-radix-grouping-mode'.
3077 ** fast-lock.el and lazy-lock.el are obsolete. Use jit-lock.el instead.
3080 ** iso-acc.el is now obsolete. Use one of the latin input methods instead.
3083 ** cplus-md.el has been deleted.
3085 * Changes in Emacs 22.1 on non-free operating systems
3088 ** The HOME directory defaults to Application Data under the user profile.
3090 If you used a previous version of Emacs without setting the HOME
3091 environment variable and a `.emacs' was saved, then Emacs will continue
3092 using C:/ as the default HOME. But if you are installing Emacs afresh,
3093 the default location will be the "Application Data" (or similar
3094 localized name) subdirectory of your user profile. A typical location
3095 of this directory is "C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data",
3096 where USERNAME is your user name.
3098 This change means that users can now have their own `.emacs' files on
3099 shared computers, and the default HOME directory is less likely to be
3100 read-only on computers that are administered by someone else.
3103 ** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
3105 You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
3106 existing values. For example:
3108 emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
3110 will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
3111 irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
3114 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
3116 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
3117 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
3120 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
3122 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
3125 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
3127 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
3128 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
3129 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
3130 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
3131 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
3132 against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
3135 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
3137 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
3138 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
3139 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
3140 sound support for those formats.
3143 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
3145 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
3148 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
3150 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
3151 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
3152 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
3155 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
3157 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in much
3158 the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now adds these
3159 colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu for the
3160 default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground), and uses
3161 some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
3162 `list-colors-display' shows the list of System color names, in case
3163 you wish to use them in other faces.
3166 ** On MS Windows NT/W2K/XP, Emacs uses Unicode for clipboard operations.
3168 Those systems use Unicode internally, so this allows Emacs to share
3169 multilingual text with other applications. On other versions of
3170 MS Windows, Emacs now uses the appropriate locale coding-system, so
3171 the clipboard should work correctly for your local language without
3175 ** Running in a console window in Windows now uses the console size.
3177 Previous versions of Emacs erred on the side of having a usable Emacs
3178 through telnet, even though that was inconvenient if you use Emacs in
3179 a local console window with a scrollback buffer. The default value of
3180 w32-use-full-screen-buffer is now nil, which favours local console
3181 windows. Recent versions of Windows telnet also work well with this
3182 setting. If you are using an older telnet server then Emacs detects
3183 that the console window dimensions that are reported are not sane, and
3184 defaults to 80x25. If you use such a telnet server regularly at a size
3185 other than 80x25, you can still manually set
3186 w32-use-full-screen-buffer to t.
3189 ** On Mac OS, `keyboard-coding-system' changes based on the keyboard script.
3192 ** The variable `mac-keyboard-text-encoding' and the constants
3193 `kTextEncodingMacRoman', `kTextEncodingISOLatin1', and
3194 `kTextEncodingISOLatin2' are obsolete.
3196 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3199 ** The variables post-command-idle-hook and post-command-idle-delay have
3200 been removed. Use run-with-idle-timer instead.
3203 ** `suppress-keymap' now works by remapping `self-insert-command' to
3204 the command `undefined'. (In earlier Emacs versions, it used
3205 `substitute-key-definition' to rebind self inserting characters to
3209 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
3210 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
3211 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
3214 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
3216 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3218 ** General Lisp changes:
3220 *** The function `expt' handles negative exponents differently.
3221 The value for `(expt A B)', if both A and B are integers and B is
3222 negative, is now a float. For example: (expt 2 -2) => 0.25.
3225 *** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
3228 *** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
3231 *** `add-to-list' takes an optional third argument, APPEND.
3233 If APPEND is non-nil, the new element gets added at the end of the
3234 list instead of at the beginning. This change actually occurred in
3235 Emacs 21.1, but was not documented then.
3238 *** New function `add-to-ordered-list' is like `add-to-list' but
3239 associates a numeric ordering of each element added to the list.
3242 *** New function `copy-tree' makes a copy of a tree.
3244 It recursively copyies through both CARs and CDRs.
3247 *** New function `delete-dups' deletes `equal' duplicate elements from a list.
3249 It modifies the list destructively, like `delete'. Of several `equal'
3250 occurrences of an element in the list, the one that's kept is the
3254 *** New function `rassq-delete-all'.
3256 (rassq-delete-all VALUE ALIST) deletes, from ALIST, each element whose
3257 CDR is `eq' to the specified value.
3260 *** The function `number-sequence' makes a list of equally-separated numbers.
3262 For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9). By
3263 default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different
3264 separation as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns
3268 *** New variables `most-positive-fixnum' and `most-negative-fixnum'.
3270 They hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3273 *** Minor change in the function `format'.
3275 Some flags that were accepted but not implemented (such as "*") are no
3279 *** Functions `get' and `plist-get' no longer give errors for bad plists.
3281 They return nil for a malformed property list or if the list is
3285 *** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
3287 They are like `plist-get' and `plist-put', except that they compare
3288 the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
3291 *** New variable `print-continuous-numbering'.
3293 When this is non-nil, successive calls to print functions use a single
3294 numbering scheme for circular structure references. This is only
3295 relevant when `print-circle' is non-nil.
3297 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
3298 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
3301 *** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
3303 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
3304 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
3305 if no expansion is done, which can be tested using `eq'.
3308 *** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
3310 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
3311 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
3312 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
3315 *** A function or macro's doc string can now specify the calling pattern.
3317 You put this info in the doc string's last line. It should be
3318 formatted so as to match the regexp "\n\n(fn .*)\\'". If you don't
3319 specify this explicitly, Emacs determines it from the actual argument
3320 names. Usually that default is right, but not always.
3323 *** New macro `with-local-quit' temporarily allows quitting.
3325 A quit inside the body of `with-local-quit' is caught by the
3326 `with-local-quit' form itself, but another quit will happen later once
3327 the code that has inhibitted quitting exits.
3329 This is for use around potentially blocking or long-running code
3330 inside timer functions and `post-command-hook' functions.
3333 *** New macro `define-obsolete-function-alias'.
3335 This combines `defalias' and `make-obsolete'.
3338 *** New function `unsafep' determines whether a Lisp form is safe.
3340 It returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly do anything
3341 dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be unsafe
3342 (calls unknown function, alters global variable, etc).
3344 *** `list-faces-display' takes an optional argument, REGEXP.
3346 If it is non-nil, the function lists only faces matching this regexp.
3348 ** Lisp code indentation features:
3351 *** The `defmacro' form can contain indentation and edebug declarations.
3353 These declarations specify how to indent the macro calls in Lisp mode
3354 and how to debug them with Edebug. You write them like this:
3356 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
3358 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
3359 possible declaration specifiers are:
3362 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
3365 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
3366 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro,
3367 but this is cleaner.)
3370 *** cl-indent now allows customization of Indentation of backquoted forms.
3372 See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
3375 *** cl-indent now handles indentation of simple and extended `loop' forms.
3377 The new user options `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation',
3378 `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can
3379 be used to customize the indentation of keywords and forms in loop
3383 ** Variable aliases:
3385 *** New function: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3387 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3388 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3389 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3390 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3392 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3393 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3395 *** New function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
3397 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3398 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3399 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3401 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3402 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3405 *** The macro `define-obsolete-variable-alias' combines `defvaralias' and
3406 `make-obsolete-variable'.
3408 ** defcustom changes:
3411 *** The new customization type `float' requires a floating point number.
3416 *** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character.
3418 Exception: In a character constant, if it is followed by a `-' in a
3419 character constant (e.g. ?\s-A), it is still interpreted as the super
3420 modifier. In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
3423 *** A hex escape in a string constant forces the string to be multibyte.
3426 *** An octal escape in a string constant forces the string to be unibyte.
3429 *** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
3430 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
3431 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
3432 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
3433 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
3436 *** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
3437 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
3440 *** New function `substring-no-properties' returns a substring without
3444 *** The new function `assoc-string' replaces `assoc-ignore-case' and
3445 `assoc-ignore-representation', which are still available, but have
3446 been declared obsolete.
3449 ** Displaying warnings to the user.
3451 See the functions `warn' and `display-warning', or the Lisp Manual.
3452 If you want to be sure the warning will not be overlooked, this
3453 facility is much better than using `message', since it displays
3454 warnings in a separate window.
3457 ** Progress reporters.
3459 These provide a simple and uniform way for commands to present
3460 progress messages for the user.
3462 See the new functions `make-progress-reporter',
3463 `progress-reporter-update', `progress-reporter-force-update',
3464 `progress-reporter-done', and `dotimes-with-progress-reporter'.
3466 ** Buffer positions:
3469 *** Function `compute-motion' now calculates the usable window
3470 width if the WIDTH argument is nil. If the TOPOS argument is nil,
3471 the usable window height and width is used.
3474 *** The `line-move', `scroll-up', and `scroll-down' functions will now
3475 modify the window vscroll to scroll through display rows that are
3476 taller that the height of the window, for example in the presence of
3477 large images. To disable this feature, bind the new variable
3478 `auto-window-vscroll' to nil.
3481 *** The argument to `forward-word', `backward-word' is optional.
3486 *** Argument to `forward-to-indentation' and `backward-to-indentation' is optional.
3491 *** New function `mouse-on-link-p' test if a position is in a clickable link.
3493 This is the function used by the new `mouse-1-click-follows-link'
3497 *** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns the line number of a position.
3499 It an optional buffer position argument that defaults to point.
3502 *** `field-beginning' and `field-end' take new optional argument, LIMIT.
3504 This argument tells them not to search beyond LIMIT. Instead they
3505 give up and return LIMIT.
3508 *** Function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now returns the pixel coordinates
3509 and partial visiblity state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
3513 *** New functions `posn-at-point' and `posn-at-x-y' return
3514 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
3515 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
3517 ** Text modification:
3520 *** The new function `insert-for-yank' normally works like `insert', but
3521 removes the text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list
3522 and handles the `yank-handler' text property.
3525 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-as-yank' is like
3526 `insert-for-yank' except that it gets the text from another buffer as
3527 in `insert-buffer-substring'.
3530 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-no-properties' is like
3531 `insert-buffer-substring', but removes all text properties from the
3535 *** The new function `filter-buffer-substring' extracts a buffer
3536 substring, passes it through a set of filter functions, and returns
3537 the filtered substring. Use it instead of `buffer-substring' or
3538 `delete-and-extract-region' when copying text into a user-accessible
3539 data structure, such as the kill-ring, X clipboard, or a register.
3541 The list of filter function is specified by the new variable
3542 `buffer-substring-filters'. For example, Longlines mode adds to
3543 `buffer-substring-filters' to remove soft newlines from the copied
3547 *** Function `translate-region' accepts also a char-table as TABLE
3551 *** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
3552 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
3553 be inserted is translated through it.
3558 The new function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
3559 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
3563 *** The function `insert-string' is now obsolete.
3568 *** In determining an adaptive fill prefix, Emacs now tries the function in
3569 `adaptive-fill-function' _before_ matching the buffer line against
3570 `adaptive-fill-regexp' rather than _after_ it.
3573 ** Atomic change groups.
3575 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
3576 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
3577 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
3579 (atomic-change-group
3581 (delete-region x y))
3583 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
3584 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
3585 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
3586 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
3588 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
3589 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
3591 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
3592 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
3593 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
3594 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
3596 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
3597 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
3600 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
3601 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
3602 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
3603 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
3605 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
3606 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
3607 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
3608 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
3609 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
3610 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
3613 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
3614 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
3615 returned values, like this:
3617 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
3618 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
3620 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
3621 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
3622 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
3624 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
3625 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
3626 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
3627 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
3630 ** Buffer-related changes:
3633 *** `list-buffers-noselect' now takes an additional argument, BUFFER-LIST.
3635 If it is non-nil, it specifies which buffers to list.
3638 *** `kill-buffer-hook' is now a permanent local.
3641 *** The new function `buffer-local-value' returns the buffer-local
3642 binding of VARIABLE (a symbol) in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not
3643 have a buffer-local binding in buffer BUFFER, it returns the default
3644 value of VARIABLE instead.
3646 *** The function `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' now lets you maintain
3647 various status records in parallel.
3649 It take a variable (a symbol) as argument. If the variable is non-nil,
3650 then its value should be a vector installed previously by
3651 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p'. If the frame names, buffer names, buffer
3652 order, or their read-only or modified flags have changed, since the
3653 time the vector's contents were recorded by a previous call to
3654 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', then the function returns t. Otherwise
3657 On the first call to `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', the variable's
3658 value should be nil. `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' stores a suitable
3659 vector into the variable and returns t.
3661 If the variable is itself nil, then `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' uses,
3662 for compatibility, an internal variable which exists only for this
3665 ** Local variables lists:
3668 *** Text properties in local variables.
3670 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
3671 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
3674 *** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
3675 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
3676 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
3677 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
3681 *** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
3682 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
3683 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
3684 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
3685 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
3686 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
3688 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
3689 confirmation as before.
3691 ** Searching and matching changes:
3694 *** New function `looking-back' checks whether a regular expression matches
3695 the text before point. Specifying the LIMIT argument bounds how far
3696 back the match can start; this is a way to keep it from taking too long.
3699 *** The new variable `search-spaces-regexp' controls how to search
3700 for spaces in a regular expression. If it is non-nil, it should be a
3701 regular expression, and any series of spaces stands for that regular
3702 expression. If it is nil, spaces stand for themselves.
3704 Spaces inside of constructs such as `[..]' and inside loops such as
3705 `*', `+', and `?' are never replaced with `search-spaces-regexp'.
3708 *** New regular expression operators, `\_<' and `\_>'.
3710 These match the beginning and end of a symbol. A symbol is a
3711 non-empty sequence of either word or symbol constituent characters, as
3712 specified by the syntax table.
3715 *** rx.el has new corresponding `symbol-end' and `symbol-start' elements.
3718 *** `skip-chars-forward' and `skip-chars-backward' now handle
3719 character classes such as `[:alpha:]', along with individual
3720 characters and ranges.
3723 *** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
3724 properties from surrounding text.
3727 *** The list returned by `(match-data t)' now has the buffer as a final
3728 element, if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data'
3729 accepts such a list for restoring the match state.
3732 *** Functions `match-data' and `set-match-data' now have an optional
3733 argument `reseat'. When non-nil, all markers in the match data list
3734 passed to these function will be reseated to point to nowhere.
3737 *** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
3738 variable `sentence-end-without-space', which contains such characters
3739 that end a sentence without following spaces.
3741 The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of the
3742 variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil, then
3743 this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
3744 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
3745 `sentence-end-without-space'.
3750 *** `buffer-undo-list' can allows programmable elements.
3752 These elements have the form (apply FUNNAME . ARGS), where FUNNAME is
3753 a symbol other than t or nil. That stands for a high-level change
3754 that should be undone by evaluating (apply FUNNAME ARGS).
3756 These entries can also have the form (apply DELTA BEG END FUNNAME . ARGS)
3757 which indicates that the change which took place was limited to the
3758 range BEG...END and increased the buffer size by DELTA.
3761 *** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
3762 `undo-outer-limit', garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
3763 it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
3766 ** New `yank-handler' text property can be used to control how
3767 previously killed text on the kill ring is reinserted.
3769 The value of the `yank-handler' property must be a list with one to four
3770 elements with the following format:
3771 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
3773 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
3774 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
3775 element on the kill-ring). If a `yank-handler' property is found,
3776 the normal behavior of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
3778 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
3779 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
3780 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
3781 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
3782 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
3784 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
3785 `yank-excluded-properties' is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
3786 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
3787 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
3788 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
3789 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
3790 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
3791 FUNCTION can set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
3793 *** The functions `kill-new', `kill-append', and `kill-region' now have an
3794 optional argument to specify the `yank-handler' text property to put on
3797 *** The function `yank-pop' will now use a non-nil value of the variable
3798 `yank-undo-function' (instead of `delete-region') to undo the previous
3799 `yank' or `yank-pop' command (or a call to `insert-for-yank'). The function
3800 `insert-for-yank' automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
3801 element of the string argument's `yank-handler' text property if present.
3803 *** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
3804 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
3805 string. The old behavior is available if you call
3806 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
3808 ** Syntax table changes:
3811 *** The macro `with-syntax-table' no longer copies the syntax table.
3814 *** The new function `syntax-after' returns the syntax code
3815 of the character after a specified buffer position, taking account
3816 of text properties as well as the character code.
3819 *** `syntax-class' extracts the class of a syntax code (as returned
3823 *** The new function `syntax-ppss' rovides an efficient way to find the
3824 current syntactic context at point.
3826 ** File operation changes:
3829 *** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
3830 searching for an executable or an Emacs Lisp file.
3833 *** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
3834 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
3838 *** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
3839 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
3840 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
3841 The value in that case is an identifier for the remote file system.
3844 *** `buffer-auto-save-file-format' is the new name for what was
3845 formerly called `auto-save-file-format'. It is now a permanent local.
