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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2000-08-14
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
4
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
7
8 \f
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
10
11 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
12
13 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
14
15 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
16 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
17
18 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
19 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
20 to list them.
21
22 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
23 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
24
25 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
26 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
27
28 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
29 support 64-bit executables. See etc/MACHINES for instructions.
30
31 \f
32 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
33
34 * When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
35 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
36
37 ** Polish and German translations of Emacs' reference card have been
38 added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex' and `de-refcard.tex'.
39 Postscript files are included.
40
41 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
42 `dired-ref.tex'.
43
44 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
45 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
46
47 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
48 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
49 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
50 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
51 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
52 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
53
54 +++
55 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
56 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
57 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
58 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
59
60 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
61 a version-dependent component.
62
63 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
64 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
65 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
66 character is still bound as before.
67
68 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
69 using that menu.
70
71 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
72 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
73
74 +++
75 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
76 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
77 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
78 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
79 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
80 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
81 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
82
83 +++
84 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
85 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
86 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
87 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
88 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
89 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
90 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
91 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
92 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
93
94 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
95 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
96
97 +++
98 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
99 point in a pop-up window.
100
101 +++
102 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
103 displays all characters in that character set.
104
105 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
106 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
107
108 +++
109 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
110 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
111 defined on newcomment.el.
112
113 +++
114 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
115
116 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
117 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
118
119 +++
120 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
121 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
122 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
123 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
124
125 +++
126 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
127 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
128 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
129 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
130
131 +++
132 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
133 on the display using several methods
134
135 +++
136 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
137 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
138 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
139
140 +++
141 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
142 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
143
144 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
145
146 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
147 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
148
149 +++
150 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
151 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
152 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
153 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
154
155 +++
156 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
157 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
158 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
159
160 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
161 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
162
163 +++
164 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
165 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
166 this behavior.
167
168 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
169 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
170 Emacs dump core.
171
172 +++
173 ** New X resources recognized
174
175 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
176 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
177 is useful for debugging X problems.
178
179 Example:
180
181 emacs.synchronous: true
182
183 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
184 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
185 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
186 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
187 visual class names are
188
189 TrueColor
190 PseudoColor
191 DirectColor
192 StaticColor
193 GrayScale
194 StaticGray
195
196 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
197 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
198 meaning.
199
200 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
201 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
202 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
203 visual.
204
205 Example:
206
207 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
208
209 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
210 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
211 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
212 resource values are `true' or `on'.
213
214 Example:
215
216 emacs.privateColormap: true
217
218 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
219 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
220 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
221
222 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
223 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
224 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
225 be customized.
226
227 +++
228 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
229
230 +++
231 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
232 all frames except the selected one.
233
234 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
235 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
236
237 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
238 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
239 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
240 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
241
242 +++
243 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
244 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
245
246 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
247 read mail from the menu etc.
248
249 +++
250 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
251 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
252
253 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
254
255 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
256 macros
257
258 Key binding Macro
259 -------------------------
260 C-c C-c C-s @strong
261 C-c C-c C-e @emph
262 C-c C-c u @url
263 C-c C-c q @quotation
264 C-c C-c m @email
265
266 ** Changes in Outline mode.
267
268 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
269 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
270 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
271
272 ** Changes to Emacs Server
273
274 +++
275 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
276 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
277 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
278 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
279 buffers to kill, as before.
280
281 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
282 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
283 this way.
284
285 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
286
287 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
288 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
289 use. Default is 1000.
290
291 +++
292 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
293 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
294
295 +++
296 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
297 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
298 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
299 buffers.
300
301 +++
302 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
303 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
304 .emacs file.
305
306 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
307 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
308
309 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
310 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
311 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
312
313 ** Faces and frame parameters.
314
315 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
316 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
317 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
318 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
319 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
320 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
321 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
322
323 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
324 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
325 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
326 `default' face and vice versa.
327
328 +++
329 ** New face `menu'.
330
331 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
332 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
333 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
334
335 +++
336 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
337
338 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
339 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
340 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
341 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
342
343 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
344 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
345 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
346
347 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
348 `ScreenGamma'.
349
350 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
351
352 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
353 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
354 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
355 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
356 the text.
357
358 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
359
360 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
361 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
362 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
363 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
364 specify a font.
365
366 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
367 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
368 under Lisp changes, below.
369
370 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
371
372 +++
373 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
374 of its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid;
375 otherwise, it is hollow.
376
377 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
378 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
379 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
380 customizing face `fringe'.
381
382 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
383 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
384
385 ** LessTif support.
386
387 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see <http://www.lesstif.org>).
388 You will need a version 0.88.1 or later.
389
390 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
391
392 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
393 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
394 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
395 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
396 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
397 Emacs.
398
399 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
400 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
401 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
402 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
403 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
404 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
405
406 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
407 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
408 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
409 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
410 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
411 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
412
413 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
414 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
415 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
416 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
417 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
418
419 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
420
421 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
422 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
423 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
424
425 +++
426 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
427
428 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
429 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
430 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
431 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
432 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
433 whitespace.
434
435 +++
436 ** Busy-cursor.
437
438 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
439 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
440
441 +++
442 ** Blinking cursor
443
444 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
445 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
446 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
447 the group `cursor'.
448
449 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
450
451 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
452 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
453 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
454 details.
455
456 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
457 have to do anything to activate it.
458
459 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
460
461 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
462 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
463 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
464 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
465
466 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
467
468 +++
469 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
470
471 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
472
473 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
474 LessTif/Motif one.
475
476 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
477 LessTif and Motif.
478
479 +++
480 ** Hscrolling in C code.
481
482 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
483 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
484 customized.
485
486 ** Tool bar support.
487
488 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
489 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
490
491 +++
492 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
493
494 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
495 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
496 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
497 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
498 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
499
500 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
501
502 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
503 buffers.
504
505 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
506 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
507
508 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
509
510 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
511 `*') toggles the status.
512
513 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
514
515 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
516
517 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
518 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
519 non-nil.
520
521 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
522
523 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
524 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
525 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
526 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
527 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
528 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
529 on terminals.
530
531 ** Sound support
532
533 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
534 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
535 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
536
537 +++
538 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
539 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
540 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
541 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
542 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
543 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
544
545 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
546
547 +++
548 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
549
550 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
551 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
552 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
553
554 +++
555 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
556 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
557
558 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
559 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
560 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
561
562 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
563
564 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
565 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
566 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
567 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
568
569 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
570 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
571 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
572 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
573
574 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
575 notably at the end of lines.
576
577 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
578 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
579
580 +++
581 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
582
583 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
584 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
585 after each match to get the replacement text.
586
587 +++
588 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
589 you edit the replacement string.
590
591 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
592 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
593 lisp-complete-symbol.
594
595 +++
596 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
597
598 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
599 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
600 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
601 window size by setting the following variable:
602
603 - User option: max-mini-window-height
604
605 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
606 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
607 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
608
609 Default is 0.25.
610
611 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
612
613 ** Changes to hideshow.el
614
615 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
616 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
617
618 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
619
620 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
621 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
622 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
623 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
624 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
625 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
626
627 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
628 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
629 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
630 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
631
632 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
633
634 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
635 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
636 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
637 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
638 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
639
640 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
641 something like this in your .emacs.
642
643 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
644 (lambda ()
645 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
646
647 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
648
649 +++
650 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
651 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
652 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
653
654 +++
655 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
656 buffer.
657
658 +++
659 New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries in
660 a log file.
661
662 +++
663 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
664 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
665
666 +++
667 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
668 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
669 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be cutomized.
670 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
671
672 ** Changes in Font Lock
673
674 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
675 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
676 mode.
677
678 ** Comint (subshell) changes
679
680 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
681 distiguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
682 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
683 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
684 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
685 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
686 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
687 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
688
689 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
690 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
691
692 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
693 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
694 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
695
696 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
697 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
698 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
699
700 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and scheme-interaction-mode
701 now highlight user input and program prompts, and support choosing
702 previous input with mouse-2. To control these feature, see the
703 user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
704
705 ** Changes to Rmail mode
706
707 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
708 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
709 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
710 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
711 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
712 as correspondent.
713
714 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
715 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
716 regexp matching your mail addresses.
717
718 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
719 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
720 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
721 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
722 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
723
724 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
725 like `j'.
726
727 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
728 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
729 digest message.
730
731 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
732 in which folder to put messages automatically.
733
734 ** Changes to TeX mode
735
736 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
737 `latex-mode'.
738
739 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
740
741 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
742 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
743 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
744 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
745 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
746 can be edited from that buffer.
747
748 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
749 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
750 `A' to use all marked entries).
751
752 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
753 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
754
755 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
756 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
757 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
758 been cited.
759
760 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
761 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
762 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
763 in column 1 are always made leaves.
764
765 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
766 has the following new features:
767
768 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
769 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
770 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
771 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
772
773 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
774 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
775 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
776 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
777 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
778 defaults to 1.
779
780 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
781 file names.
782
783 +++
784 ** Tooltips.
785
786 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
787 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
788 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
789
790 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
791 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
792 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
793 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
794
795 +++
796 ** Customize changes
797
798 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
799 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
800 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
801
802 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
803 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
804 default).
805
806 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
807 between custom options. Example:
808
809 (defcustom default-input-method nil
810 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
811 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
812 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
813 :group 'mule
814 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
815 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
816
817 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
818 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
819 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
820
821 ** New features in evaluation commands
822
823 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
824 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
825 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
826 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
827 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
828
829 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
830 code when called with a prefix argument.
831
832 ** Ispell changes
833
834 +++
835 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
836 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
837 spell-checks the current buffer.
838
839 +++
840 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
841 added.
842
843 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
844 correction is made and re-checked.
845
846 *** An Italian and a Portuguese dictionary definition has been added.
847
848 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
849 cases.
850
851 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
852 on syntax errors.
853
854 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
855 end of the buffer.
856
857 ** Dired changes
858
859 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
860 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
861 is, delete only empty directories.
862
863 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
864 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
865 copy directories recursively.
866
867 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
868 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
869 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
870
871 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
872 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
873 directory.
874
875 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
876 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
877 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
878 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
879 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
880
881 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
882 from ls switches.
883
884 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
885 use the -f option when sending mail.
886
887 ** CC mode changes.
888
889 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
890 current user setups (although it's believed that these
891 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
892 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
893 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
894 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
895 release.
896
897 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
898 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
899 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
900 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
901 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
902 have to bother.
903
904 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
905 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
906 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
907 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
908 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
909 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
910
911 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
912 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
913 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
914 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
915 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
916 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
917 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
918 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
919
920 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
921 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
922 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
923 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
924 above.
925
926 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
927 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
928 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
929 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
930 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
931 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
932 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
933 function documentation for more info.
934
935 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
936 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
937 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
938 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
939 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
940 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
941 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
942 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
943
944 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
945
946 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
947 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
948
949 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
950 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
951 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
952 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
953 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
954 style system.
955
956 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
957 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
958 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
959 as far as possible.
960
961 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
962 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
963 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
964 chapter about this in the manual.
965
966 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
967 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
968 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
969 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
970 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
971
972 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
973 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
974 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
975
976 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
977 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
978
979 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
980 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
981 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
982 inside CC Mode.