3848 *** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
3849 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
3850 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
3853 *** `copy-file' now takes an additional option arg MUSTBENEW.
3855 This argument works like the MUSTBENEW argument of write-file.
3858 *** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
3859 a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
3862 *** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
3863 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
3864 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
3865 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
3868 *** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
3869 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
3870 tasks, for example; it can be used by the copyright package to make
3871 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
3874 *** If `buffer-save-without-query' is non-nil in some buffer,
3875 `save-some-buffers' will always save that buffer without asking (if
3879 *** New function `locate-file' searches for a file in a list of directories.
3880 `locate-file' accepts a name of a file to search (a string), and two
3881 lists: a list of directories to search in and a list of suffixes to
3882 try; typical usage might use `exec-path' and `load-path' for the list
3883 of directories, and `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' for the list
3884 of suffixes. The function also accepts a predicate argument to
3885 further filter candidate files.
3887 One advantage of using this function is that the list of suffixes in
3888 `exec-suffixes' is OS-dependant, so this function will find
3889 executables without polluting Lisp code with OS dependancies.
3892 *** The precedence of file name handlers has been changed.
3894 Instead of choosing the first handler that matches,
3895 `find-file-name-handler' now gives precedence to a file name handler
3896 that matches nearest the end of the file name. More precisely, the
3897 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen. In case
3898 of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
3901 *** A file name handler can declare which operations it handles.
3903 You do this by putting an `operation' property on the handler name
3904 symbol. The property value should be a list of the operations that
3905 the handler really handles. It won't be called for any other
3908 This is useful for autoloaded handlers, to prevent them from being
3909 autoloaded when not really necessary.
3912 *** The function `make-auto-save-file-name' is now handled by file
3913 name handlers. This will be exploited for remote files mainly.
3918 *** An interactive specification can now use the code letter 'U' to get
3919 the up-event that was discarded in case the last key sequence read for a
3920 previous `k' or `K' argument was a down-event; otherwise nil is used.
3923 *** The new interactive-specification `G' reads a file name
3924 much like `F', but if the input is a directory name (even defaulted),
3925 it returns just the directory name.
3928 *** Functions `y-or-n-p', `read-char', `read-key-sequence' and the like, that
3929 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
3930 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
3933 *** (while-no-input BODY...) runs BODY, but only so long as no input
3934 arrives. If the user types or clicks anything, BODY stops as if a
3935 quit had occurred. `while-no-input' returns the value of BODY, if BODY
3936 finishes. It returns nil if BODY was aborted by a quit, and t if
3937 BODY was aborted by arrival of input.
3939 ** Minibuffer changes:
3942 *** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional
3943 buffer argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted, it
3944 defaults to the current buffer.
3947 *** New function `minibuffer-selected-window' returns the window which
3948 was selected when entering the minibuffer.
3951 *** `read-from-minibuffer' now accepts an additional argument KEEP-ALL
3952 saying to put all inputs in the history list, even empty ones.
3955 *** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
3956 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
3957 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
3958 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
3959 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
3962 *** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by Lisp code
3963 to override the built-in `read-file-name' function.
3966 *** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
3967 whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
3968 `read-file-name' function.
3971 *** The new function `read-directory-name' for reading a directory name.
3973 It is like `read-file-name' except that the defaulting works better
3974 for directories, and completion inside it shows only directories.
3976 ** Completion changes:
3979 *** The functions `all-completions' and `try-completion' now accept lists
3980 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
3981 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
3982 exported to Lisp. The keys in alists and hash tables can be either
3983 strings or symbols, which are automatically converted with to strings.
3986 *** The new macro `dynamic-completion-table' supports using functions
3987 as a dynamic completion table.
3989 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
3991 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
3992 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
3993 completions. This alist can be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
3994 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
3995 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
3996 entered. `dynamic-completion-table' then computes the completion.
3999 *** The new macro `lazy-completion-table' initializes a variable
4000 as a lazy completion table.
4002 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
4004 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
4005 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
4006 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
4007 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
4008 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
4009 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
4012 ** Enhancements to keymaps.
4014 *** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
4016 You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
4017 same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
4020 (kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
4022 *** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
4024 This is an alternative to using `defadvice' or `substitute-key-definition'
4025 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
4026 binding and lookup functionality.
4028 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
4029 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
4033 Suppose that minor mode `my-mode' has defined the commands
4034 `my-kill-line' and `my-kill-word', and it wants C-k (and any other key
4035 bound to `kill-line') to run the command `my-kill-line' instead of
4036 `kill-line', and likewise it wants to run `my-kill-word' instead of
4039 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
4040 command remapping allows you to directly map `kill-line' into
4041 `my-kill-line' and `kill-word' into `my-kill-word' using `define-key':
4043 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
4044 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
4046 When `my-mode' is enabled, its minor mode keymap is enabled too. So
4047 when the user types C-k, that runs the command `my-kill-line'.
4049 Only one level of remapping is supported. In the above example, this
4050 means that if `my-kill-line' is remapped to `other-kill', then C-k still
4051 runs `my-kill-line'.
4053 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
4055 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4056 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
4057 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
4058 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
4060 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
4061 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
4063 - `key-binding' now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
4064 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
4066 - `where-is-internal' now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
4067 `kill-line', when `my-mode' is enabled), and the actual key binding for
4068 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
4069 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
4070 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns "C-k" for `kill-line', and
4071 "<kill-line>" for `my-kill-line').
4073 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
4074 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
4075 command was not remapped.
4077 *** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
4078 over minor mode keymaps.
4080 *** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
4081 text properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
4082 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
4084 *** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
4086 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
4087 bindings of the parent keymap.
4089 *** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
4091 *** New function `current-active-maps' returns a list of currently
4094 *** New function `describe-buffer-bindings' inserts the list of all
4095 defined keys and their definitions.
4097 *** New function `keymap-prompt' returns the prompt string of a keymap.
4099 *** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
4102 *** New variable `emulation-mode-map-alists'.
4104 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
4105 keymap alist separate from `minor-mode-map-alist' by adding their
4106 keymap alist to this list.
4111 *** The new function `copy-abbrev-table' copies an abbrev table.
4113 It returns a new abbrev table that is a copy of a given abbrev table.
4116 *** `define-abbrev' now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG.
4118 If non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means
4119 that it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the
4120 abbrevs. Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always
4124 ** Enhancements to process support
4126 *** Function `list-processes' now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
4127 it lists only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set.
4129 *** New fns `set-process-query-on-exit-flag' and `process-query-on-exit-flag'.
4131 These replace the old function `process-kill-without-query'. That
4132 function is still supported, but new code should use the new
4135 *** Function `signal-process' now accepts a process object or process
4136 name in addition to a process id to identify the signaled process.
4138 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
4139 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
4141 Use the new functions `process-get' and `process-put' to access, add,
4142 and modify elements on this property list. Use the new functions
4143 `process-plist' and `set-process-plist' to access and replace the
4144 entire property list of a process.
4146 *** Function `accept-process-output' has a new optional fourth arg
4147 JUST-THIS-ONE. If non-nil, only output from the specified process
4148 is handled, suspending output from other processes. If value is an
4149 integer, also inhibit running timers. This feature is generally not
4150 recommended, but may be necessary for specific applications, such as
4153 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
4155 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
4156 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
4157 very poor performance. This behavior can be remedied to some extent
4158 by setting the new variable `process-adaptive-read-buffering' to a
4159 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
4160 from such processes, to allowing them to produce more output before
4161 emacs tries to read it.
4163 *** The new function `call-process-shell-command'.
4165 This executes a shell command synchronously in a separate process.
4167 *** The new function `process-file' is similar to `call-process', but
4168 obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
4169 `default-directory'.
4171 *** A process filter function gets the output as multibyte string
4172 if the process specifies t for its filter's multibyteness.
4174 That multibyteness is decided by the value of
4175 `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is created, and
4176 you can change it later with `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
4178 *** The new function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the
4179 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4181 *** The new function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns the
4182 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4184 *** If a process's coding system is `raw-text' or `no-conversion' and its
4185 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
4186 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
4187 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
4188 which was not compatible with the behavior of file reading.
4191 ** Enhanced networking support.
4193 *** The new `make-network-process' function makes network connections.
4194 It allows opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
4195 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
4197 - A server is started using :server t arg.
4198 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
4199 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
4200 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
4201 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
4202 - The process' property list can be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
4203 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
4204 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
4206 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
4207 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
4209 *** The old `open-network-stream' now uses `make-network-process'.
4211 *** New functions `process-datagram-address', `set-process-datagram-address'.
4213 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
4214 and set the current address of the remote partner.
4216 *** New function `format-network-address'.
4218 This function reformats the Lisp representation of a network address
4219 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
4220 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
4221 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
4222 string for other formatting options.
4224 *** `process-contact' has an optional KEY argument.
4226 Depending on this argument, you can get the complete list of network
4227 process properties or a specific property. Using :local or :remote as
4228 the KEY, you get the address of the local or remote end-point.
4230 An Inet address is represented as a 5 element vector, where the first
4231 4 elements contain the IP address and the fifth is the port number.
4233 *** New functions `stop-process' and `continue-process'.
4235 These functions stop and restart communication through a network
4236 connection. For a server process, no connections are accepted in the
4237 stopped state. For a client process, no input is received in the
4240 *** New function `network-interface-list'.
4242 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
4243 current network addresses.
4245 *** New function `network-interface-info'.
4247 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
4248 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
4250 *** Deleting a network process with `delete-process' calls the sentinel.
4252 The status message passed to the sentinel for a deleted network
4253 process is "deleted". The message passed to the sentinel when the
4254 connection is closed by the remote peer has been changed to
4255 "connection broken by remote peer".
4257 ** Using window objects:
4260 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4262 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line or the
4266 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4268 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line
4272 *** You can now make a window as short as one line.
4274 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
4275 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
4276 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
4277 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
4278 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
4281 *** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
4282 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
4283 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
4287 *** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
4288 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
4291 *** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
4292 selected window without impacting the order of `buffer-list'.
4293 It saves and restores the current buffer, too.
4296 *** `select-window' takes an optional second argument NORECORD.
4298 This is like `switch-to-buffer'.
4301 *** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
4302 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
4303 by calling `select-window'. It also saves and restores the current
4307 *** `set-window-buffer' has an optional argument KEEP-MARGINS.
4309 If non-nil, that says to preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
4310 and scroll-bar settings.
4313 ** Customizable fringe bitmaps
4315 *** New function `define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to create new
4316 fringe bitmaps, as well as change the built-in fringe bitmaps.
4318 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and use the symbol
4319 identifing the bitmap such as `left-truncation or `continued-line'.
4321 *** New function `destroy-fringe-bitmap' deletes a fringe bitmap
4322 or restores a built-in one to its default value.
4324 *** New function `set-fringe-bitmap-face' specifies the face to be
4325 used for a specific fringe bitmap. The face is automatically merged
4326 with the `fringe' face, so normally, the face should only specify the
4327 foreground color of the bitmap.
4329 *** There are new display properties, `left-fringe' and `right-fringe',
4330 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
4331 bitmap of the display line.
4333 Format is `display (left-fringe BITMAP [FACE])', where BITMAP is a
4334 symbol identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or defined with
4335 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
4336 for displaying the bitmap instead of the default `fringe' face.
4337 When specified, FACE is automatically merged with the `fringe' face.
4339 *** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns the current fringe
4340 bitmaps in the display line at a given buffer position.
4342 ** Other window fringe features:
4345 *** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
4347 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
4348 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
4349 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
4350 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
4352 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
4353 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
4354 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
4355 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
4356 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
4357 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
4359 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
4360 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
4361 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
4362 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
4365 *** Per-window fringe and scrollbar settings
4367 **** Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and
4370 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
4371 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
4372 `set-window-fringes'.
4374 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
4375 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
4376 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
4377 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
4379 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
4380 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
4381 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
4382 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
4383 an update of the display margins.
4385 **** Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
4386 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
4388 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
4389 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
4390 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
4391 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
4392 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4393 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4394 of the display margins.
4396 ** Redisplay features:
4399 *** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
4402 *** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
4403 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
4404 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
4405 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
4406 forcing an explicit window update.
4409 *** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
4410 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
4411 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
4413 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
4414 does that, this value cannot be accurate.
4417 *** You can define multiple overlay arrows via the new
4418 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'.
4420 It contains a list of varibles which contain overlay arrow position
4421 markers, including the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
4423 Each variable on this list can have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
4424 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
4425 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
4426 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
4427 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
4428 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
4431 *** New `line-height' and `line-spacing' properties for newline characters
4433 A newline can now have `line-height' and `line-spacing' text or overlay
4434 properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
4436 If the `line-height' property value is t, the newline does not
4437 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
4438 newline glyph is reduced. Also, a `line-spacing' property on this
4439 newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
4440 slices without adding blank areas between the images.
4442 If the `line-height' property value is a positive integer, the value
4443 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
4444 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
4446 If the `line-height' property value is a float, the minimum line
4447 height is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by
4450 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (FACE . RATIO), the
4451 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
4452 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
4454 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (nil . RATIO), the line
4455 height is calculated as RATIO * actual height of the line's contents.
4457 If the `line-height' value is a cons (HEIGHT . TOTAL), HEIGHT specifies
4458 the line height as described above, while TOTAL is any of the forms
4459 described above and specifies the total height of the line, causing a
4460 varying number of pixels to be inserted after the line to make it line
4461 exactly that many pixels high.
4463 If the `line-spacing' property value is an positive integer, the value
4464 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
4465 overrides the default frame `line-spacing' and any buffer local value of
4466 the `line-spacing' variable.
4468 If the `line-spacing' property is a float or cons, the line spacing
4469 is calculated as specified above for the `line-height' property.
4472 *** The buffer local `line-spacing' variable can now have a float value,
4473 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
4476 *** Enhancements to stretch display properties
4478 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
4479 PROPS is a property list now allows pixel based width and height
4480 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
4482 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
4483 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
4486 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
4487 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
4488 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
4489 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
4491 POS ::= left | center | right
4492 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
4495 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
4496 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
4497 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
4498 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
4499 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
4500 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
4501 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
4504 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
4505 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
4506 corresponding area of the window.
4508 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
4509 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
4510 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
4511 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
4512 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
4513 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
4514 these symbols), further occurences of these symbols are interpreted as
4515 the width of the area.
4517 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
4518 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
4520 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
4521 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
4522 header line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
4524 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
4525 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
4526 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
4527 height) of the specified image.
4529 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
4530 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
4533 *** Normally, the cursor is displayed at the end of any overlay and
4534 text property string that may be present at the current window
4535 position. The cursor can now be placed on any character of such
4536 strings by giving that character a non-nil `cursor' text property.
4539 *** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
4540 supported on text terminals.
4543 *** Support for displaying image slices
4545 **** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) can be used with
4546 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
4548 **** Function `insert-image' has new optional fourth arg to
4549 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
4551 **** New function `insert-sliced-image' inserts a given image as a
4552 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
4555 *** Images can now have an associated image map via the :map property.
4557 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
4558 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
4559 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((X0 . Y0) . (X1 . Y1))) specifying the
4560 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
4561 A circle is a cons (circle . ((X0 . Y0) . R)) specifying the center
4562 and the radius of the circle; R can be a float or integer.
4563 A polygon is a cons (poly . [X0 Y0 X1 Y1 ...]) where each pair in the
4564 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
4566 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
4567 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
4568 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
4569 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
4570 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable `void-area-text-pointer'
4571 for possible pointer shapes.
4573 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
4574 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
4575 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
4577 ** Mouse pointer features:
4581 *** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
4582 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
4583 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
4584 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
4585 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
4588 *** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
4589 :pointer image property.
4592 *** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images can now be
4593 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
4595 ** Mouse event enhancements:
4598 *** Mouse events for clicks on window fringes now specify `left-fringe'
4599 or `right-fringe' as the area.
4602 *** All mouse events now include a buffer position regardless of where
4603 you clicked. For mouse clicks in window margins and fringes, this is
4604 a sensible buffer position corresponding to the surrounding text.
4607 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
4610 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
4613 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
4617 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types
4621 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns the actual glyph coordinates
4622 of the mouse event position.
4625 *** Mouse events can now indicate an image object clicked on.
4628 *** Mouse events include relative X and Y pixel coordinates relative to
4629 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
4632 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
4633 (image or character) clicked on.
4636 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', 'posn-object-width-height'.
4638 These return the image or string object of a mouse click, the X and Y
4639 pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner of that object, and
4640 the total width and height of that object.
4642 ** Text property and overlay changes:
4645 *** Arguments for `remove-overlays' are now optional, so that you can
4646 remove all overlays in the buffer with just (remove-overlays).
4649 *** New variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
4651 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
4652 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
4653 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
4654 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
4657 *** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
4658 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
4659 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
4660 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
4661 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
4664 *** The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties'.
4666 It is like `remove-text-properties' except that it takes a list of
4667 property names as argument rather than a property list.