983
984 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
985 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
986 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
987 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
988 cc-mode/).
989
990 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
991 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
992 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
993 literals.
994
995 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
996 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
997 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
998 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
999 this function.
1000
1001 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1002 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1003 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1004 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1005 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1006
1007 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1008 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1009 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1010
1011 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1012
1013 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1014 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1015 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1016 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1017
1018 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1019 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1020 the column specified by comment-column.
1021
1022 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1023 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1024 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1025 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1026 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1027 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1028
1029 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1030 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1031 arguments.
1032
1033 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1034
1035 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1036 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1037 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1038 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1039 Provan).
1040
1041 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1042
1043 ** Makefile mode changes
1044
1045 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1046
1047 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1048 Fontlock mode is active.
1049
1050 ** Isearch changes
1051
1052 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1053 so that searches can be resumed.
1054
1055 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1056 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1057 that started the search.
1058
1059 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1060 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1061
1062 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1063
1064 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1065 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1066 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1067 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1068 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1069 `secondary-selection'.
1070
1071 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1072 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1073 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1074 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1075 usual snappy response.
1076
1077 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1078 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1079 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1080 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1081
1082 ** Changes in sort.el
1083
1084 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1085 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1086 new user-option sort-numberic-base can be used to specify a default
1087 numeric base.
1088
1089 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1090
1091 +++
1092 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1093 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1094 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1095
1096 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1097 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1098
1099 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1100 output ^M at the end of lines.
1101
1102 ** Shell script mode changes.
1103
1104 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1105 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1106 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1107
1108 ** Etags changes.
1109
1110 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1111
1112 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1113 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1114 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1115 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1116 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1117
1118 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1119 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1120
1121 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1122 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1123
1124 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1125 types.
1126
1127 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1128
1129 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1130
1131 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1132 are now tagged.
1133
1134 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1135 variables are tagged.
1136
1137 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1138
1139 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1140 for PSWrap.
1141
1142 ** Changes in etags.el
1143
1144 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1145 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1146 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1147
1148 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1149 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1150
1151 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1152 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1153 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1154 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1155
1156 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1157
1158 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1159 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1160
1161 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1162
1163 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1164 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1165 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1166
1167 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1168 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1169
1170 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1171 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1172
1173 +++
1174 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1175 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1176 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1177
1178 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1179 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1180 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1181 There is currently no specific input method support for them.
1182
1183 +++
1184 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1185 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1186 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1187
1188 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1189
1190 +++
1191 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1192
1193 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignore-regexps'
1194 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1195 expression from that list, are not checked.
1196
1197 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1198 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1199 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1200 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1201
1202 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1203
1204 ** New modes and packages
1205
1206 +++
1207 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1208 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1209 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1210 on certain projects.
1211
1212 *** The new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1213 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1214
1215 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1216
1217 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1218 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1219 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1220 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1221 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1222 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1223 corresponding file is read.
1224
1225 +++
1226 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1227 Emacs is idle.
1228
1229 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1230 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1231
1232 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1233 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1234 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1235
1236 +++
1237 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1238 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1239 separate Texinfo file.
1240
1241 +++
1242 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1243 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1244 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1245 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1246 enter checkin log messages.
1247
1248 +++
1249 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1250 without invoking external programs.
1251
1252 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1253 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1254 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1255 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1256 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1257
1258 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1259 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1260
1261 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1262 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1263
1264 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1265 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1266 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1267 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1268 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1269 single step.
1270
1271 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1272 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1273 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1274 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1275
1276 +++
1277 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1278 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1279 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1280
1281 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1282 PostScript.
1283
1284 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1285
1286 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1287
1288 ; comment (until end of line)
1289 A non-terminal
1290 "C" terminal
1291 ?C? special
1292 $A default non-terminal
1293 $"C" default terminal
1294 $?C? default special
1295 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1296 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1297 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1298 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1299 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1300 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1301 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1302 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1303 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1304 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1305 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1306 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1307 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1308 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1309 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1310
1311 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1312
1313 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1314 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1315 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1316 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1317 equal signs of assignments.
1318
1319 +++
1320 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1321 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1322
1323 +++
1324 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1325 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1326 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1327 customize the package.
1328
1329 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1330
1331 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1332 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1333 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1334 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1335 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1336 which answers different needs.
1337
1338 +++
1339 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1340 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1341 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1342 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1343 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1344 to be enabled.
1345
1346 +++
1347 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1348 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1349
1350 +++
1351 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1352
1353 +++
1354 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1355
1356 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1357
1358 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1359 Pascal) language.
1360
1361 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1362 the text at point.
1363
1364 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1365
1366 +++
1367 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1368
1369 *** whitespace.el ???
1370
1371 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1372 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1373 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1374 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1375 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1376 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1377 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1378
1379 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1380
1381 Here is an example of columns:
1382
1383 horse apple bus
1384 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1385 porcupine strawberry airplane
1386
1387 Doing the following settings:
1388
1389 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1390 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1391 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1392 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1393
1394
1395 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1396
1397 M-x delimit-columns-region
1398
1399 It results:
1400
1401 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1402 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1403 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1404
1405 delim-col has the following options:
1406
1407 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1408 before all columns.
1409
1410 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1411 between each column.
1412
1413 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1414 after all columns.
1415
1416 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1417 each column.
1418
1419 delim-col has the following commands:
1420
1421 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1422 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1423
1424 +++
1425 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1426 were operated on recently.
1427
1428 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1429
1430 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1431 recentf at Emacs startup.