4672 *** The new face attribute condition `min-colors' can be used to tailor
4673 the face color to the number of colors supported by a display, and
4674 define the foreground and background colors accordingly so that they
4675 look best on a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This
4676 is now the preferred method for defining default faces in a way that
4677 makes a good use of the capabilities of the display.
4680 *** New function `display-supports-face-attributes-p' can be used to test
4681 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
4683 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
4684 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
4685 defined with `defface'.
4688 *** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
4689 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
4690 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
4691 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
4692 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
4695 *** The first face specification element in a defface can specify
4696 `default' instead of frame classification. Then its attributes act as
4697 defaults that apply to all the subsequent cases (and can be overridden
4701 *** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
4702 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
4703 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
4704 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
4705 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
4708 *** The function `face-differs-from-default-p' now truly checks
4709 whether the given face displays differently from the default face or
4710 not (previously it did only a very cursory check).
4713 *** `face-attribute', `face-foreground', `face-background', `face-stipple'.
4715 These now accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how
4716 face inheritance is used when determining the value of a face
4720 *** New functions `face-attribute-relative-p' and `merge-face-attribute'
4721 help with handling relative face attributes.
4724 *** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face list is reversed.
4726 If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
4727 faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous
4728 releases of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made
4729 so that :inherit face lists operate identically to face lists in text
4733 *** On terminals, faces with the :inverse-video attribute are displayed
4734 with swapped foreground and background colors even when one of them is
4735 not specified. In previous releases of Emacs, if either foreground
4736 or background color was unspecified, colors were not swapped. This
4737 was inconsistent with the face behavior under X.
4740 *** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
4741 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
4743 ** Font-Lock changes:
4746 *** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
4748 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
4749 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
4750 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
4751 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
4754 *** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
4756 **** the FACENAME returned in `font-lock-keywords' can be a list of the
4757 form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set other
4758 properties than `face'.
4760 **** `font-lock-extra-managed-props' can be set to make sure those
4761 extra properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
4764 *** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
4766 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
4767 (see `jit-lock-defer-contextually'), then all of that text will
4768 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
4769 depends on text several lines further down (and when `font-lock-multiline'
4770 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
4778 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
4779 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a `jit-lock-defer-multiline'
4780 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
4781 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
4783 ** Major mode mechanism changes:
4786 *** `set-auto-mode' now gives the interpreter magic line (if present)
4787 precedence over the file name. Likewise an `<?xml' or `<!DOCTYPE'
4788 declaration will give the buffer XML or SGML mode, based on the new
4789 var `magic-mode-alist'.
4792 *** Use the new function `run-mode-hooks' to run the major mode's mode hook.
4795 *** All major mode functions should now run the new normal hook
4796 `after-change-major-mode-hook', at their very end, after the mode
4797 hooks. `run-mode-hooks' does this automatically.
4800 *** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
4801 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
4805 *** Major modes can define `eldoc-documentation-function'
4806 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
4810 *** `define-derived-mode' by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
4811 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
4814 *** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
4815 are used by `define-derived-mode' to make sure the mode hook for the
4816 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
4818 ** Minor mode changes:
4821 *** `define-minor-mode' now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
4822 and simply passes them to `defcustom', if applicable.
4825 *** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
4828 *** `define-global-minor-mode'.
4830 This is a new name for what was formerly called
4831 `easy-mmode-define-global-mode'. The old name remains as an alias.
4833 ** Command loop changes:
4836 *** The new function `called-interactively-p' does what many people
4837 have mistakenly believed `interactive-p' to do: it returns t if the
4838 calling function was called through `call-interactively'.
4840 Only use this when you cannot solve the problem by adding a new
4841 INTERACTIVE argument to the command.
4844 *** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional argument.
4846 If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks for a function that could be
4847 called with `call-interactively', and does not return t for keyboard
4851 *** When a command returns, the command loop moves point out from
4852 within invisible text, in the same way it moves out from within text
4853 covered by an image or composition property.
4855 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
4856 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
4857 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
4858 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
4859 `post-command-hook' and thus does not care about intermediate states.
4862 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to `only', that
4863 enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
4864 During that following command, the value of `transient-mark-mode'
4865 is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
4866 the next return to the command loop changes to nil.
4869 *** Both the variable and the function `disabled-command-hook' have
4870 been renamed to `disabled-command-function'. The variable
4871 `disabled-command-hook' has been kept as an obsolete alias.
4874 *** `emacsserver' now runs `pre-command-hook' and `post-command-hook'
4875 when it receives a request from emacsclient.
4877 ** Lisp file loading changes:
4880 *** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
4881 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
4882 current file redefined it).
4885 *** `load-history' now records (defun . FUNNAME) when a function is
4886 defined. For a variable, it records just the variable name.
4889 *** The function `symbol-file' can now search specifically for function,
4890 variable or face definitions.
4893 *** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
4894 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
4895 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
4898 *** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
4899 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
4900 than 3 levels of nesting.
4903 ** Byte compiler changes:
4905 *** The byte compiler now displays the actual line and character
4906 position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form of its
4907 warning and error messages have been brought into line with GNU standards
4908 for these. As a result, you can use next-error and friends on the
4909 compilation output buffer.
4911 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
4912 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
4914 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
4915 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
4916 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
4917 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
4920 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
4921 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
4923 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
4924 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
4925 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
4926 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
4927 macro expansion), but such tests can be nested. Note that `when' and
4928 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
4930 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
4931 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
4932 Emacs and XEmacs and can sometimes make the result significantly more
4933 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
4934 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
4937 *** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in Lisp files is now obeyed.
4940 *** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
4941 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
4942 (require 'cl) when loaded.
4944 ** Frame operations:
4947 *** New functions `frame-current-scroll-bars' and `window-current-scroll-bars'.
4949 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
4950 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
4953 *** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
4954 for all (existing and future) frames.
4957 *** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
4958 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
4959 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
4960 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
4963 *** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
4964 the `scroll-bar-width' frame parameter value is nil.
4969 *** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
4971 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
4972 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
4973 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
4976 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
4978 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
4979 the time it takes to convert the format.
4981 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
4985 *** `set-buffer-file-coding-system' now takes an additional argument,
4986 NOMODIFY. If it is non-nil, it means don't mark the buffer modified.
4989 *** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
4990 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
4991 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
4992 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
4995 *** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
4996 of one coding system from another coding system.
4999 *** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
5000 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
5004 *** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
5005 it is read from a file without decoding.
5008 *** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
5009 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
5012 *** New function `quail-find-key' returns a list of keys to type in the
5013 current input method to input a character.
5015 ** Mode line changes:
5018 *** New function `format-mode-line'.
5020 This returns the mode line or header line of the selected (or a
5021 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
5024 *** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
5025 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
5028 *** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
5029 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
5033 *** Mouse-face on mode-line (and header-line) is now supported.
5035 ** Menu manipulation changes:
5038 *** To manipulate the File menu using easy-menu, you must specify the
5039 proper name "file". In previous Emacs versions, you had to specify
5040 "files", even though the menu item itself was changed to say "File"
5041 several versions ago.
5044 *** The dummy function keys made by easy-menu are now always lower case.
5045 If you specify the menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
5046 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
5048 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for the bindings that were
5049 made with easy-menu.
5052 *** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
5053 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
5054 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
5055 need to have a name.
5057 ** Operating system access:
5060 *** The new primitive `get-internal-run-time' returns the processor
5061 run time used by Emacs since start-up.
5064 *** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
5065 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
5066 accepts a float as UID parameter.
5069 *** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
5072 *** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
5073 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
5074 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
5077 *** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
5078 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
5083 *** A number of hooks have been renamed to better follow the conventions:
5085 `find-file-hooks' to `find-file-hook',
5086 `find-file-not-found-hooks' to `find-file-not-found-functions',
5087 `write-file-hooks' to `write-file-functions',
5088 `write-contents-hooks' to `write-contents-functions',
5089 `x-lost-selection-hooks' to `x-lost-selection-functions',
5090 `x-sent-selection-hooks' to `x-sent-selection-functions',
5091 `delete-frame-hook' to `delete-frame-functions'.
5093 In each case the old name remains as an alias for the moment.
5096 *** local-write-file-hooks is marked obsolete
5098 Use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook'.
5101 *** New function `x-send-client-message' sends a client message when
5107 *** New variable `gc-cons-percentage' automatically grows the GC cons threshold
5108 as the heap size increases.
5111 *** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
5112 on garbage collection.
5115 *** The normal hook `post-gc-hook' is run at the end of garbage collection.
5117 The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
5119 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 22.1
5122 ** The new library button.el implements simple and fast `clickable
5123 buttons' in emacs buffers. Buttons are much lighter-weight than the
5124 `widgets' implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that
5125 doesn't require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for
5126 such things as help and apropos buffers.
5129 ** The new library tree-widget.el provides a widget to display a set
5130 of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
5131 well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
5134 ** The new library bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
5135 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
5139 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
5140 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
5142 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
5143 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
5144 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
5147 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
5148 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
5151 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
5152 (function (lambda ()
5154 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5155 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
5156 (function (lambda ()
5157 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5160 ** The new library benchmark.el does timing measurements on Lisp code.
5162 This includes measuring garbage collection time.
5165 ** The new library testcover.el does test coverage checking.
5167 This is so you can tell whether you've tested all paths in your Lisp
5168 code. It works with edebug.
5170 The function `testcover-start' instruments all functions in a given
5171 file. Then test your code. The function `testcover-mark-all' adds
5172 overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to show where coverage
5173 is lacking. The command `testcover-next-mark' (bind it to a key!)
5174 will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
5176 Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely
5177 evaluated; a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same
5178 value. The red splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly
5179 complete their evaluation, such as `error'. The brown splotches are
5180 skipped for forms that are expected to always evaluate to the same
5181 value, such as (setq x 14).
5183 For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to
5184 help out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a
5185 red splotch. It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does
5186 return. The macro `1value' suppresses a brown splotch for its argument.
5187 This macro is a no-op except during test-coverage -- then it signals
5188 an error if the argument actually returns differing values.
5190 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
5192 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
5196 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
5198 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
5201 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
5204 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
5207 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
5208 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
5209 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
5210 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
5211 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
5212 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
5213 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
5214 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
5215 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
5216 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
5218 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
5219 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
5221 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
5222 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
5223 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
5224 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behavior is actually
5225 contrary to the compound text specification.
5228 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
5230 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
5232 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
5235 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
5237 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
5239 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
5240 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
5241 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
5242 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
5243 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
5245 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
5248 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
5249 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
5251 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
5252 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
5253 instead of using default-major-mode.
5255 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
5256 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
5257 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
5258 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
5259 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
5260 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
5261 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
5263 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
5267 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
5269 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
5270 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
5271 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
5273 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
5274 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
5277 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
5279 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
5280 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
5281 charsets in this release.
5283 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
5285 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
5287 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
5288 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
5291 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
5292 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
5293 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
5294 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
5295 necessary changes to unexec.
5297 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
5298 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
5300 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
5301 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
5303 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
5304 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
5306 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
5307 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
5308 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
5309 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
5310 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
5312 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
5313 new display features described below.
5316 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
5318 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
5320 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
5321 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
5322 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
5323 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
5326 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
5328 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
5329 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
5330 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
5331 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
5334 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
5335 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
5336 under Lisp changes, below.
5338 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
5340 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
5341 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
5342 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
5343 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
5344 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
5345 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
5348 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
5349 supported on character terminals.
5351 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
5352 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
5353 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
5354 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
5356 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
5360 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
5361 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
5362 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
5363 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
5366 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
5368 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
5369 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
5370 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
5371 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
5373 - User option: max-mini-window-height
5375 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
5376 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
5377 specifies a number of lines.
5381 - User option: resize-mini-windows
5383 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
5384 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
5385 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
5388 Default is `grow-only'.
5392 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
5393 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
5395 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
5397 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
5398 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
5401 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
5403 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
5404 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
5405 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
5407 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
5409 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
5410 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
5411 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
5412 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
5413 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
5416 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
5417 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
5418 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
5419 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
5420 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
5421 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
5423 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
5424 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
5425 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
5426 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
5427 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
5428 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
5430 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
5431 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
5432 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
5433 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
5434 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
5436 ** Tool bar support.
5438 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
5439 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
5440 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
5441 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
5442 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
5445 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
5446 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
5450 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
5451 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
5452 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
5454 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
5455 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
5456 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
5457 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
5459 ** Automatic Hscrolling
5461 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
5462 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
5465 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
5466 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
5467 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
5468 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
5469 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
5471 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
5472 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
5473 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
5474 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
5475 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
5476 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
5478 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
5479 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
5480 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
5481 customizing face `fringe'.
5483 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
5484 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
5485 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
5486 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
5487 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
5488 the window to be partially obscured.)
5490 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
5491 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
5492 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
5493 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
5495 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
5497 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
5498 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
5499 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
5500 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
5501 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
5504 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
5506 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
5508 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
5510 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
5511 `*') toggles the status.
5513 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
5515 ** Hourglass pointer
5517 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
5518 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
5522 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
5523 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
5524 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
5527 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
5529 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
5530 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
5531 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
5534 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
5535 have to do anything to activate it.
5537 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
5539 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
5540 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
5542 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
5543 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
5544 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
5545 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
5546 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
5547 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
5548 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
5549 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
5551 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
5552 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
5553 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
5554 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
5555 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
5556 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
5558 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
5559 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
5561 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
5562 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
5565 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
5566 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
5567 beginning and end of the buffer.
5569 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
5570 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
5573 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
5574 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
5576 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
5577 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
5580 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
5581 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
5584 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
5586 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
5587 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
5588 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
5590 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
5591 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
5592 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
5594 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
5597 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
5599 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
5600 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
5601 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
5602 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
5603 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
5606 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
5607 all frames except the selected one.
5609 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
5610 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
5612 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
5613 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
5614 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
5615 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
5616 `Info-use-header-line'.
5618 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
5619 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
5620 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
5622 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
5624 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
5625 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
5628 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
5629 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
5630 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
5631 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
5633 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
5635 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
5636 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
5637 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
5638 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
5640 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
5641 point in a pop-up window.
5643 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
5644 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
5645 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
5647 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
5648 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
5650 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
5651 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
5652 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
5653 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
5655 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
5657 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5658 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5660 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
5661 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
5662 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
5664 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
5665 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
5668 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
5669 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
5670 file that is already visited under a different name.
5672 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
5673 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
5675 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
5676 and displays information about that.
5678 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
5679 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
5681 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
5682 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
5683 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
5684 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
5685 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
5686 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
5688 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
5689 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
5691 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
5692 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
5693 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
5694 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
5695 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
5696 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
5697 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
5699 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
5700 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
5702 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
5703 system for keyboard input.
5705 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
5706 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
5707 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
5708 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
5709 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
5710 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
5711 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
5712 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
5713 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
5715 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
5716 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
5718 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
5719 displays all characters in that character set.
5721 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
5722 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
5724 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
5725 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
5726 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
5728 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
5729 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
5730 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
5731 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
5732 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
5733 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
5736 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
5737 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
5740 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
5741 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
5742 Lisp Coding Convention".
5744 new command old-binding
5745 --- ------- -----------
5746 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
5747 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
5748 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
5750 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
5751 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
5752 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
5754 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
5755 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
5756 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
5757 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
5758 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
5759 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
5761 ** There are new Leim input methods.
5762 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
5763 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
5766 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
5767 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
5768 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
5769 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
5770 "`", you must type "=q".
5772 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
5773 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
5774 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
5775 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
5776 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
5779 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
5780 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
5781 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
5782 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
5784 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
5785 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
5786 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
5787 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
5789 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
5790 on the display using several methods
5792 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
5793 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
5794 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
5796 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
5797 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
5799 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
5801 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
5802 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
5804 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
5805 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
5806 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
5807 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
5809 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
5810 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
5811 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
5813 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
5814 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
5816 ** New X resources recognized
5818 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
5819 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
5820 is useful for debugging X problems.
5824 emacs.synchronous: true
5826 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
5827 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
5828 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
5829 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
5830 visual class names are
5839 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
5840 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
5843 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
5844 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
5845 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
5850 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
5852 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
5853 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
5854 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
5855 resource values are `true' or `on'.
5859 emacs.privateColormap: true
5861 ** Faces and frame parameters.
5863 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
5864 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
5865 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
5866 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
5867 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
5868 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
5869 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
5871 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
5872 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
5873 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
5874 `default' face and vice versa.
5878 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
5880 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
5882 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
5883 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
5884 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
5885 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
5887 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
5888 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
5889 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
5891 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
5894 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
5896 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
5897 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
5898 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
5899 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
5901 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
5903 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
5905 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
5907 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
5910 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
5913 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
5915 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
5916 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
5917 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
5919 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
5920 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
5922 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
5923 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
5924 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
5926 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
5928 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
5929 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
5930 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
5931 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
5933 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
5934 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
5935 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
5936 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
5938 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
5939 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
5940 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
5943 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
5945 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
5946 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
5947 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
5949 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
5950 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
5951 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
5952 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
5953 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
5954 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
5956 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
5958 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
5959 notably at the end of lines.
5961 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
5962 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
5964 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
5966 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
5967 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
5969 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
5970 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
5971 after each match to get the replacement text.
5973 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
5974 you edit the replacement string.
5976 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
5977 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
5978 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
5980 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
5982 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
5983 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
5985 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
5986 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
5987 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
5988 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
5991 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
5992 read mail from the menu etc.
5994 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
5995 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
5996 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
5997 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
5999 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
6000 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6002 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
6003 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
6004 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
6005 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
6006 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
6009 ** Customize changes
6011 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
6012 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
6013 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
6014 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
6015 earlier versions of Emacs.
6017 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
6018 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
6021 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6022 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
6023 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
6024 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
6027 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6028 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
6029 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
6030 already in your init file.
6032 ** New features in evaluation commands
6034 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
6035 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
6036 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
6037 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
6038 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
6040 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
6041 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
6042 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
6043 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
6046 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
6047 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
6049 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
6050 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
6052 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
6053 code when called with a prefix argument.
6057 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
6058 current user setups (although it's believed that these
6059 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
6060 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
6061 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
6062 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
6065 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
6066 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
6067 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
6070 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
6071 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
6072 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
6073 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
6075 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
6076 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
6078 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
6079 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
6081 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
6082 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
6083 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
6084 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
6086 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
6087 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
6088 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
6089 earlier statement. An example:
6091 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
6093 res += a[i]->offset;
6096 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
6097 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
6098 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
6099 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
6102 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
6105 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
6106 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
6107 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
6108 documentation or other natural language text.
6110 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
6111 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
6112 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
6113 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
6114 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
6115 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
6116 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
6118 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
6119 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
6120 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
6121 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
6123 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
6124 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
6125 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
6126 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
6129 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
6130 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
6131 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
6132 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
6133 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
6134 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
6135 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
6136 is reported afterwards.
6138 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
6139 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
6140 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
6142 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
6143 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
6144 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
6145 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
6146 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
6147 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
6150 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
6151 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
6152 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
6153 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
6154 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
6157 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
6158 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
6159 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
6160 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
6161 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
6162 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
6164 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
6165 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
6166 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
6167 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
6168 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
6169 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
6170 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
6171 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
6173 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
6174 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
6175 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
6176 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
6179 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
6180 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
6181 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
6182 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
6183 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
6184 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
6185 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
6186 function documentation for more info.
6188 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
6189 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
6190 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
6191 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
6192 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
6193 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
6194 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
6195 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
6197 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
6199 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
6200 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
6202 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
6203 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
6204 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
6205 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
6206 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
6209 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
6210 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
6211 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
6214 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
6215 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
6216 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
6217 chapter about this in the manual.
6219 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
6220 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
6221 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
6222 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
6223 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
6225 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
6226 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
6227 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
6229 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
6230 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
6232 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
6233 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
6234 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
6237 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
6238 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
6239 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
6240 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
6243 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
6244 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
6245 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
6246 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
6247 they were before the filling.
6249 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
6250 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
6251 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
6254 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
6255 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
6256 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
6257 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
6260 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
6261 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
6262 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
6263 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
6264 Thanks to Eric Eide.
6266 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
6267 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
6268 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
6270 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
6272 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
6273 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
6274 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
6275 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
6277 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
6278 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
6279 the column specified by comment-column.
6281 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
6282 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
6283 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
6284 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
6285 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
6286 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
6288 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
6289 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
6292 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
6294 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
6295 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
6296 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
6297 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
6300 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
6304 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
6305 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
6306 is, delete only empty directories.
6308 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
6309 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
6310 copy directories recursively.
6312 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
6313 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
6314 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
6316 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
6317 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
6320 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
6321 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
6322 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
6323 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
6324 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
6326 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
6329 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
6330 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
6331 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
6332 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
6336 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
6337 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
6338 internationalization and mail-fetching.
6340 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
6341 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
6343 If you used procmail like in
6345 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
6346 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
6347 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
6348 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
6350 this now has changed to
6353 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
6356 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
6357 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
6359 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
6360 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
6361 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
6362 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
6364 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
6365 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
6366 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
6368 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
6369 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
6370 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
6371 now just a compatibility layer.
6373 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
6376 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
6377 called to position point.
6379 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
6380 summary buffers and NOV files.
6382 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
6383 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
6385 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
6386 subtly different manner.
6388 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
6389 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
6390 ever-changing layouts.
6392 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
6394 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
6396 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
6398 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
6402 -------------------------
6406 C-c C-c q @quotation
6408 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
6411 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
6413 ** Changes in Outline mode.
6415 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
6416 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
6417 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
6419 ** Changes to Emacs Server
6421 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
6422 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
6423 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
6424 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
6425 buffers to kill, as before.
6427 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
6428 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
6431 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
6432 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
6434 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
6436 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
6437 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
6438 use. Default is 1000.
6440 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
6441 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
6443 ** Changes to hideshow.el
6445 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
6447 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
6448 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
6449 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
6450 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
6452 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
6453 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
6454 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
6457 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
6458 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
6459 the normal block-hiding function.
6461 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
6463 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
6464 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
6465 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
6466 for `hs-minor-mode'.
6468 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
6469 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
6471 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
6473 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
6474 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
6475 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
6477 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
6480 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
6483 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
6484 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
6485 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
6486 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
6487 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
6488 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
6490 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
6492 ** Changes to cmuscheme
6494 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
6495 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
6497 ** Changes in Font Lock
6499 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
6500 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
6502 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
6503 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
6505 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
6506 the face used for each string/comment.
6508 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
6509 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
6511 ** Changes to Shell mode
6513 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
6514 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
6515 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
6516 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
6518 ** Comint (subshell) changes
6520 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
6521 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
6523 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
6524 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
6525 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
6526 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
6527 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
6528 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
6530 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
6531 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
6532 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
6533 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
6534 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
6535 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
6536 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
6537 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
6539 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
6540 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
6542 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
6543 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
6544 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
6546 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
6547 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
6548 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
6550 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
6551 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
6552 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
6554 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
6555 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
6556 argument, it appends to the file.
6558 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
6559 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
6562 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
6565 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
6566 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
6567 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
6569 ** Changes to Rmail mode
6571 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
6572 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
6573 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
6574 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
6575 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
6578 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
6579 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
6580 regexp matching your mail addresses.
6582 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
6583 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
6584 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
6585 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
6586 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
6588 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
6591 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
6592 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
6595 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
6596 in which folder to put messages automatically.
6598 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
6599 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
6600 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
6602 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
6603 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
6605 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
6606 use the -f option when sending mail.
6608 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
6609 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
6610 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
6611 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
6612 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
6613 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
6615 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
6616 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
6617 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
6619 ** Changes to TeX mode
6621 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
6624 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
6626 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
6628 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
6630 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6632 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
6633 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
6634 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
6635 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
6636 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
6637 can be edited from that buffer.
6639 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
6640 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
6641 `A' to use all marked entries).
6643 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
6644 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
6646 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
6647 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
6648 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
6651 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
6652 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
6653 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
6654 in column 1 are always made leaves.
6656 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
6657 has the following new features:
6659 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
6660 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
6661 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
6662 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
6664 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
6665 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
6666 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
6667 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
6668 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
6671 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
6676 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
6677 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
6678 spell-checks the current buffer.
6680 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
6683 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
6684 correction is made and re-checked.
6686 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
6688 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
6691 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
6694 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
6697 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6699 ** Makefile mode changes
6701 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
6703 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
6704 Fontlock mode is active.
6708 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
6709 so that searches can be resumed.
6711 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
6712 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
6713 that started the search.
6715 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
6716 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
6718 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
6720 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
6721 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
6722 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
6723 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
6724 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
6725 `secondary-selection'.
6727 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
6728 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
6729 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
6730 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
6731 usual snappy response.
6733 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
6734 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
6735 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
6736 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
6740 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
6741 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
6742 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
6743 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
6744 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
6745 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
6746 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
6747 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
6748 file is registered in that backend.
6750 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
6751 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
6752 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
6753 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
6754 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
6755 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
6757 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
6758 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
6759 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
6760 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
6761 where it doesn't make sense.)
6763 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
6764 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
6765 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
6769 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
6770 checks are always done now.
6772 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
6775 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
6776 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
6777 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
6779 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
6780 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
6781 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
6782 the working file (``merge news'').
6784 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
6785 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
6788 *** Multiple Backends
6790 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
6791 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
6792 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
6793 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
6796 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
6797 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
6798 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
6799 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
6801 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
6802 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
6803 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
6804 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
6805 current revision number from the more remote backend.
6807 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
6808 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
6809 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
6810 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
6812 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
6813 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
6814 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
6815 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
6819 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
6820 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
6821 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
6822 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
6823 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
6824 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
6825 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
6827 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
6828 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
6829 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
6830 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
6831 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
6832 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
6833 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
6834 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
6835 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
6836 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
6837 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
6840 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
6841 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
6842 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
6843 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
6844 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
6845 entire directory tree.
6847 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
6848 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
6849 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
6850 "watched" by other developers.)
6852 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
6853 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
6854 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
6855 starting at the given directory.
6857 *** Lisp Changes in VC
6859 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
6860 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
6861 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
6862 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
6863 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
6864 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
6865 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
6866 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
6867 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
6869 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
6870 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
6871 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
6872 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
6874 ** New modes and packages
6876 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
6877 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
6878 the default is not applicable.
6880 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
6881 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
6882 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
6886 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
6887 drawn, like this: | \ /
6891 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
6892 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
6893 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
6894 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
6895 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
6898 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
6899 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
6901 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
6904 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
6905 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
6906 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
6907 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
6909 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
6910 also do without the mouse.
6912 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
6913 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
6914 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
6915 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
6916 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
6918 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
6920 lines straight-lines
6922 poly-lines straight poly-lines
6924 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
6925 spray-can setting size for spraying
6926 vaporize line vaporize lines
6927 erase characters erase rectangles
6929 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
6930 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
6931 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
6934 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
6935 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
6936 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
6937 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
6939 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
6942 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
6943 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
6944 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
6945 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
6946 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
6947 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
6948 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
6949 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
6950 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
6952 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
6953 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
6954 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
6955 on certain projects.
6957 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
6958 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
6960 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
6962 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
6963 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
6964 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
6965 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
6966 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
6967 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
6968 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
6969 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
6971 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
6974 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
6975 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
6977 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
6978 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
6980 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
6981 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
6982 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
6983 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
6984 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
6986 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
6987 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
6988 separate Texinfo file.
6990 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
6991 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
6992 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
6993 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
6994 enter check-in log messages.
6996 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
6997 without invoking external programs.
6999 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
7000 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
7001 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
7002 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
7003 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
7005 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
7006 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
7008 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
7009 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
7011 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
7012 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
7013 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
7014 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
7015 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
7018 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
7019 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
7020 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
7021 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
7023 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
7024 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
7025 actually modifying content of a buffer.
7027 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
7030 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
7032 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
7034 ; comment (until end of line)
7038 $A default non-terminal
7039 $"C" default terminal
7040 $?C? default special
7041 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
7042 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
7043 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
7044 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
7045 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
7046 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
7047 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
7048 C+ one or more occurrences of C
7049 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
7050 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
7051 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
7052 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
7053 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
7054 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7055 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7057 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
7059 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
7060 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
7061 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
7062 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
7063 equal signs of assignments.
7065 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
7066 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
7068 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
7069 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
7070 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
7072 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
7074 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
7075 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
7076 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
7077 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
7078 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
7079 which answers different needs.
7081 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
7082 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
7083 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
7084 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
7085 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
7088 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
7089 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
7091 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
7093 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
7094 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
7095 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
7097 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
7099 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
7100 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
7101 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
7102 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
7103 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
7104 and background colors.
7106 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
7109 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
7112 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
7114 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
7116 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
7117 whitespace in a file.
7119 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
7120 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
7121 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
7122 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
7123 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
7124 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
7125 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
7127 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
7129 Here is an example of columns:
7132 dog pineapple car EXTRA
7133 porcupine strawberry airplane
7135 Doing the following settings:
7137 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
7138 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
7139 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
7140 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
7143 Selecting the lines above and typing:
7145 M-x delimit-columns-region
7149 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
7150 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
7151 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
7153 delim-col has the following options:
7155 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
7158 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
7159 between each column.
7161 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
7164 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
7167 delim-col has the following commands:
7169 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
7170 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
7172 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
7173 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
7174 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
7175 recent file list can be displayed:
7177 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
7178 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
7179 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
7181 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
7182 dynamically change the menu appearance.
7184 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
7187 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
7188 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
7189 specific to Message mode.
7191 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
7192 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
7193 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
7195 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
7196 interface to access directory servers using different directory
7197 protocols. It has a separate manual.
7199 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
7200 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
7202 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
7204 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
7205 minibuffer with completion.
7207 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
7208 with the diary features.
7210 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
7211 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
7213 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
7216 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
7217 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
7218 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
7219 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
7221 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
7222 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
7225 ** Changes in sort.el
7227 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
7228 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
7229 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
7232 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
7234 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
7235 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
7236 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
7238 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
7239 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
7241 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
7242 output ^M at the end of lines.
7244 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
7245 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
7247 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
7248 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
7251 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
7254 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
7255 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
7258 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
7259 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
7260 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
7261 nil -- just delete one character.
7263 Default value is `untabify'.
7265 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
7267 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
7268 symbol, not double-quoted.
7270 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
7271 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
7272 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
7273 moved to lisp/obsolete.
7275 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
7276 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
7277 `auto-compression-mode' command.
7279 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
7280 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
7281 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
7283 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
7284 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
7286 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
7287 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
7289 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
7290 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
7292 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
7293 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
7294 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
7295 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
7296 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
7297 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
7299 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
7300 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
7302 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
7304 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
7305 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
7307 ** Shell script mode changes.
7309 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
7310 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
7311 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
7315 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
7317 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
7318 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
7319 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
7320 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
7321 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
7323 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
7324 declarations when given the --declarations option.
7326 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
7327 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
7329 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
7330 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
7331 `template' keywords.
7333 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
7334 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
7336 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
7339 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
7341 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
7343 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
7346 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
7348 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
7349 variables are tagged.
7351 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
7353 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
7356 ** Changes in etags.el
7358 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
7359 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
7360 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
7362 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
7363 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
7365 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
7366 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
7367 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
7368 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
7370 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
7372 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
7373 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
7375 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
7377 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
7378 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
7379 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
7381 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
7382 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
7384 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
7385 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
7387 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
7388 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
7389 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
7390 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
7391 point will go to the beginning of the file.
7393 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
7394 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
7395 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
7397 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
7398 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
7399 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
7401 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
7402 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
7403 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
7405 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
7407 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
7409 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
7410 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
7411 expression from that list, are not checked.
7413 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
7414 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
7415 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
7416 the buffer, just like for the local files.
7418 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
7420 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
7421 displays local abbrevs, only.
7423 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
7424 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
7426 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
7427 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
7428 is measured in pixels.
7430 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
7431 to be visited as images.
7433 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
7434 were added to compile.el.
7436 ** Withdrawn packages
7438 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
7439 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
7441 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
7443 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
7446 * Incompatible Lisp changes
7448 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
7449 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
7450 See the sections below for details.
7452 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
7453 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
7454 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
7455 to remove the properties of the copy.
7457 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
7458 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
7459 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
7460 these properties are active.
7462 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
7463 ranges may affect some code.
7465 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
7466 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
7467 make a difference to some code.
7469 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
7470 operates on the minibuffer.
7472 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
7473 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
7474 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
7475 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
7476 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
7477 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
7478 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
7479 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
7480 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
7481 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
7482 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
7483 the buffer as multibyte characters.
7485 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
7486 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
7487 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
7489 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
7490 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
7491 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
7493 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
7494 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
7495 such as `mapconcat'.
7497 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
7500 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
7501 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
7502 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
7503 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
7504 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
7505 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
7506 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
7507 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
7509 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
7510 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
7511 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
7512 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
7513 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
7514 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
7515 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
7516 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
7517 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
7518 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
7521 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
7522 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
7524 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
7526 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
7527 allows the animated display of strings.
7529 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
7530 interactive form of a function.
7532 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
7533 between custom options. Example:
7535 (defcustom default-input-method nil
7536 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
7537 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
7538 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
7540 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
7541 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
7543 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
7544 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
7545 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
7547 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
7548 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
7549 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
7550 (signal or normal termination).
7552 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
7553 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
7555 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
7556 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
7558 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
7559 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
7561 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
7563 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
7564 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
7567 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
7569 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
7570 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
7571 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
7572 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
7573 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
7576 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
7577 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
7580 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
7581 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
7583 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
7584 with the more general `:mask' property.
7586 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
7588 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
7591 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
7592 is running in batch mode. For example,
7594 (message "%s" (read t))
7596 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
7599 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
7600 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
7602 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
7603 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
7606 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
7609 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
7611 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
7612 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
7614 - Function: remq ELT LIST
7616 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
7617 comparison is done with `eq'.