1432
1433 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1434 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1435 file list can be displayed:
1436
1437 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1438 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1439 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1440
1441 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1442 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1443
1444 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1445 text.
1446
1447 +++
1448 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1449 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1450 specific to Message mode.
1451
1452 +++
1453 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1454 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1455 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1456
1457 +++
1458 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1459 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1460 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1461
1462 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1463 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1464
1465 +++
1466 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1467
1468 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1469 minibuffer with completion.
1470
1471 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1472 with the diary features.
1473
1474 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1475 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1476
1477 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1478 Fill mode.
1479
1480 ** Withdrawn packages
1481
1482 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1483 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1484
1485 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1486
1487 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1488
1489 \f
1490 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1491 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1492
1493 +++
1494 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
1495 is running in batch mode. For example,
1496
1497 (message "%s" (read t))
1498
1499 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
1500 to standard output.
1501
1502 +++
1503 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
1504 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
1505
1506 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1507 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1508 frame or window.
1509
1510 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1511 were added
1512
1513 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1514
1515 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1516 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1517
1518 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1519
1520 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1521 comparison is done with `eq'.
1522
1523 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1524
1525 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1526 has been changed.
1527
1528 +++
1529 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1530 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1531 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1532
1533 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1534 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1535
1536 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1537 function was declared obsolete.
1538
1539 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1540 retained as an alias).
1541
1542 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1543 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1544 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1545
1546 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1547
1548 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1549
1550 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1551 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1552
1553 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1554
1555 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1556
1557 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1558
1559 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1560 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1561 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1562 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1563 returned.
1564
1565 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1566 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1567 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1568 minibuffer even if it is active.
1569
1570 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1571 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1572 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1573 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1574 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1575 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1576
1577 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1578 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1579 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1580 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1581 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1582 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1583 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1584
1585 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1586 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1587 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1588
1589 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1590 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1591 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1592 Default value is nil.
1593
1594 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1595 meaning no limit.
1596
1597 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1598 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1599 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1600
1601 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1602 of a primitive.
1603
1604 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1605 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1606 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1607 than replacing the local map.
1608
1609 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1610 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1611
1612 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1613
1614 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1615 promised long ago.
1616
1617 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1618 \f
1619 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1620
1621 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1622 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1623 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1624 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1625
1626 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
1627 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
1628 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
1629 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
1630
1631 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1632 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1633 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1634 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1635
1636 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1637 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1638 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1639
1640 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1641 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1642 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1643 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1644 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1645 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1646 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1647 eight-bit-graphic.
1648
1649 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1650
1651 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1652 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1653 character set as previously.
1654
1655 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1656 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1657 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1658
1659 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1660 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1661 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1662 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1663
1664 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1665 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1666
1667 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1668 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1669 "fontset-default".
1670
1671 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1672 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1673
1674 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1675 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1676 buffers and strings.
1677
1678 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1679 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1680 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1681 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1682 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1683 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1684 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1685 also been deleted.
1686
1687 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1688 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1689 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1690
1691 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1692 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1693 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1694 may differ between buffer and string text.
1695
1696 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1697 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1698
1699 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1700 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1701 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1702 `composition' from STRING.
1703
1704 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1705 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1706
1707 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1708 obsolete.
1709
1710 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1711 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1712 character set is not used.
1713
1714 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1715 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1716 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1717
1718 +++
1719 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1720 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1721 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1722
1723 +++
1724 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1725 that offset in the file before writing.
1726
1727 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1728 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1729
1730 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1731 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1732 from which the command was issued.
1733
1734 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1735 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1736 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1737 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1738 operate on.
1739
1740 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1741 to `window-buffer-height'.
1742
1743 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1744
1745 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1746 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1747 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1748
1749 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1750 respectively.
1751
1752 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1753 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1754
1755 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1756 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1757 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1758
1759 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1760 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1761 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1762 is currently displayed in some window.
1763
1764 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1765 argument function's results.
1766
1767 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1768 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1769
1770 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1771 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1772
1773 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1774 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1775
1776 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1777 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1778 as follows:
1779
1780 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1781 nil don't display a cursor
1782 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1783 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1784 others display a box cursor.
1785
1786 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1787 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1788 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1789 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1790
1791 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1792 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1793 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1794 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1795
1796 Example:
1797
1798 (string-to-syntax "()")
1799 => (4 . 41)
1800
1801 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1802 other than 10.
1803
1804 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1805 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1806
1807 #b1111
1808 => 15
1809 #b-1111
1810 => -15
1811
1812 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1813
1814 #o666
1815 => 438
1816
1817 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1818
1819 #xbeef
1820 => 48815
1821
1822 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1823
1824 #2R-111
1825 => -7
1826 #25rah
1827 => 267
1828
1829 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1830 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1831 and isn't a string.
1832
1833 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1834 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1835 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1836 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1837
1838 +++
1839 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1840
1841 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1842 for a regexp in a string.
1843
1844 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1845 `mouse-position-function'.
1846
1847 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1848 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1849
1850 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1851 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1852
1853 +++
1854 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1855 returns it.
1856
1857 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1858 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1859
1860 +++
1861 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1862 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1863 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1864 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1865 mode.
1866
1867 +++
1868 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1869 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1870
1871 +++
1872 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1873 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1874 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1875 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1876 been performed."
1877
1878 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1879 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1880 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1881 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1882
1883 +++
1884 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1885 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1886 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1887
1888 +++
1889 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1890 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1891 specified table.
1892
1893 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1894
1895 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1896 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1897 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1898 what BODY returns.
1899
1900 +++
1901 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1902 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1903
1904 +++
1905 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1906 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1907
1908 +++
1909 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1910 instead of being optional.
1911
1912 +++
1913 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1914 modify read-only text.