7619 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
7621 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
7622 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
7623 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
7625 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
7626 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
7627 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
7629 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
7630 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
7632 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
7633 function was declared obsolete.
7635 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
7636 retained as an alias).
7638 ** Easy-menu's :filter now takes the unconverted form of the menu and
7639 the result is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
7641 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
7643 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
7645 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
7646 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
7647 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
7648 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
7649 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
7650 means never include the minibuffer window.
7652 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
7654 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
7656 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
7658 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
7659 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
7660 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
7661 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
7664 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
7665 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
7666 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
7667 minibuffer even if it is active.
7669 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
7670 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
7671 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
7672 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
7673 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
7674 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
7676 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
7677 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
7678 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
7679 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
7680 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
7681 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
7682 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
7684 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
7685 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
7686 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
7688 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
7689 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
7690 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
7691 Default value is nil.
7693 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
7696 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
7697 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
7698 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
7700 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
7701 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
7702 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
7704 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
7705 list of a primitive.
7707 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
7709 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
7710 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
7711 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
7712 than replacing the local map.
7714 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
7715 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
7716 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
7719 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
7721 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
7722 as promised long ago.
7724 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
7726 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
7727 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
7728 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
7731 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
7733 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
7734 regular expressions.
7736 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
7738 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
7742 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
7744 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
7748 matches string STRING literally.
7751 matches character CHAR literally.
7754 matches any character except a newline.
7757 matches any character
7760 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
7761 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
7767 matches any character not in SET
7770 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
7771 in the text being matched
7774 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
7777 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
7778 string being matched against.
7781 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
7782 string being matched against.
7785 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
7786 buffer being matched against.
7789 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
7790 buffer being matched against.
7793 matches the empty string, but only at point.
7796 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
7800 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
7803 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
7806 `(not word-boundary)'
7807 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
7811 matches 0 through 9.
7814 matches ASCII control characters.
7817 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
7820 matches space and tab only.
7823 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
7827 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
7831 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7832 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7835 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7836 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7839 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
7842 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
7845 matches anything lower-case.
7848 matches anything upper-case.
7851 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7852 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
7855 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
7858 matches anything that has word syntax.
7861 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
7862 of the following symbols.
7864 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
7865 `punctuation' (\\s.)
7868 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
7869 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
7870 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
7871 `string-quote' (\\s\")
7872 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
7874 `character-quote' (\\s/)
7875 `comment-start' (\\s<)
7876 `comment-end' (\\s>)
7878 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
7879 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
7881 `(category CATEGORY)'
7882 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
7883 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
7885 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
7887 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
7888 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
7892 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
7894 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
7895 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
7896 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
7897 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
7898 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
7899 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
7900 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
7901 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
7902 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
7903 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
7904 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
7913 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
7917 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
7924 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
7925 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
7927 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
7928 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
7930 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
7931 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
7932 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
7934 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
7935 another name for `submatch'.
7937 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
7938 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
7939 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
7942 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
7943 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
7944 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
7945 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
7946 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
7948 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
7949 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
7951 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
7952 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
7955 like `zero-or-more'.
7958 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
7961 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
7963 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
7964 matches one or more occurrences of A.
7970 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
7973 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
7975 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
7976 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
7982 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
7985 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
7988 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
7991 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
7994 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
7998 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
8000 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
8002 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
8003 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
8004 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
8005 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
8007 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
8008 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
8009 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
8010 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
8012 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
8013 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
8014 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
8016 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
8017 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
8018 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
8019 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
8020 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
8021 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
8022 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
8025 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
8027 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
8028 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
8029 character set as previously.
8031 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
8032 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
8033 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
8035 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
8036 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
8037 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
8038 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
8040 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
8041 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
8043 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
8044 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
8047 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
8048 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
8050 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
8051 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
8052 buffers and strings.
8054 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
8055 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
8056 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
8057 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
8058 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
8059 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
8060 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
8063 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
8064 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
8065 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
8067 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
8068 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
8069 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
8070 may differ between buffer and string text.
8072 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
8073 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
8075 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
8076 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
8077 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
8078 `composition' from STRING.
8080 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
8081 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
8083 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
8086 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
8087 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
8089 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
8090 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
8091 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
8092 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
8094 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
8095 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
8096 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
8097 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
8098 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
8099 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
8101 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
8102 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
8103 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
8105 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
8106 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
8107 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
8109 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
8110 have been introduced.
8112 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
8113 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
8114 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
8115 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
8116 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
8117 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
8118 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
8119 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
8120 their multibyte equivalent.
8122 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
8123 that offset in the file before writing.
8125 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
8126 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
8128 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
8129 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
8130 from which the command was issued.
8132 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
8133 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
8134 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
8135 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
8138 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
8139 to `window-buffer-height'.
8141 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
8143 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
8144 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
8145 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
8147 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
8150 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
8151 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
8153 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
8154 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
8155 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
8157 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
8158 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
8159 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
8160 is currently displayed in some window.
8162 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
8163 argument function's results.
8165 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
8166 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
8167 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
8168 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
8171 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
8172 header in the list of headers passed to it.
8174 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
8175 ignores differences in case and text representation.
8177 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
8178 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
8181 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
8182 nil don't display a cursor
8183 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
8184 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
8185 others display a box cursor.
8187 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
8188 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
8189 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
8190 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
8192 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
8193 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
8194 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
8195 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
8199 (string-to-syntax "()")
8202 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
8205 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
8206 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
8213 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
8218 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
8223 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
8230 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
8231 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
8234 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
8235 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
8236 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
8237 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
8239 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
8241 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
8242 for a regexp in a string.
8244 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
8245 `mouse-position-function'.
8247 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
8248 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
8250 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
8251 Keywords are now always considered constants.
8253 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
8256 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
8257 returned by function `recent-keys'.
8259 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
8260 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
8261 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
8262 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
8265 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
8266 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
8268 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
8269 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
8270 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
8271 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
8274 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
8275 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
8276 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
8277 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
8279 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
8280 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
8281 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
8283 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
8284 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
8287 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
8289 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
8290 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
8291 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
8294 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
8295 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
8296 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
8297 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
8298 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
8300 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
8301 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
8303 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
8304 instead of being optional.
8306 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
8307 modify read-only text.
8309 ** New functions and variables for locales.
8311 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
8312 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
8313 time functions like strftime. The new variables
8314 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
8315 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
8317 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
8318 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
8319 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
8320 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
8321 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
8322 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
8323 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
8325 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
8326 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
8327 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
8330 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
8331 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
8333 ** New function `propertize'
8335 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
8336 strings with text properties.
8338 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
8340 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
8341 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
8342 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
8343 specified value of that property. Example:
8345 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
8347 ** push and pop macros.
8349 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
8350 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
8351 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
8353 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
8354 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
8355 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
8357 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
8359 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
8360 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
8362 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
8363 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
8364 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
8365 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8367 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
8368 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
8369 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
8370 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8372 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
8373 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
8374 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
8377 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
8378 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
8379 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8380 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
8381 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8383 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8385 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
8386 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8387 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8388 [:alpha:] matches letters.
8389 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8390 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8391 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8392 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8393 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
8394 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
8395 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8396 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8397 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8398 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
8399 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
8401 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
8403 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
8405 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
8407 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
8408 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
8412 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
8413 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
8414 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
8418 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
8419 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
8421 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
8423 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
8424 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
8425 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
8426 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
8427 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
8429 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
8431 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
8432 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
8433 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
8437 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
8438 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
8439 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
8440 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
8441 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
8443 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
8445 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
8447 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
8449 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
8451 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
8453 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
8456 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
8458 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
8460 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8462 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
8464 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
8466 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
8468 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8470 Returns the size of TABLE.
8472 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
8474 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
8476 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
8478 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
8480 - Function: clrhash TABLE
8484 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
8486 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
8489 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
8491 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
8492 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
8494 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
8496 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
8498 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
8500 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
8501 arguments KEY and VALUE.
8503 - Function: sxhash OBJ
8505 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
8507 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
8509 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
8510 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
8511 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
8512 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
8513 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
8515 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
8517 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
8518 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
8519 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
8521 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
8522 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
8524 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
8525 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
8527 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
8528 (sxhash (upcase a)))
8530 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
8531 'case-fold-string-hash))
8533 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
8535 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
8537 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
8538 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
8539 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
8541 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
8543 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
8544 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
8546 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
8547 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
8548 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
8549 is too short to reach that column.
8551 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
8552 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
8553 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
8554 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
8556 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
8557 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
8558 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
8560 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
8561 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
8563 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
8564 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
8566 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
8567 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
8568 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
8569 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
8570 temporary-file-directory instead.
8572 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
8573 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
8574 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
8575 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
8577 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
8578 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
8580 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
8582 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
8583 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
8584 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
8586 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
8588 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
8589 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
8590 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
8591 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
8592 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
8593 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
8595 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
8596 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
8597 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
8598 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
8600 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
8602 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
8603 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
8604 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
8607 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
8608 string where arguments appear in the result string.
8612 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
8614 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
8615 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
8618 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
8620 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
8622 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
8623 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
8626 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
8628 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
8629 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
8634 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
8635 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
8637 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
8638 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
8639 to enable sound support.
8641 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
8642 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
8643 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
8644 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
8645 sound to play, before playing the sound.
8647 The following sound properties are supported:
8651 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
8652 searched relative to `data-directory'.
8656 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
8657 may be present, but not both.
8661 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
8662 0..1. This property is optional.
8666 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
8667 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
8669 Other properties are ignored.
8671 An alternative interface is called as
8672 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
8674 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
8676 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
8679 ** Changes to garbage collection
8681 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
8682 of live and free strings.
8684 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
8685 strings that have been consed so far.
8688 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
8691 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
8694 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
8695 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
8696 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
8698 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
8700 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
8702 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
8705 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
8707 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
8709 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
8710 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
8711 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
8712 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
8713 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
8715 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
8718 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
8720 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
8721 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
8722 or omitted means use the selected frame.
8724 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
8725 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
8727 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
8730 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
8734 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
8736 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
8737 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
8739 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
8740 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
8741 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
8742 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
8743 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
8744 just display it black instead.
8746 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
8749 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
8753 ** New face implementation.
8755 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
8756 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
8760 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
8762 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
8764 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
8765 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
8767 3. Font height in 1/10pt
8769 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
8771 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
8773 6. Foreground color.
8775 7. Background color.
8777 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
8779 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
8781 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
8783 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
8785 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
8788 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
8789 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
8791 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
8792 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
8793 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
8794 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
8795 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
8796 attributes mentioned above.
8798 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
8799 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
8802 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
8803 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
8808 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
8809 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
8810 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
8811 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
8812 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
8813 results in a fully-specified face.
8815 *** Face realization.
8817 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
8818 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
8819 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
8820 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
8821 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
8822 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
8824 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
8825 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
8826 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
8827 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
8829 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
8830 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
8831 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
8832 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
8833 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
8835 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
8836 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
8837 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
8838 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
8839 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
8842 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
8843 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
8844 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
8845 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
8847 **** Clearing face caches.
8849 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
8850 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
8855 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
8856 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
8857 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
8859 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
8860 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
8861 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
8862 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
8863 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
8865 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
8866 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
8867 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
8869 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
8871 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
8872 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
8873 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
8874 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
8875 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
8876 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
8877 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
8879 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
8880 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
8883 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
8884 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
8887 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
8890 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
8895 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
8896 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
8899 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
8900 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
8901 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
8902 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
8903 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
8906 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
8908 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
8910 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
8912 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
8914 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
8915 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
8916 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
8918 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
8919 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
8920 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
8921 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
8922 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
8923 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
8924 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
8925 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
8926 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
8927 of the face font sort order.
8929 - Function: x-font-family-list
8931 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
8932 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
8933 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
8934 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
8936 - Variable: font-list-limit
8938 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
8939 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
8940 matching font. The default is currently 100.
8942 *** Setting face attributes.
8944 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
8945 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
8946 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
8949 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
8950 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
8952 The following attributes are recognized:
8956 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
8957 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
8958 and `?' are allowed.
8962 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
8963 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
8964 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
8965 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
8969 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
8970 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
8971 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
8972 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
8976 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
8977 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
8978 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
8982 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
8983 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
8986 `:foreground', `:background'
8988 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
8992 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
8993 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
8994 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
8999 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
9000 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
9001 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
9006 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
9007 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
9008 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
9009 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
9013 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
9014 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
9015 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
9016 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
9017 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
9018 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
9019 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
9020 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
9021 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
9022 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
9023 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
9024 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
9025 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
9026 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
9027 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
9028 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
9033 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
9034 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
9038 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
9039 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
9040 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
9041 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
9042 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
9043 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
9045 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
9046 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
9050 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
9051 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
9052 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
9055 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
9056 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
9057 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
9059 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
9064 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
9065 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
9066 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
9068 *** Face attributes and X resources
9070 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
9073 Face attribute X resource class
9074 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
9075 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
9076 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
9077 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
9078 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
9079 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
9080 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
9081 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
9082 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
9083 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
9084 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
9085 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
9086 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
9087 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
9088 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
9089 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
9090 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9091 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
9092 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
9093 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9095 *** Text property `face'.
9097 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
9098 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
9099 specification can be
9101 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
9103 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
9104 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
9105 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
9106 for face attribute names.
9108 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
9109 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
9110 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
9112 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
9114 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
9115 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
9116 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
9117 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
9118 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
9119 used to clear the mapping table.
9121 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
9123 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
9124 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
9125 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
9126 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
9127 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
9128 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
9129 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
9130 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
9131 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
9132 modify their color-related behavior.
9134 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
9137 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
9139 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
9140 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
9141 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
9142 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
9143 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
9144 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
9145 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
9146 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
9147 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
9149 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
9150 display can display image files.
9152 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
9154 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
9155 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
9156 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
9157 `Inviolable' option.
9159 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
9160 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
9161 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
9163 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
9165 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
9166 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
9167 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
9169 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
9170 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
9171 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
9172 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
9173 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
9174 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
9175 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
9178 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
9179 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
9180 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
9182 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
9184 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
9186 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
9188 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9189 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
9190 constrained position if that is different.
9192 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
9193 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
9194 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
9195 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
9196 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9197 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
9198 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
9199 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
9200 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
9202 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
9203 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
9204 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
9205 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
9206 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
9208 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
9209 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
9211 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
9213 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
9215 Delete the field surrounding POS.
9216 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9217 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9219 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9221 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
9222 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9223 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9224 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
9225 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
9227 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9229 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
9230 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9231 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9232 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
9233 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
9235 - Function: field-string &optional POS
9237 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
9238 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9239 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9241 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
9243 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
9244 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9245 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9249 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
9250 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
9251 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
9252 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
9254 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
9255 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
9256 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
9257 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
9260 IMAGE is an image specification.
9262 *** Image specifications
9264 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
9265 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
9266 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
9267 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
9268 described below are ignored.
9270 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
9274 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
9275 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
9276 to use for its ascent.
9278 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
9279 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
9281 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
9282 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
9283 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
9284 overlays that apply to the image.
9288 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
9289 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
9290 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
9294 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
9299 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
9301 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
9302 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
9304 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
9305 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
9306 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
9307 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
9308 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
9309 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
9310 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
9311 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
9314 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
9316 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
9318 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
9319 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
9320 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
9321 of the factors' absolute values.
9323 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
9329 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
9335 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
9340 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
9341 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
9342 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
9343 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
9344 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
9345 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
9346 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
9349 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
9350 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
9355 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
9356 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
9357 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
9358 may be present in the image specification.
9362 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
9363 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
9364 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
9365 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
9367 *** Supported image types
9369 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
9371 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
9372 properties supported are:
9376 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9377 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9381 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9382 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9384 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
9385 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
9386 instead of a `:file' property.
9390 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
9394 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
9400 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
9401 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
9403 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
9405 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
9408 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
9409 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
9412 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
9414 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
9415 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
9416 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
9417 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
9419 Additional image properties supported are:
9421 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
9423 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
9424 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
9427 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
9428 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
9430 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
9431 to display compressed images.
9433 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
9435 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
9436 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
9441 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9442 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9446 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9447 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9449 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
9451 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
9452 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9455 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
9457 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
9458 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9461 **** GIF, image type `gif'
9463 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
9464 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
9466 Additional image properties supported are:
9470 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
9471 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
9474 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
9475 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
9476 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
9479 (defun show-anim (file max)
9480 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
9481 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
9483 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
9486 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
9489 (goto-char (point-min))
9490 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
9491 (insert-image img "x"))
9492 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
9494 **** PNG, image type `png'
9496 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
9497 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9500 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
9502 Additional image properties supported are:
9506 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
9507 integer. This is a required property.
9511 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
9512 must be a integer. This is an required property.
9516 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
9517 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
9518 files. This is an required property.
9520 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
9525 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
9526 which are supported in the current configuration.