1915
1916 +++
1917 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1918
1919 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1920 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1921 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1922 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1923 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1924
1925 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1926 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1927 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1928 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1929 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1930 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1931 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1932
1933 +++
1934 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1935 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1936 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1937 start sequences.
1938
1939 +++
1940 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1941 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1942
1943 +++
1944 ** New function `propertize'
1945
1946 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1947 strings with text properties.
1948
1949 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1950
1951 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1952 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1953 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1954 specified value of that property. Example:
1955
1956 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1957
1958 +++
1959 ** push and pop macros.
1960
1961 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1962 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1963 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1964
1965 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1966 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1967 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1968
1969 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1970
1971 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1972 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1973
1974 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1975 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1976 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1977 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1978
1979 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1980 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1981 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1982 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1983
1984 +++
1985 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1986 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1987
1988 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1989 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1990 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1991 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1992 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1993 space, and DEL.
1994 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1995 and DEL.
1996 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1997 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1998 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1999 [:alpha:] matches letters.
2000 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2001 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2002 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2003 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2004 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
2005 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
2006 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2007 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2008 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2009 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
2010 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
2011
2012 +++
2013 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2014
2015 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2016
2017 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2018
2019 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2020 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2021
2022 :test TEST
2023
2024 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2025 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2026 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2027
2028 :size SIZE
2029
2030 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2031 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2032
2033 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2034
2035 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2036 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2037 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2038 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2039 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2040
2041 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2042
2043 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2044 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2045 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2046
2047 :weakness WEAK
2048
2049 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2050 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2051 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2052 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2053 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2054
2055 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2056
2057 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2058
2059 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2060
2061 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2062
2063 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2064
2065 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2066 values are shared.
2067
2068 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2069
2070 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2071
2072 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2073
2074 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2075
2076 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2077
2078 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2079
2080 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2081
2082 Returns the size of TABLE.
2083
2084 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2085
2086 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2087
2088 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2089
2090 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2091
2092 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2093
2094 Clear TABLE.
2095
2096 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2097
2098 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2099 not found.
2100
2101 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2102
2103 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2104 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2105
2106 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2107
2108 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2109
2110 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2111
2112 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2113 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2114
2115 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2116
2117 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2118
2119 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2120
2121 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2122 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2123 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2124 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2125 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2126
2127 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2128
2129 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2130 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2131 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
2132
2133 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
2134 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
2135
2136 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
2137 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
2138
2139 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2140 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2141
2142 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2143 'case-fold-string-hash))
2144
2145 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2146
2147 +++
2148 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2149
2150 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2151 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2152 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2153
2154 +++
2155 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2156
2157 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2158 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2159
2160 +++
2161 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2162 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2163 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2164 is too short to reach that column.
2165
2166 +++
2167 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2168 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2169 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2170 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2171
2172 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2173 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2174 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2175
2176 +++
2177 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2178 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2179
2180 +++
2181 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2182 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2183
2184 +++
2185 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2186 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2187 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2188 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2189 temporary-file-directory instead.
2190
2191 +++
2192 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2193 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2194 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2195 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2196
2197 +++
2198 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2199 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2200
2201 +++
2202 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2203
2204 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2205 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2206 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2207
2208 +++
2209 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2210
2211 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2212 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2213 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2214 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2215 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2216 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2217
2218 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2219 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2220 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2221 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2222
2223 +++
2224 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2225
2226 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2227 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2228 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2229 result string.
2230
2231 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2232 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2233
2234 Example:
2235
2236 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2237 (s2 "world"))
2238 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2239 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2240 (format s1 s2))
2241
2242 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2243
2244 +++
2245 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2246
2247 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2248 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2249 argument in it.
2250
2251 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2252 (arg "world"))
2253 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2254 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2255 (message msg arg))
2256
2257 +++
2258 ** Sound support
2259
2260 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2261 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2262
2263 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2264 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2265 to enable sound support.
2266
2267 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2268 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2269 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2270 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2271 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2272
2273 The following sound properties are supported:
2274
2275 - `:file FILE'
2276
2277 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2278 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2279
2280 - `:data DATA'
2281
2282 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2283 may be present, but not both.
2284
2285 - `:volume VOLUME'
2286
2287 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2288 0..1. This property is optional.
2289
2290 Other properties are ignored.
2291
2292 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2293
2294 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2295 a keyword symbol.
2296
2297 ** Changes to garbage collection
2298
2299 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2300 of live and free strings.
2301
2302 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2303 strings that have been consed so far.
2304
2305 \f
2306 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2307 Lisp Manual
2308
2309 +++
2310 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2311
2312 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2313 image.
2314
2315 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2316
2317 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2318
2319 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2320 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2321 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2322 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2323 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2324
2325 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2326 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2327
2328 +++
2329 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2330 optional.
2331
2332 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center'.
2333
2334 When this property is specified, the image is vertically centered
2335 around a centerline which would be the vertical center of text drawn
2336 at the position of the image, in the manner specified by the text
2337 properties and overlays that apply to the image.
2338
2339 \f
2340 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2341
2342 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2343 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2344 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2345 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2346
2347 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2348 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2349
2350 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2351 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2352 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2353 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2354 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2355 just display it black instead.
2356
2357 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2358 a line like
2359
2360 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2361
2362 in your `.emacs'.
2363
2364 ** New face implementation.
2365
2366 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2367 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2368
2369 +++
2370 *** New faces.
2371
2372 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2373
2374 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2375
2376 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2377 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2378
2379 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2380
2381 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2382
2383 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2384
2385 6. Foreground color.
2386
2387 7. Background color.
2388
2389 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2390
2391 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2392
2393 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2394
2395 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2396
2397 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2398 color.
2399
2400 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2401 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2402
2403 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2404 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2405 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2406 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2407 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2408 attributes mentioned above.
2409
2410 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2411 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2412 created frames.
2413
2414 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2415 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2416 `fully-specified'.
2417
2418 +++
2419 *** Face merging.
2420
2421 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2422 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2423 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2424 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2425 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2426 results in a fully-specified face.
2427
2428 +++
2429 *** Face realization.
2430
2431 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2432 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2433 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2434 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2435 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2436 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2437
2438 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2439 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2440 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2441 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2442
2443 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2444 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2445 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2446 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2447 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2448
2449 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2450 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2451 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2452 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2453 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2454 Emacs.
2455
2456 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2457 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2458 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2459 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2460
2461 ++++
2462 **** Clearing face caches.
2463
2464 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2465 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2466 unused fonts.
2467
2468 +++
2469 *** Font selection.
2470
2471 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2472 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2473 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2474
2475 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2476 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2477 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2478 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2479 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2480
2481 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2482 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2483 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2484
2485 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2486
2487 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2488 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2489 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2490 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2491 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2492 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2493 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2494
2495 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2496 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2497 face doesn't exist.
2498
2499 +++
2500 **** Scalable fonts
2501
2502 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2503 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2504 servers.
2505
2506 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2507 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2508 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2509 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2510 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2511 that list. Example:
2512
2513 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2514
2515 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2516
2517 +++
2518 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2519
2520 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2521
2522 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2523 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2524 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2525
2526 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2527 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2528 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2529 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2530 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2531 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2532 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2533 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2534 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2535 of the face font sort order.
2536
2537 - Function: x-font-family-list
2538
2539 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2540 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2541 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2542 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2543
2544 - Variable: font-list-limit
2545
2546 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2547 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2548 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2549
2550 +++
2551 *** Setting face attributes.
2552
2553 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2554 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2555 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2556 `face-attribute'.
2557
2558 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2559 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2560
2561 The following attributes are recognized:
2562
2563 `:family'
2564
2565 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2566 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2567 and `?' are allowed.
2568
2569 `:width'
2570
2571 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2572 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2573 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2574 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2575
2576 `:height'
2577
2578 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
2579 1/10 pt.
2580
2581 `:weight'
2582
2583 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2584 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2585 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2586
2587 `:slant'
2588
2589 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2590 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2591 `reverse-oblique'.
2592
2593 `:foreground', `:background'
2594
2595 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2596
2597 `:underline'
2598
2599 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2600 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2601 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2602 don't underline.
2603
2604 `:overline'
2605
2606 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2607 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2608 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2609 overline.
2610
2611 `:strike-through'
2612
2613 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2614 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2615 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2616 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2617
2618 `:box'
2619
2620 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2621 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2622 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2623 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2624 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2625 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2626 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2627 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2628 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2629 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2630 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2631 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2632 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2633 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2634 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2635 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2636 box.
2637
2638 `:inverse-video'
2639
2640 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2641 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2642
2643 `:stipple'
2644
2645 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2646 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2647 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2648 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2649 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2650 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2651
2652 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2653 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2654
2655 `:font'
2656
2657 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2658 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2659 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2660 versions of Emacs.
2661
2662 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2663 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2664 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2665
2666 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2667 `defface'.
2668
2669 *** Face attributes and X resources
2670
2671 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2672 from X resources:
2673
2674 Face attribute X resource class
2675 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2676 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2677 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2678 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2679 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2680 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2681 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2682 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2683 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2684 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2685 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2686 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2687 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2688 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2689 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2690 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2691 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2692 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2693 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2694 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2695
2696 +++
2697 *** Text property `face'.
2698
2699 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2700 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2701 specification can be
2702
2703 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2704
2705 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2706 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2707 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2708 for face attribute names.
2709
2710 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2711 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2712 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2713
2714 +++
2715 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2716
2717 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2718 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2719 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2720 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2721 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2722 used to clear the mapping table.
2723
2724 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2725
2726 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2727 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2728 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2729 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2730 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2731 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2732 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2733 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2734 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2735 modify their color-related behavior.
2736
2737 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2738 any frame type.
2739
2740 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2741
2742 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2743 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2744 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2745 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2746 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2747 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2748 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2749 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2750 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2751
2752 +++
2753 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2754
2755 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2756
2757 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2758 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2759 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2760
2761 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2762
2763 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2764 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2765 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
2766
2767 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2768 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2769 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2770 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2771 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2772 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2773 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2774 functions.
2775
2776 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2777 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2778 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2779
2780 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2781
2782 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
2783
2784 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2785
2786 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2787 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2788 constrained position if that is is different.
2789
2790 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2791 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2792 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2793 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
2794 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2795 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2796 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
2797 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
2798 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
2799
2800 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2801 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2802 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2803 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2804 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2805
2806 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
2807 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
2808
2809 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
2810
2811 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
2812
2813 Delete the field surrounding POS.
2814 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2815 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2816
2817 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2818
2819 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
2820 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2821 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2822 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
2823 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2824
2825 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2826
2827 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2828 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2829 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2830 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
2831 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2832
2833 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2834
2835 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2836 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2837 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2838
2839 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2840
2841 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2842 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2843 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2844
2845 +++
2846 ** Image support.
2847
2848 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2849 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2850 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2851 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2852
2853 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2854 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2855 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2856 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2857 area.
2858
2859 IMAGE is an image specification.
2860
2861 *** Image specifications
2862
2863 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
2864 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
2865 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
2866 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
2867 described below are ignored.