9528 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
9529 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
9530 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
9531 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
9532 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
9534 *** Simplified image API, image.el
9536 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
9537 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
9538 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
9539 define an image based on available image types. The functions
9540 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
9545 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
9548 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
9549 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
9550 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
9551 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
9552 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
9553 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
9554 of the display margins.
9556 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
9557 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
9558 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
9559 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
9564 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
9565 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
9566 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
9567 that have a `help-echo' property.
9569 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
9570 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
9571 the window in which the help was found.
9573 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
9574 `help-echo' text property was found.
9576 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
9577 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
9579 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
9580 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
9583 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
9584 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
9586 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
9587 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
9588 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
9589 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
9590 used as help string.
9592 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
9593 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
9594 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
9596 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
9598 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
9599 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
9601 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
9602 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
9603 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
9604 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
9607 (global-set-key [A-down]
9610 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9611 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
9612 (global-set-key [A-up]
9615 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9616 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
9618 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
9620 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
9621 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
9622 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
9623 is called with one argument, POS.
9625 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
9626 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
9627 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
9628 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
9629 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
9631 ** Tool bar support.
9633 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
9634 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
9635 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
9636 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
9637 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
9638 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
9640 *** Tool bar item definitions
9642 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
9643 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
9644 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
9646 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
9647 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
9648 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
9649 property (see below).
9651 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
9652 binding are currently ignored.
9654 The following properties are recognized:
9658 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
9663 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
9667 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
9668 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
9669 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
9671 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
9673 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
9674 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
9678 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
9679 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
9680 meaning of each of the four elements:
9682 Index Use when item is
9683 ----------------------------------------
9684 0 enabled and selected
9685 1 enabled and deselected
9686 2 disabled and selected
9687 3 disabled and deselected
9689 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
9690 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
9692 `:help HELP-STRING'.
9694 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
9695 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
9697 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
9698 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
9699 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
9702 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
9703 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
9704 buffer-locally to override the global map.
9706 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
9708 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
9709 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
9710 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
9712 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
9713 raised when the mouse moves over them.
9715 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
9716 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
9717 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
9718 vertical margins . Default is 1.
9720 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
9721 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
9723 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
9725 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
9728 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
9729 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
9730 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
9732 is the original tool bar item definition, then
9734 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
9736 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
9739 ** Mode line changes.
9741 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
9743 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
9744 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
9745 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
9747 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
9748 a `local-map' text property.
9750 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
9751 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
9753 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
9754 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
9755 `local-map' property.
9757 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
9758 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
9761 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
9762 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
9764 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
9765 variable mode-line-format to nil.
9767 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
9769 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
9770 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
9771 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
9772 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
9775 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
9778 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
9779 position in the header-line.
9781 ** Text property `display'
9783 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
9784 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
9785 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
9786 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
9787 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
9789 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
9791 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
9792 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
9794 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
9795 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
9796 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
9797 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
9798 simpler form STRING as property value.
9800 *** Variable width and height spaces
9802 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
9803 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
9804 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
9805 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
9806 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
9807 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
9808 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
9810 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
9811 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
9812 properties described below.
9814 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
9815 characters having the `display' property.
9819 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
9820 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
9822 - :relative-width FACTOR
9824 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
9825 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
9826 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
9827 width of that character by FACTOR.
9831 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
9832 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
9834 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
9838 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
9841 - :relative-height FACTOR
9843 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
9844 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
9848 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
9849 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
9850 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
9853 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
9857 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
9858 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
9859 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
9860 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
9861 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
9862 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
9863 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
9864 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
9865 as display specification.
9867 *** Other display properties
9869 - (space-width FACTOR)
9871 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
9872 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
9877 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
9879 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
9880 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
9881 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
9882 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
9883 a font is available counts as a step.
9885 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
9886 as tall as the frame's default font.
9888 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
9889 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
9891 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
9892 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
9896 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
9897 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
9898 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
9899 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
9900 `height' subproperty.
9902 *** Conditional display properties
9904 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
9905 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
9906 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
9907 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
9908 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
9909 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
9910 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
9911 different when object is a string.
9913 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
9916 ** New menu separator types.
9918 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
9919 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
9920 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
9921 to specify other menu separator types.
9923 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
9925 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
9928 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
9930 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
9932 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
9934 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
9936 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
9938 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
9940 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
9942 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
9944 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
9946 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
9947 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
9949 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
9951 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
9953 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
9955 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
9957 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
9959 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
9961 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
9963 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
9965 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
9967 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
9969 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
9971 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
9973 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
9975 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
9977 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
9978 the corresponding single-line separators.
9980 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
9982 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
9983 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
9984 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
9985 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
9986 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
9987 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
9988 default foreground is black.
9990 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
9991 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
9992 `ScrollBarBackground').
9994 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
9995 settings for scroll bar colors.
9997 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
9998 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
10000 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
10001 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
10002 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
10003 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
10004 the original window start.
10006 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
10007 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
10008 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
10010 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
10012 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
10013 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
10014 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
10015 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
10017 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
10018 fixed-width and fixed-height.
10020 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
10022 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
10023 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
10024 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
10025 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
10026 temporarily to nil, for example
10028 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
10029 (enlarge-window 10))
10031 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
10032 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
10034 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
10035 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
10036 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
10037 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
10038 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
10039 support a vertical-bar cursor).
10043 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
10045 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
10048 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
10050 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
10052 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
10053 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
10054 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
10055 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
10056 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
10058 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
10062 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
10064 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
10068 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
10070 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
10071 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
10073 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
10075 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
10077 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
10078 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
10079 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
10081 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
10082 is the one that is used.
10084 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
10085 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
10086 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
10087 separate from the command's regular output.
10088 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
10089 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
10090 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
10093 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
10094 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
10095 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
10096 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
10098 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
10099 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
10100 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
10101 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
10103 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
10104 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
10105 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
10106 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
10108 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
10109 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
10110 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
10111 they never ignore case.
10113 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
10114 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
10115 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
10116 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
10117 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
10118 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
10119 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
10121 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
10122 the same format that was used in the file before.
10124 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
10125 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
10127 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
10128 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
10129 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
10131 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
10132 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
10133 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
10134 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
10135 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
10136 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
10137 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
10139 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
10140 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
10141 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
10142 format. You can now customize these variables.
10144 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
10145 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
10146 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
10147 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
10149 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
10150 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
10151 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
10153 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
10154 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
10155 doesn't have any effect.
10157 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
10158 not one per buffer.
10160 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
10161 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
10162 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
10164 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
10165 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
10166 `auto-show-mode' command.
10168 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
10169 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
10170 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
10171 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
10172 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
10174 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
10175 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
10177 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
10178 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
10179 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
10181 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
10182 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
10183 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
10184 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
10186 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
10188 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
10189 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
10190 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
10191 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
10192 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
10194 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
10195 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
10197 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
10198 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
10199 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
10200 `?' on other systems.
10202 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
10203 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
10206 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
10207 current codepage when it starts.
10211 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
10212 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
10213 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
10214 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
10215 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
10216 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
10220 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
10221 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
10223 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
10224 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
10225 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
10226 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
10227 buffer-file-coding-system.
10229 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
10230 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
10233 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
10234 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
10235 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
10236 list of possible coding systems.
10240 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
10241 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
10242 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
10243 docstring for details.
10245 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
10246 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
10247 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
10248 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
10249 lineup functions use this feature currently.
10251 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
10252 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
10254 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
10255 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
10257 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
10258 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
10259 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
10260 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
10263 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
10264 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
10266 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
10267 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
10268 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
10269 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
10271 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
10272 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
10273 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
10274 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
10275 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
10277 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
10279 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
10281 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
10282 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
10284 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
10286 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
10287 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
10288 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
10289 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
10290 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
10294 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
10295 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
10296 Gnus manual for the full story.
10298 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
10299 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
10300 group, which is created automatically.
10302 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
10305 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
10307 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
10308 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
10310 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
10313 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
10315 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
10316 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
10318 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
10320 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
10321 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
10323 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
10324 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
10326 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
10327 control over simplification.
10329 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
10331 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
10334 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
10336 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
10338 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
10339 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
10340 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
10342 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
10343 `a' forces normal posting method.
10345 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
10348 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
10349 to a non-nil value.
10351 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
10352 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
10354 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
10357 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
10359 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
10361 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
10362 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
10364 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
10365 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
10367 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
10369 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
10372 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
10373 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
10375 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
10376 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
10378 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
10380 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
10382 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
10384 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
10386 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
10387 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
10388 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
10390 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
10391 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
10392 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
10393 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
10394 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
10396 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
10397 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
10398 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
10399 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
10401 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
10402 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
10403 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
10406 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
10408 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
10409 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
10411 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
10412 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
10413 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
10414 removed from the label.
10416 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
10417 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
10419 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
10420 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
10422 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
10423 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
10426 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
10428 ** New/deleted modes and packages
10430 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
10431 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
10433 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
10434 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
10435 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
10437 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
10438 changes with a special face.
10440 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
10441 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
10442 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
10444 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
10446 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
10447 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
10448 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
10449 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
10450 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
10452 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
10453 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
10454 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
10456 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
10457 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
10458 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
10459 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
10460 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
10461 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
10462 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
10463 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
10464 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
10466 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
10467 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
10468 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
10469 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
10470 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
10473 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
10474 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
10475 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
10476 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
10477 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
10478 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
10480 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
10481 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
10482 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
10483 was not documented clearly before.
10485 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
10486 This includes Tetris and Snake.
10488 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
10490 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
10491 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
10492 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
10493 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
10495 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
10496 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
10497 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
10499 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
10501 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
10502 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
10504 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
10505 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
10508 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
10509 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
10510 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
10511 file names and attributes are returned.
10513 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
10514 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
10515 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
10516 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
10517 returns the result.
10519 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
10520 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
10522 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
10524 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
10525 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
10526 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
10529 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
10530 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
10533 The new function process-running-child-p
10534 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
10535 terminal to its own child process.
10537 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
10538 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
10539 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
10540 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
10542 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
10543 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
10545 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
10546 :included is an alias for :visible.
10548 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
10549 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
10550 to move or copy menu entries.
10552 ** Multibyte editing changes
10554 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
10555 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
10556 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
10557 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
10558 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
10559 (setq char (sref str idx)
10560 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
10561 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
10563 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
10564 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
10565 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
10567 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
10568 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
10569 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
10571 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
10573 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
10574 across the boundary.
10576 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
10577 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
10578 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
10579 contains 8-bit characters.
10580 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
10581 contains invalid characters.
10583 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
10584 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
10585 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
10586 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
10589 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
10590 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
10591 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
10592 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
10594 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
10595 compose Thai characters in a string.
10597 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
10598 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
10599 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
10600 menus should always use the third argument.
10602 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
10603 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
10604 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
10605 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
10607 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
10608 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
10609 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
10610 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
10612 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
10613 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
10614 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
10615 echo area contents.
10617 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
10619 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
10620 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
10621 requested feature cannot be loaded.
10623 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
10624 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
10625 means to clear out that attribute.
10627 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
10628 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
10630 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
10631 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
10632 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
10633 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
10635 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
10636 the gap of the current buffer.
10638 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
10639 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
10642 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
10643 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
10644 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
10645 it back in after any modifications have been made.
10647 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
10649 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
10650 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
10651 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
10652 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
10653 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
10655 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
10656 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
10657 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
10658 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
10659 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
10661 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
10662 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
10663 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
10665 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
10666 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
10667 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
10668 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
10669 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
10672 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
10673 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
10674 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
10675 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
10677 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
10679 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
10680 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
10681 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
10682 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
10684 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
10685 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
10686 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
10687 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
10688 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
10689 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
10690 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
10693 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
10696 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
10697 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
10698 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
10699 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
10700 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
10702 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
10703 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
10704 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
10705 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
10707 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
10708 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
10709 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
10710 something that most users not do.
10712 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
10713 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
10714 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
10717 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
10718 pasting operations.
10720 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
10721 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
10722 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
10723 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
10726 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
10727 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
10728 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
10729 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
10730 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
10733 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
10734 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
10735 to be confused by TeX commands.
10737 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
10738 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
10739 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
10740 of various alternative replacements and actions.
10742 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
10743 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
10744 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
10745 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
10746 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
10748 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
10749 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
10751 ** Changes in input method usage.
10753 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
10754 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
10757 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
10759 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
10760 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
10762 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
10763 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
10765 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
10767 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
10769 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
10770 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
10772 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
10773 given in the following case:
10774 o When you are using a complex input method.
10775 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
10777 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
10778 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
10779 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
10780 setting it to t is helpful.
10782 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
10784 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
10786 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
10787 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
10788 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
10789 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
10792 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
10793 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
10794 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
10797 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
10799 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
10801 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
10802 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
10804 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
10805 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
10806 its owner and group.
10808 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
10809 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
10811 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
10812 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
10814 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
10815 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
10816 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
10817 by the left edge of the rectangle.
10819 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
10820 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
10821 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
10822 for writing keyboard macros.
10824 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
10825 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
10826 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
10827 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
10828 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
10831 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
10833 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
10834 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
10837 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
10838 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
10839 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
10840 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
10842 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
10843 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
10844 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
10846 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
10847 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
10848 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
10849 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
10851 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
10852 failure if the command produces no output.
10854 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
10855 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
10858 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
10859 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
10860 function and variable names.
10862 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
10863 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
10864 file-coding-system-alist.
10866 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
10867 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
10868 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
10869 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
10870 according to the current fontset.
10872 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
10874 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
10875 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
10876 nonascii-insert-offset.
10878 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
10879 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
10880 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
10881 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
10883 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
10884 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
10886 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
10887 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
10889 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
10890 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
10893 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
10894 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
10896 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
10897 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
10898 all variables that have documentation.
10900 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
10901 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
10902 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
10903 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
10904 it should show; the default is 20.
10906 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
10907 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
10910 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
10911 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
10912 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
10913 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
10914 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
10915 Newly added options are included as well.
10917 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
10918 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
10919 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
10921 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
10924 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
10925 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
10927 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
10928 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
10931 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
10932 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
10935 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
10936 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
10937 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
10938 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
10941 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
10943 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
10944 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
10945 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
10947 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
10948 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
10949 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
10954 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
10955 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
10957 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
10958 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
10960 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
10961 read and post multi-lingual articles.
10963 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
10964 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
10965 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
10966 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
10967 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
10968 made invisible again.
10970 ** Mail reading and sending changes
10972 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
10973 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
10974 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
10977 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
10978 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
10979 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
10980 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
10981 rmail-default-body-file.
10983 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
10984 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
10985 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
10987 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
10988 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
10989 is evaluated to insert the signature.
10991 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
10992 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
10993 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
10994 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
10995 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
10996 especially interested in trying feedmail.
10998 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
10999 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
11000 provided by feedmail are:
11002 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
11003 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
11004 there is also a queue for draft messages
11006 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
11007 be prompted for confirmation
11009 **** does smart filling of address headers
11011 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
11012 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
11013 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
11015 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
11016 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
11017 /usr/lib/sendmail, and Emacs Lisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
11018 function for something else (10-20 lines of Lisp code).
11022 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
11023 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
11025 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
11026 run Dired on the directory name at point.
11028 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
11029 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
11030 for a specified regexp.
11034 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
11037 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
11038 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
11041 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
11042 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
11043 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
11044 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
11046 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
11047 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
11048 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
11049 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
11050 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
11052 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
11053 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
11054 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
11055 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
11056 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
11058 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
11059 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
11060 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
11061 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
11063 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
11064 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
11065 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
11067 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
11068 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
11069 session to resolve them.
11071 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
11072 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
11073 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
11076 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
11077 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
11078 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
11079 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
11080 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
11081 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
11084 ** Changes in Font Lock
11086 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
11087 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
11088 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
11089 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
11090 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
11092 ** Frame name display changes
11094 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
11095 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
11096 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
11097 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
11099 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
11100 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
11103 ** Comint (subshell) changes
11105 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
11106 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
11107 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
11109 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
11111 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
11112 that is, the line after the last line you got.
11113 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
11115 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
11116 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
11117 the following line.
11119 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
11120 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
11121 previously sent input.
11123 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
11124 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
11125 as the search string.
11127 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
11128 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
11132 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
11133 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
11134 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
11137 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
11138 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
11139 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
11140 style is still the default however.
11142 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
11144 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
11145 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
11146 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
11148 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
11149 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
11151 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
11152 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
11154 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
11155 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
11157 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
11158 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
11160 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
11161 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
11162 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
11163 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
11165 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
11167 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
11168 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
11169 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
11171 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
11172 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
11173 expanding dynamically.
11175 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
11176 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
11178 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
11179 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
11180 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
11181 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
11183 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
11185 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11187 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
11188 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
11189 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
11190 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
11191 against the first word in the title.
11193 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
11194 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
11195 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
11196 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
11197 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
11198 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
11200 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
11201 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
11202 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
11203 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
11205 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
11207 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
11208 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
11209 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
11210 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
11211 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
11212 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
11214 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
11215 Editing group once the package is loaded.
11217 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
11218 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
11219 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
11221 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
11222 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
11226 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
11227 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
11228 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
11230 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
11231 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
11232 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
11233 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
11236 o URLs are automatically skipped
11237 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
11239 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
11241 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
11243 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
11244 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
11245 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
11246 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
11248 *** New recursive parser.
11250 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
11251 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
11252 recursive parser scans the individual files.
11254 *** Parsing only part of a document.
11256 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
11257 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
11258 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
11260 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
11262 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
11264 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
11266 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
11268 *** Using multiple selection buffers
11270 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
11271 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
11273 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
11275 *** References to external documents.
11277 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
11278 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
11279 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
11280 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
11281 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
11282 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
11283 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
11285 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
11287 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
11288 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
11290 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
11291 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
11293 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
11295 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
11296 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
11298 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
11300 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
11301 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
11302 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
11303 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
11304 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
11305 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
11308 *** Support for the varioref package
11310 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
11314 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
11315 and citations are created. These hooks are
11316 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
11317 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
11319 *** Citations outside LaTeX
11321 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
11322 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
11324 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
11326 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
11327 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
11330 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
11332 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
11333 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
11334 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
11335 directories that contain the same file name.
11337 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
11338 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
11339 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
11340 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
11341 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
11342 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
11343 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
11346 ** New modes and packages
11348 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
11349 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
11350 it, but some do not.
11352 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
11355 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
11356 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
11357 around in a buffer.
11359 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
11361 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
11362 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
11363 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
11364 established system of notation similar to Chess.
11366 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
11367 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
11368 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
11370 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
11371 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
11372 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
11373 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
11374 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
11377 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
11378 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
11380 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
11381 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
11382 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
11383 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
11385 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
11387 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
11388 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
11389 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
11390 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
11391 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
11392 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
11393 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
11394 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
11395 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
11396 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
11397 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
11399 Platform-specific modes:
11401 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
11402 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
11403 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
11404 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
11405 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
11406 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
11407 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
11408 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
11409 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
11411 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11413 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
11414 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
11415 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
11416 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
11418 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
11419 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
11420 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
11422 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
11423 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
11424 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
11425 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
11427 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
11428 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
11429 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
11432 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
11433 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
11434 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
11435 current input method for reading this one event.
11437 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
11438 now control whether to output certain characters as
11439 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
11440 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
11441 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
11442 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
11444 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11446 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
11447 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
11449 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
11450 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
11451 always increases point by 1.
11453 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
11454 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
11456 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
11458 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
11459 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
11460 default value changed. For example,
11462 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
11467 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
11470 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
11471 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
11472 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
11473 `:version' in the top level group.
11475 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
11477 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
11478 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
11480 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
11481 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
11482 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
11485 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
11486 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
11489 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
11490 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
11491 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
11493 ** Frame-local variables.
11495 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
11496 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
11497 local bindings for that variable.
11499 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
11500 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
11501 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
11504 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
11505 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
11506 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
11507 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
11509 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
11510 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
11511 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
11512 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
11514 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
11515 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
11516 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
11517 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
11518 See the documentation in sregex.el.
11520 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
11521 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
11522 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
11523 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
11525 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
11526 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
11528 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
11529 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
11530 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
11532 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
11533 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
11534 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
11535 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
11537 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
11538 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
11541 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
11542 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
11543 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
11544 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
11545 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
11547 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
11548 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
11549 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
11550 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
11552 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
11553 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
11554 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
11555 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
11556 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
11558 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
11559 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
11560 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
11561 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
11563 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
11564 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
11565 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
11567 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
11568 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
11569 was directed to display this buffer.
11571 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
11572 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
11573 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
11574 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
11575 set-window-configuration.
11577 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
11578 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
11579 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
11580 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
11582 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
11583 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
11584 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
11586 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
11587 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
11588 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
11590 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
11591 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
11593 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
11594 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
11596 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
11597 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
11598 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
11600 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
11601 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
11602 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
11603 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
11607 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
11608 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
11611 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
11612 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
11613 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
11614 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
11615 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
11617 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
11619 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
11620 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
11621 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
11622 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
11625 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
11626 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
11627 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
11628 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
11629 The supported properties include
11631 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11633 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11634 item should appear in the menu.
11636 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
11637 which will be REAL-BINDING.
11638 It should return a binding to use instead.
11640 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
11641 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
11642 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
11643 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
11644 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
11647 This means that the command normally has no
11648 keyboard equivalent.
11649 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
11650 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
11651 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
11652 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
11653 value says whether this button is currently selected.
11655 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
11656 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
11658 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
11662 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
11663 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
11664 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
11665 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
11667 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
11669 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11670 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
11671 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
11672 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
11673 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
11674 forward, away from the user.
11676 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11678 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
11679 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
11680 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
11681 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
11682 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
11684 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
11686 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11687 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
11688 that were dragged and dropped.
11690 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11692 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
11694 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
11695 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
11696 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
11698 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
11699 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
11700 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
11702 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
11703 in Emacs 19 and before.
11705 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
11706 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
11708 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
11709 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
11710 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
11711 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
11713 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
11714 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
11715 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
11716 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
11717 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
11719 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
11720 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
11721 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
11722 consistent with the new representation.
11724 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
11725 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
11726 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
11727 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
11729 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
11730 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
11731 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
11733 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
11734 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
11735 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
11737 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
11738 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
11739 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
11741 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
11742 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
11744 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
11745 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
11747 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
11748 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
11749 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
11750 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
11752 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
11753 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
11755 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
11756 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
11757 buffer or string being searched.
11759 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
11760 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
11761 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
11762 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
11763 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
11764 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
11765 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
11767 *** Structure of coding system changed.
11769 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
11770 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
11771 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
11772 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
11773 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
11774 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
11775 define-coding-system-alias.
11777 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
11778 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
11779 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
11780 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
11781 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
11782 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
11783 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
11786 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
11787 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
11788 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
11789 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
11791 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
11792 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
11793 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
11794 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
11796 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
11797 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
11798 This function requires a user interaction.
11800 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
11801 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
11802 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
11803 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
11804 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
11805 select-safe-coding-system.
11807 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
11808 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
11809 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
11812 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
11813 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
11814 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
11816 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
11817 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
11818 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
11819 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
11821 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
11822 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
11823 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
11826 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
11827 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
11829 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
11830 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
11831 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
11832 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
11833 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
11834 range of characters.
11836 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
11837 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
11839 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
11840 in the current buffer at position POS.
11842 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
11843 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
11844 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
11845 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
11846 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
11847 binding input-method-function to nil.
11849 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
11850 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
11851 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
11852 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
11853 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
11855 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
11856 subsequent events of a key sequence.
11858 *** You can customize any language environment by using
11859 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
11861 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
11862 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
11863 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
11864 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
11865 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
11867 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
11869 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
11870 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
11871 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
11874 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
11875 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
11877 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
11878 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
11879 in your .emacs file.)
11881 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
11882 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
11884 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
11885 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
11887 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
11888 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
11891 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
11892 delete the character before point, as usual.
11894 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
11895 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
11896 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
11898 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
11899 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
11900 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
11901 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
11902 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
11905 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
11906 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
11907 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
11908 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
11909 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
11911 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
11912 and is an alias for it.
11914 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
11915 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
11917 ** Scrolling changes
11919 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
11920 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
11922 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
11923 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
11926 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
11927 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
11928 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
11929 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
11931 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
11932 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
11933 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
11934 recenters the window.
11936 ** International character set support (MULE)
11938 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
11939 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
11940 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
11941 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
11942 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
11943 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
11945 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
11946 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
11947 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
11948 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
11949 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
11951 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
11952 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
11953 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
11954 language, to make it possible to type them.
11956 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
11957 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
11959 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
11960 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
11962 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
11964 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
11966 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
11967 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
11968 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
11969 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
11970 characters for their work until they want to change.
11974 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
11975 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
11976 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
11977 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
11978 support several input methods.
11980 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
11981 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
11984 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
11985 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
11986 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
11987 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
11988 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
11991 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
11992 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
11993 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
11994 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
11995 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
11997 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
11998 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
11999 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
12000 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
12002 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
12003 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
12004 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
12005 the first guess is wrong.
12007 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
12008 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
12010 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
12011 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
12012 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
12013 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
12015 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
12016 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
12017 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
12018 translate automatically to and from either one.
12020 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
12022 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
12023 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
12024 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
12027 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
12028 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
12029 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
12030 multibyte characters in that buffer.
12032 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
12033 character conversion as well.
12035 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
12037 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
12038 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
12039 requires using many fonts.
12041 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
12042 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
12044 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
12045 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
12046 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
12047 you would use a font.
12049 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
12050 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
12051 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
12053 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
12054 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
12057 *** Defining fontsets.
12059 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
12060 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
12061 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
12063 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
12064 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
12065 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
12066 standard fontset are created automatically.
12068 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
12069 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
12070 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
12071 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
12072 name is `fontset-startup'.
12074 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
12075 The resource value should have this form:
12076 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
12077 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
12078 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
12079 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
12080 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
12081 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
12082 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
12083 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
12084 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
12086 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
12087 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
12088 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
12090 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
12091 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
12092 following resource,
12093 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
12094 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
12095 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
12096 Here is the substitution rule:
12097 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
12098 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
12099 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
12100 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
12101 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
12103 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
12104 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
12105 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
12107 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
12108 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
12109 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
12110 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
12113 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
12114 defaults for a particular choice of language.
12116 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
12117 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
12118 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
12119 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
12120 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
12121 system for new files that you create.
12123 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
12124 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
12125 whole Emacs session.
12127 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
12128 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
12129 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
12131 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
12132 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
12133 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
12134 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
12135 coding systems that Emacs supports.
12137 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
12138 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
12139 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
12140 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
12141 is used for *the immediately following command*.
12143 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
12144 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
12146 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
12147 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
12149 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
12150 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
12152 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
12153 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
12154 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
12155 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
12158 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
12159 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
12160 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
12161 translated into that character code.
12163 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
12164 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
12166 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
12168 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
12169 the coding system for keyboard input.
12171 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
12172 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
12173 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
12175 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
12177 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
12178 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
12179 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
12180 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
12181 designed to work with terminals.
12183 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
12184 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
12185 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
12186 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
12187 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
12188 in the corresponding buffer.
12190 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
12192 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
12193 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
12194 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
12196 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
12197 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
12198 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
12201 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
12202 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
12204 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
12205 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
12206 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
12207 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
12209 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
12210 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
12211 related information.
12213 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
12214 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
12217 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
12218 information about the support for a particular language.
12219 You specify the language as an argument.
12221 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
12222 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
12225 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
12226 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
12227 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
12228 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
12230 A alternativnyj (Russian)
12232 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
12233 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
12234 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
12235 E euc-japan (Japanese)
12236 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12237 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
12238 K euc-korea (Korean)
12241 S shift_jis (Japanese)
12244 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
12245 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12246 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
12247 v viqr (Vietnamese)
12250 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
12251 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
12252 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
12253 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
12255 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
12256 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
12258 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
12259 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
12260 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
12261 Rmail files themselves.
12263 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
12264 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
12266 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
12269 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
12270 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
12271 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
12272 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
12273 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
12275 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
12276 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
12277 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
12280 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
12281 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
12282 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
12283 without any conversion.
12285 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
12286 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
12287 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
12288 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
12290 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
12291 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
12293 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
12294 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
12296 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
12297 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
12299 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
12300 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
12301 in the buffer before point.
12303 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
12304 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
12307 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
12308 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
12310 ** File locking works with NFS now.
12312 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
12313 in the same directory as FILENAME.
12315 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
12316 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
12317 can become a bottleneck.
12319 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
12320 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
12321 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
12322 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
12323 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
12324 so useful that the change is worth while.
12326 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
12327 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
12328 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
12329 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
12331 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
12332 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
12335 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
12336 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
12337 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
12339 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
12340 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
12341 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
12343 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
12344 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
12345 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
12347 ** Changes in View mode.
12349 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
12350 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
12352 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
12353 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
12355 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
12358 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
12359 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
12361 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
12362 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
12363 not just the selected window.
12365 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
12366 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
12367 turns View mode on or off.
12369 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
12370 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
12371 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
12373 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
12374 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
12376 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
12377 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
12378 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
12379 which version to compare with.
12381 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
12382 blocks if a match is inside the block.
12384 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
12385 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
12386 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
12387 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
12389 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
12390 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
12391 blocks, all of them or none.
12393 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
12394 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
12395 confirmation first.
12397 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
12398 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
12399 However, the mode will not be changed if
12400 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
12401 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
12402 not suitable for ordinary files, or
12403 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
12405 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
12407 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
12408 these commands do not change the major mode.
12410 ** M-x occur changes.
12412 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
12413 it performs a case-sensitive search.
12415 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
12416 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
12417 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
12419 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
12420 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
12421 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
12422 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
12423 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
12425 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
12426 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
12427 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
12428 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
12430 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12431 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
12432 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
12434 ** Outline mode changes.
12436 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
12438 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
12440 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
12441 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
12442 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
12443 was already active.
12445 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
12446 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
12447 get confused by it.
12449 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
12450 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
12452 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
12454 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
12455 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
12456 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
12457 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
12459 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
12460 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
12461 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
12463 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
12464 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
12467 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
12468 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
12469 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
12470 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
12472 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
12473 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
12474 can be. The default value is 30.
12476 ** Changes in Mail mode.
12478 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
12479 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
12480 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
12481 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
12482 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
12485 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
12486 compose-mail-other-frame.
12488 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
12489 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
12490 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
12491 buffer that shows the original message.
12493 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
12494 with separator lines around the contents.
12496 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
12497 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
12498 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
12499 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
12501 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
12503 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
12504 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
12505 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
12506 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
12508 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
12509 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
12512 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
12513 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
12516 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
12517 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
12518 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
12519 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
12521 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
12522 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
12523 be taken to be magic.
12525 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
12526 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
12527 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
12529 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
12530 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
12532 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
12533 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
12535 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
12537 new key dired.el binding old key
12538 ------- ---------------- -------
12539 * c dired-change-marks c
12541 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
12542 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
12543 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
12545 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
12546 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
12547 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
12548 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
12549 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
12550 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
12554 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
12555 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
12556 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
12557 each time you run it.
12559 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
12560 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
12562 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
12563 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
12564 means to move in the opposite direction.
12566 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
12567 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
12569 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
12570 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
12571 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
12572 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
12577 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
12579 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
12582 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
12583 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
12585 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
12588 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
12590 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
12592 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
12594 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
12595 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
12596 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
12598 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
12600 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
12602 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
12603 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
12605 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
12606 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
12607 used to pick articles.
12609 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
12610 another have been added.
12612 `M-x gnus-change-server'
12614 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
12615 generating lines in buffers.
12617 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
12620 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
12622 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
12624 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
12626 *** Scores can be decayed.
12628 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
12630 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
12631 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
12633 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
12636 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
12638 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
12639 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
12641 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
12643 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
12644 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
12646 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
12647 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
12649 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
12652 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
12653 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
12655 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
12657 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
12659 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
12661 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
12663 Use the `Y c' command.
12665 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
12667 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
12669 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
12671 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
12672 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
12674 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
12676 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
12678 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
12679 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
12681 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
12683 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
12684 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
12685 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
12686 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
12689 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
12690 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
12691 particular news group. This can be done by:
12693 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
12695 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
12696 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
12697 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
12698 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
12699 for reading and posting).
12701 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
12702 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
12703 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
12704 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
12707 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
12708 default. Here are some of these default settings:
12710 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
12711 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
12712 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
12713 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
12714 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
12716 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
12717 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
12719 ** CC mode changes.
12721 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
12722 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
12723 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
12724 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
12725 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
12728 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
12729 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
12730 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
12731 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
12732 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
12733 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
12735 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
12736 of the current buffer.
12738 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
12739 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
12740 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
12742 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
12743 style that the Python developers like.
12745 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
12746 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
12747 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
12749 ** VC Changes [new]
12751 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
12752 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
12753 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
12755 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
12756 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
12759 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
12760 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
12762 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
12763 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
12764 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
12765 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
12767 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
12768 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
12770 ** Calendar changes.
12772 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
12773 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
12774 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
12775 following/previous years.
12777 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
12778 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
12779 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
12780 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
12781 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
12782 supposed attribute of God.
12784 ** ps-print changes
12786 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
12789 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
12791 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
12792 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
12793 printer system has this behavior, set variable
12794 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
12796 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
12797 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
12798 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
12800 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
12801 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
12803 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
12804 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
12805 printing for your printer.
12807 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
12808 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
12810 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
12811 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
12813 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
12814 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
12815 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
12816 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
12817 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
12818 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
12819 The default value is nil.
12821 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
12822 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
12824 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
12825 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
12826 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
12827 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
12828 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
12829 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
12830 color). The default is 0 ("black").
12832 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
12833 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
12835 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
12836 The default is 0 ("black").
12838 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
12839 The default is 0 ("black").
12841 border-width Specify the border width.