2868
2869 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
2870
2871 `:ascent ASCENT'
2872
2873 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
2874 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
2875 to use for its ascent.
2876
2877 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
2878 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
2879
2880 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
2881 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
2882 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
2883 overlays that apply to the image.
2884
2885 `:margin MARGIN'
2886
2887 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2888 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2889
2890 `:relief RELIEF'
2891
2892 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2893 around an image.
2894
2895 `:algorithm ALGO'
2896
2897 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2898 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2899 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2900 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2901
2902 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2903
2904 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2905 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2906 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2907 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2908 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2909 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2910 background of the image.
2911
2912 `:file FILE'
2913
2914 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2915 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2916 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2917 may be present in the image specification.
2918
2919 `:data DATA'
2920
2921 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2922 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2923 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2924 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2925
2926 *** Supported image types
2927
2928 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2929
2930 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2931 properties supported are
2932
2933 `:foreground FG'
2934
2935 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2936 is the frame's foreground.
2937
2938 `:background FG'
2939
2940 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2941 the frame's background color.
2942
2943 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2944 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2945 instead of a `:file' property.
2946
2947 `:width WIDTH'
2948
2949 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2950
2951 `:height HEIGHT'
2952
2953 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2954
2955 `:data DATA'
2956
2957 DATA must be either
2958
2959 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2960 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2961
2962 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2963
2964 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2965 bitmap.
2966
2967 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
2968 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
2969 in the file.
2970
2971 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2972
2973 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2974 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2975 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2976 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2977
2978 Additional image properties supported are:
2979
2980 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2981
2982 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2983 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2984 name.
2985
2986 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2987 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2988
2989 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2990 to display compressed images.
2991
2992 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2993
2994 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
2995 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
2996 defined.
2997
2998 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
2999
3000 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
3001 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
3002 are:
3003
3004 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
3005
3006 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
3007 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3008 properties defined.
3009
3010 **** GIF, image type `gif'
3011
3012 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
3013 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
3014
3015 Additional image properties supported are:
3016
3017 `:index INDEX'
3018
3019 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3020 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
3021
3022 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3023 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3024 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3025 every 0.1 seconds.
3026
3027 (defun show-anim (file max)
3028 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3029 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3030
3031 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
3032 (when (= idx max)
3033 (setq idx 0))
3034 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
3035 (save-excursion
3036 (set-buffer buffer)
3037 (goto-char (point-min))
3038 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
3039 (insert-image img "x"))
3040 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
3041
3042 **** PNG, image type `png'
3043
3044 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
3045 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3046 properties defined.
3047
3048 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
3049
3050 Additional image properties supported are:
3051
3052 `:pt-width WIDTH'
3053
3054 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
3055 integer. This is a required property.
3056
3057 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
3058
3059 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
3060 must be a integer. This is an required property.
3061
3062 `:bounding-box BOX'
3063
3064 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
3065 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
3066 files. This is an required property.
3067
3068 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
3069 lisp/gs.el.
3070
3071 *** Lisp interface.
3072
3073 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
3074 which are supported in the current configuration.
3075
3076 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
3077 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
3078 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
3079 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
3080 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
3081
3082 *** Simplified image API, image.el
3083
3084 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
3085 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
3086 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
3087 define an image based on available image types. The functions
3088 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
3089 buffer.
3090
3091 +++
3092 ** Display margins.
3093
3094 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
3095 and images.
3096
3097 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
3098 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
3099 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
3100 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
3101 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3102 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3103 of the display margins.
3104
3105 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
3106 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
3107 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
3108 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
3109 in this file).
3110
3111 +++
3112 ** Help display
3113
3114 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
3115 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
3116 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
3117 that have a `help-echo' property.
3118
3119 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
3120 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
3121 the window in which the help was found.
3122
3123 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
3124 `help-echo' text property was found.
3125
3126 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
3127 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
3128
3129 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
3130 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
3131 mouse.
3132
3133 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
3134 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
3135
3136 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
3137 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
3138 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
3139 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
3140 used as help string.
3141
3142 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
3143 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
3144 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
3145
3146 +++
3147 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3148
3149 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3150 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3151
3152 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3153 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3154 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3155 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3156 used.
3157
3158 (global-set-key [A-down]
3159 #'(lambda ()
3160 (interactive)
3161 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3162 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3163 (global-set-key [A-up]
3164 #'(lambda ()
3165 (interactive)
3166 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3167 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3168
3169 +++
3170 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3171
3172 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3173 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3174 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3175 is called with one argument, POS.
3176
3177 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3178 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3179 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3180 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3181 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3182
3183 +++
3184 ** Tool bar support.
3185
3186 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3187 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3188 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3189 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3190 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3191 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3192
3193 *** Tool bar item definitions
3194
3195 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3196 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3197 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3198
3199 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3200 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3201 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3202 property (see below).
3203
3204 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3205 binding are currently ignored.
3206
3207 The following properties are recognized:
3208
3209 `:enable FORM'.
3210
3211 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3212 or disabled.
3213
3214 `:visible FORM'
3215
3216 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3217
3218 `:filter FUNCTION'
3219
3220 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3221 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3222 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3223
3224 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3225
3226 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3227 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3228
3229 `:image IMAGES'
3230
3231 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3232 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3233 meaning of each of the four elements:
3234
3235 Index Use when item is
3236 ----------------------------------------
3237 0 enabled and selected
3238 1 enabled and deselected
3239 2 disabled and selected
3240 3 disabled and deselected
3241
3242 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3243 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3244
3245 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3246
3247 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3248 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3249
3250 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3251
3252 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3253 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3254 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3255
3256 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3257 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3258
3259 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3260 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3261 pixels. Default is 1.