12842 The default is 0.4.
12844 Any other property is ignored.
12846 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
12847 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
12850 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
12851 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
12852 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
12853 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
12854 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
12855 controlling headers.
12857 *** Color management (subgroup)
12859 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
12862 *** Face Management (subgroup)
12864 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
12865 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
12866 background should be used. Valid values are:
12868 t always use face background color.
12869 nil never use face background color.
12870 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
12872 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
12874 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
12877 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
12878 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
12880 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
12883 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
12884 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
12885 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
12887 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
12891 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
12895 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
12899 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
12903 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
12905 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
12907 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
12910 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
12911 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
12912 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
12914 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
12915 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
12916 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12917 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12918 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12922 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12923 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12924 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12927 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
12928 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
12929 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
12930 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
12931 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
12932 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12933 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12934 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12935 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
12936 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
12937 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
12940 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
12942 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
12945 *** Printer management (subgroup)
12947 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
12948 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
12949 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
12950 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
12953 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
12954 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
12955 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
12957 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
12958 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
12961 *** Page settings (subgroup)
12963 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
12964 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
12965 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
12966 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
12967 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
12968 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
12971 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
12972 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
12973 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
12975 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
12976 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
12977 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
12978 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
12979 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
12980 its TO, are ignored.
12982 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
12983 pages. Valid values are:
12985 nil print all pages.
12987 `even-page' print only even pages.
12989 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
12991 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
12992 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
12993 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
12994 print only the even sheet of paper.
12996 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
12997 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
12998 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
12999 only the odd sheet of paper.
13001 Any other value is treated as nil.
13003 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
13004 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
13005 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
13007 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
13009 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
13010 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
13012 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
13013 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13014 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
13015 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13016 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13017 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13018 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13020 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
13021 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13022 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
13023 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
13024 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
13025 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
13026 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
13028 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
13030 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
13031 messages should be sent.
13033 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
13034 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
13035 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
13037 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
13039 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
13040 points for line numbers.
13042 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
13043 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
13045 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
13046 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
13047 to 2, the printing will look like:
13059 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
13060 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
13063 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
13064 zebra stripe is to be printed.
13066 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
13068 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
13069 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
13070 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
13071 3, the output will look like:
13085 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
13086 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
13088 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
13089 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13092 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
13093 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13096 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
13098 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
13099 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
13101 ** hideshow changes.
13103 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
13106 *** Support for java-mode added.
13108 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
13109 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
13111 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
13112 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
13113 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
13115 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
13116 robust and a lot faster.
13118 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
13120 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
13121 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
13122 documentation for more details.
13124 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
13126 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
13127 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
13128 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
13129 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
13130 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
13132 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
13133 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
13134 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
13135 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
13141 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
13142 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
13143 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
13144 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
13145 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
13146 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
13148 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
13150 *** Maximum decoration
13152 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
13153 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
13154 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
13155 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
13156 to get the old behavior.
13160 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
13162 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
13163 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
13165 *** Configurable support
13167 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
13168 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
13169 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
13170 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
13171 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
13172 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
13173 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
13175 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
13176 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
13177 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
13179 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
13181 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
13182 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
13185 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
13187 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
13193 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
13194 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
13195 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
13196 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
13198 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
13200 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
13201 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
13202 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
13204 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
13206 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
13207 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
13208 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
13209 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
13210 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
13211 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
13212 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
13214 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
13215 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
13216 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
13217 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
13218 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
13219 the command M-o M-o (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
13221 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
13223 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
13224 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
13225 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
13226 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
13228 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
13231 ** Ada mode changes.
13233 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
13234 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
13235 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
13236 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
13239 *** There are two new commands:
13240 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
13241 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
13243 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
13244 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
13245 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
13247 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
13248 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
13249 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
13251 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
13252 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
13253 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
13254 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
13256 ** Scheme mode changes.
13258 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
13259 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
13260 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
13261 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
13264 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
13265 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
13266 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
13267 variables as buffer-local variables.
13269 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
13270 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
13272 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
13274 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
13275 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
13276 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
13277 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
13279 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
13280 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
13283 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
13284 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
13285 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
13286 option takes precedence.
13288 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
13289 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
13290 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
13292 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
13293 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
13296 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
13297 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
13299 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
13300 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
13303 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
13304 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
13305 these register values no longer become completely useless.
13306 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
13307 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
13308 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
13310 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
13311 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
13312 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
13313 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
13315 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
13316 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
13317 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
13318 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
13319 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
13321 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
13322 since it applies only to the current frame.
13324 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
13325 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
13326 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
13328 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
13329 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
13330 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
13331 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
13332 instead of just the file you are editing.
13336 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
13337 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
13338 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
13339 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
13340 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
13343 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
13344 knows which kind of label is needed.
13346 C-c ) reftex-reference
13347 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
13348 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
13350 C-c [ reftex-citation
13351 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
13352 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
13354 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
13355 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
13358 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
13359 can quickly jump to every section.
13361 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
13362 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
13363 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
13364 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
13365 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
13367 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
13369 *** Info documentation is now available.
13371 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
13372 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
13374 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
13375 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
13377 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
13378 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
13380 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
13381 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
13382 appropriate functions.
13384 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
13385 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
13387 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
13390 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
13391 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
13393 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
13394 shall be delimited.
13396 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
13397 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
13398 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
13400 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
13401 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
13402 prefixed with `ALT'.
13404 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
13405 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
13406 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
13409 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
13410 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
13411 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
13413 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
13414 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
13416 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
13417 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
13418 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
13420 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
13422 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
13424 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
13425 from alien sources.
13427 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
13428 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
13431 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
13434 *** Added support for imenu.
13436 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
13437 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
13438 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
13439 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
13441 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
13442 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
13444 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
13446 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
13448 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
13449 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
13450 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
13453 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
13454 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
13456 ** browse-url changes
13458 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
13459 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
13460 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
13461 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
13462 customization variables.
13464 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
13466 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
13467 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
13468 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
13470 ** Changes in Ediff
13472 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
13473 pops up the Info file for this command.
13475 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
13476 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
13477 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
13480 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
13481 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
13482 files in the same directory.
13484 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
13485 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
13486 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
13488 ** Changes in Viper
13490 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
13491 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
13493 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
13494 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
13495 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
13496 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
13497 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
13498 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
13499 color when Viper is in insert state.
13500 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
13501 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
13502 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
13506 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
13507 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
13508 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
13509 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
13510 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
13512 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
13514 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
13515 constructs are tagged. Files are recognized by the extension .java.
13517 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
13518 recognized by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
13519 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
13521 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
13522 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
13523 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
13524 methods and protocols.
13526 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognized by the extension
13527 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
13528 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
13531 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
13532 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
13533 at least M times and as many as N times.
13535 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
13536 in files has changed slightly.
13538 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
13539 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
13540 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
13541 with old time-stamp-format values.
13543 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
13544 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
13545 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
13548 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
13549 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
13550 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
13551 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
13552 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
13553 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
13555 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
13556 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
13557 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
13559 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
13560 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
13561 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
13562 recommended now will continue to work then.
13564 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
13567 ** There are some additional major modes:
13569 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
13570 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
13571 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
13573 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
13574 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
13577 ** New Lisp packages include:
13579 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
13581 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
13582 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
13584 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
13586 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
13589 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
13590 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
13593 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
13594 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
13595 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
13596 strings or comments.
13598 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
13599 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
13600 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
13601 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
13604 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
13605 can visit them by short forms of their names.
13607 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
13608 Emacs Lisp function at point.
13610 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
13612 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
13613 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
13615 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
13617 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
13619 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
13621 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
13622 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
13624 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
13625 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
13626 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
13627 original place after inserting the copy.
13629 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
13632 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
13633 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
13634 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
13636 Enable mouse-drag with:
13637 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
13639 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
13641 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
13642 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
13644 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
13645 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
13649 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
13650 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
13651 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
13652 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
13653 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
13654 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
13655 instance) and vice versa.
13657 To use this package load it using
13658 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
13659 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
13660 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
13661 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
13662 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
13663 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
13665 *** Interface to ph.
13667 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
13669 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
13670 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
13673 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
13675 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
13676 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
13677 while the real cursor does not move.
13679 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
13680 for visiting your favorite web sites.
13682 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
13683 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
13687 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
13688 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
13689 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
13690 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
13692 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
13694 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
13696 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
13698 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
13699 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
13700 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
13701 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
13702 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
13704 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
13705 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
13706 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
13707 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
13708 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
13709 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
13711 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
13713 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
13714 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
13715 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
13716 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
13718 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
13719 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
13721 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
13722 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
13725 ** Basic Lisp changes
13727 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
13728 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
13730 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
13731 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
13734 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
13736 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
13738 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
13739 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
13741 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
13742 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
13745 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
13747 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
13749 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
13751 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
13752 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
13753 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
13756 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
13757 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
13758 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
13760 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
13761 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
13762 adding one of these suffixes.
13764 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
13765 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
13766 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
13768 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
13769 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
13771 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
13773 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
13774 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
13776 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
13777 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
13779 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
13781 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
13782 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
13784 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
13785 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
13786 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
13787 works using `save-current-buffer'.
13789 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
13790 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
13793 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
13794 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
13795 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
13798 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
13799 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
13802 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
13804 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
13805 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
13806 Then it returns that string.
13808 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
13810 (with-output-to-string
13811 (princ "The buffer is ")
13812 (princ (buffer-name)))
13814 returns "The buffer is foo".
13816 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
13819 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
13820 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
13821 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
13823 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
13824 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
13826 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
13827 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
13828 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
13829 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
13830 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
13831 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
13833 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
13834 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
13835 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
13838 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
13839 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
13840 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
13841 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
13842 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
13844 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
13845 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
13846 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
13847 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
13849 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
13850 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
13852 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
13854 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
13855 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
13856 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
13857 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
13860 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
13861 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
13864 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
13866 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
13867 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
13868 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
13869 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
13870 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
13872 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
13874 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
13875 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
13876 more than the number of characters.
13878 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
13879 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
13880 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
13881 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
13882 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
13883 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
13885 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
13886 and returns a string containing those characters.
13888 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
13889 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
13890 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
13891 character, sref signals an error.
13893 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
13894 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
13895 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
13897 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
13898 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
13899 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
13901 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
13902 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
13903 to a vector of the characters in it.
13905 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
13906 of a string. You call it as follows:
13908 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
13910 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
13911 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
13912 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
13913 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
13914 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
13916 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
13917 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
13919 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
13920 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
13922 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
13923 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
13924 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
13925 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
13927 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
13929 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
13931 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
13932 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
13933 are not included in the resulting value.
13935 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
13936 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
13937 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
13938 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
13940 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
13941 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
13942 character extends across that column), then the padding character
13943 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
13944 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
13945 column START-COLUMN.
13947 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
13948 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
13949 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
13950 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
13951 changed text, before the change.
13953 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
13954 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
13955 one character set for each script, not for each language.
13957 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
13959 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
13961 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
13962 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
13964 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
13965 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
13966 which identify the character within that character set.
13968 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
13969 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
13970 opposite of split-char.
13972 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
13973 of all the characters between BEG and END.
13975 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
13976 of all the characters in a string.
13978 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
13979 and specifying coding systems.
13981 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
13982 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
13983 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
13984 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
13985 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
13986 as what to do about code conversion.)
13988 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
13989 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
13991 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
13992 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
13993 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
13995 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
13996 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
13997 to match against a file name.
13999 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14000 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14001 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14002 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14003 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14004 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14006 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14007 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14009 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
14010 the coding system to use for network sockets.
14012 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14013 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
14014 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
14017 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14018 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14019 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14020 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14021 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14022 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14024 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14025 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14027 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14028 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14029 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
14030 start the subprocess.
14032 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
14033 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
14034 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
14035 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
14036 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
14038 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
14039 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
14042 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
14043 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
14044 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
14045 connection permanently or until overridden.
14047 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
14048 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
14049 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
14050 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
14051 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
14052 system for one operation at a time.
14054 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
14055 files, subprocesses or network connections.
14057 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
14058 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
14059 The value is a cons cell,
14060 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
14061 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
14062 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
14063 input to the subprocess.
14065 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
14066 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
14068 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
14069 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
14070 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
14072 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
14073 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
14074 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
14075 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
14078 Thus, instead of writing
14080 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
14081 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
14083 you would now write this:
14085 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
14086 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
14090 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
14091 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
14092 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
14093 for a description of them.
14095 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
14096 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
14098 (defgroup ispell nil
14099 "Spell checking using Ispell."
14102 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
14103 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
14104 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
14105 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
14106 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
14108 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
14109 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
14110 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
14111 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
14112 first-level subgroups.
14114 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
14116 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
14117 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
14121 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
14122 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
14123 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
14124 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
14125 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
14126 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
14128 ** Text property changes
14130 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
14133 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
14134 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
14135 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
14136 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
14137 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
14139 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
14140 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
14141 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
14142 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
14144 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
14145 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
14146 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
14148 ** Changes in invisibility features
14150 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
14151 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
14152 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
14153 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
14154 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
14155 make the overlay visible.
14157 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
14158 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
14159 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
14160 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
14161 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
14162 t when it should hide it.
14164 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
14166 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
14167 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
14168 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
14169 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
14170 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
14171 Here is an example of how to do this:
14173 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
14174 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14175 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
14176 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14179 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
14182 ;; When done with the overlays:
14183 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14184 ;; Or respectively:
14185 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14187 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
14189 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
14190 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
14191 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
14192 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
14194 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
14195 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
14196 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
14198 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
14199 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
14201 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
14202 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
14204 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
14205 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
14206 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
14208 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
14209 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
14210 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
14211 determine the syntax type of the character.
14213 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
14214 of the current buffer.
14216 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
14217 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
14218 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
14220 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
14221 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
14222 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
14223 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
14224 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
14226 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
14229 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
14230 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
14231 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
14233 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
14234 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
14235 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
14236 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
14237 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
14239 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
14240 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
14241 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
14243 ** Changes in face features
14245 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
14246 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
14248 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
14249 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
14251 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
14252 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
14254 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
14255 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
14257 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
14258 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
14259 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
14260 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
14263 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
14264 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
14266 ** Changes in file-handling functions
14268 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
14269 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
14270 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
14271 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
14273 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
14276 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
14277 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
14279 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
14280 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
14282 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
14283 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
14285 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
14286 character code conversion as well as other things.
14288 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
14289 (formerly it did not).
14291 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
14292 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
14294 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
14295 instead of constant strings.
14297 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
14298 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
14299 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
14301 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
14302 in the same way as before.
14304 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
14305 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
14306 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
14308 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
14309 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
14310 else, and returns nil.
14312 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
14313 directory cannot be listed.
14315 ** Changes in minibuffer input
14317 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
14318 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
14319 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
14320 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
14323 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
14324 It is available through the history command M-n.
14326 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
14327 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
14328 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
14329 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
14330 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
14332 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
14333 argument in this way.
14335 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
14336 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
14337 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
14339 ** Echo area features
14341 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
14342 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
14343 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
14344 after the echo area is cleared.
14346 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
14347 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
14349 ** Keyboard input features
14351 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
14352 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
14354 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
14355 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
14356 by keyboard macros.
14358 ** Frame-related changes
14360 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
14361 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
14362 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
14364 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
14365 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
14366 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
14368 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
14369 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
14370 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
14371 in the selected frame.
14373 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
14374 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
14375 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
14377 ** X Windows features
14379 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
14380 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
14381 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
14383 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
14384 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
14386 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
14387 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
14388 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
14390 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
14391 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
14393 ** Subprocess features
14395 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
14396 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
14399 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
14400 and returns the output from the command as a string.
14402 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
14403 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
14405 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
14406 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
14408 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
14409 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
14410 goes after the other menu items.
14412 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
14413 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
14414 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
14417 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
14418 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
14420 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
14421 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
14424 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
14425 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
14426 but its hook is still run.
14428 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
14429 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
14431 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
14432 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
14433 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
14435 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
14436 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
14437 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
14440 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
14441 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
14443 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
14444 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
14445 functions like display-time.
14447 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
14448 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
14450 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
14451 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
14452 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
14454 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
14455 if there is an error in compilation.
14457 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
14458 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
14459 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
14460 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
14462 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
14463 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
14464 the *scratch* buffer.
14466 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
14467 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
14468 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
14469 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
14471 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
14472 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
14473 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
14475 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
14476 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
14477 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
14478 and compose-mail-other-frame.
14480 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
14481 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
14482 full name of the specified user will be returned.
14484 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
14485 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
14486 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
14487 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
14488 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
14491 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
14492 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
14493 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
14494 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
14496 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
14497 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
14498 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
14499 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
14501 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
14503 ** imenu.el changes.
14505 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
14506 item from menu created by imenu.
14508 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
14509 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
14510 select one of those items.
14512 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
14514 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
14515 Copyright information:
14517 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
14518 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
14520 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
14521 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
14522 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
14523 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
14525 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
14526 of this document, or of portions of it,
14527 under the above conditions, provided also that they
14528 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
14532 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
14535 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793