3262
3263 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3264 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3265
3266 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3267
3268 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3269 a tool bar item. If
3270
3271 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3272 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3273 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3274
3275 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3276
3277 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3278
3279 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3280 item.
3281
3282 ** Mode line changes.
3283
3284 +++
3285 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3286
3287 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3288 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3289 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3290
3291 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3292 a `local-map' text property.
3293
3294 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3295 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3296
3297 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3298 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3299 `local-map' property.
3300
3301 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3302 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3303 example.
3304
3305 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3306 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3307
3308 +++
3309 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3310 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3311
3312 +++
3313 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3314
3315 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3316 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3317 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3318 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3319 line.
3320
3321 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3322 `header-line'.
3323
3324 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3325 position in the header-line.
3326
3327 +++
3328 ** Text property `display'
3329
3330 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3331 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3332 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3333 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3334
3335 *** Variable width and height spaces
3336
3337 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3338 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3339 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3340 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3341 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3342 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3343 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3344
3345 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3346 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3347 properties described below.
3348
3349 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3350 characters having the `display' property.
3351
3352 - :width WIDTH
3353
3354 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3355 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3356
3357 - :relative-width FACTOR
3358
3359 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3360 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3361 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3362 width of that character by FACTOR.
3363
3364 - :align-to HPOS
3365
3366 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3367 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3368
3369 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3370
3371 - :height HEIGHT
3372
3373 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3374 normal line height.
3375
3376 - :relative-height FACTOR
3377
3378 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3379 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3380
3381 - :ascent ASCENT
3382
3383 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3384 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3385 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3386 equal to 100.
3387
3388 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3389
3390 *** Images
3391
3392 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3393 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3394 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3395 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3396 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3397 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3398 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3399 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3400 as display specification.
3401
3402 *** Other display properties
3403
3404 - :space-width FACTOR
3405
3406 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3407 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3408 integer or float.
3409
3410 - :height HEIGHT
3411
3412 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3413
3414 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3415 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3416 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3417 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3418 a font is available counts as a step.
3419
3420 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3421 as tall as the frame's default font.
3422
3423 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3424 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3425
3426 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3427 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3428
3429 - :raise FACTOR
3430
3431 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3432 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3433 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3434 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3435 `:height' subproperty.
3436
3437 *** Conditional display properties
3438
3439 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3440 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3441 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3442 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3443 the text having the `display' property.
3444
3445 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3446 `(:when t SPEC)'.
3447
3448 +++
3449 ** New menu separator types.
3450
3451 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3452 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3453 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3454 to specify other menu separator types.
3455
3456 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3457
3458 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3459 separator occurs.
3460
3461 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3462
3463 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3464
3465 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3466
3467 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3468
3469 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3470
3471 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3472
3473 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3474
3475 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3476
3477 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3478
3479 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3480 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3481
3482 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3483
3484 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3485
3486 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3487
3488 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3489
3490 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3491
3492 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3493
3494 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3495
3496 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3497
3498 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3499
3500 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3501
3502 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3503
3504 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3505
3506 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3507
3508 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3509
3510 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3511 the corresponding single-line separators.
3512
3513 +++
3514 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3515
3516 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3517 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3518 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3519 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3520 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3521 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3522 default foreground is black.
3523
3524 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3525 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3526 `ScrollBarBackground').
3527
3528 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3529 settings for scroll bar colors.
3530
3531 +++
3532 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3533 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3534
3535 ---
3536 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3537 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3538 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3539 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3540 the original window start.
3541
3542 ---
3543 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3544 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3545 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3546
3547 +++
3548 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3549
3550 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3551 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3552 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3553 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3554
3555 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3556 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3557
3558 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3559
3560 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3561 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3562 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3563 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3564 temporarily to nil, for example
3565
3566 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3567 (enlarge-window 10))
3568
3569 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3570 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3571
3572 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3573 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3574 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3575 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3576 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3577 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3578
3579
3580 ^L
3581 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3582
3583 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3584 input.
3585
3586 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3587
3588 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3589
3590 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3591 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3592 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3593 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3594 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3595
3596 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3597 been added.
3598
3599 ^L
3600 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3601
3602 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3603
3604 ^L
3605 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3606
3607 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3608 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3609 \f
3610 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3611
3612 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3613
3614 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3615 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3616 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3617
3618 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3619 is the one that is used.
3620
3621 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3622 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3623 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3624 separate from the command's regular output.
3625 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3626 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3627 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3628 the buffer name.
3629
3630 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3631 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3632 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3633 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3634
3635 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3636 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3637 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3638 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3639
3640 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3641 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3642 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3643 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3644
3645 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3646 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3647 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3648 they never ignore case.
3649
3650 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3651 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3652 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3653 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3654 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3655 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3656 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3657
3658 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3659 the same format that was used in the file before.
3660
3661 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3662 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3663
3664 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3665 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3666 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3667
3668 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3669 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3670 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3671 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3672 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3673 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3674 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3675
3676 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3677 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3678 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3679 format. You can now customize these variables.
3680
3681 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3682 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3683 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3684 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3685
3686 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3687 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3688 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3689
3690 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3691 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3692 doesn't have any effect.
3693
3694 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3695 not one per buffer.
3696
3697 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3698 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3699 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3700
3701 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3702 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3703 `auto-show-mode' command.
3704
3705 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3706 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3707 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3708 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3709 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3710
3711 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3712 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3713
3714 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3715 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3716 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3717
3718 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3719 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3720 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3721 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3722
3723 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3724
3725 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3726 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3727 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3728 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3729 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3730
3731 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3732 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3733
3734 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3735 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3736 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3737 `?' on other systems.
3738
3739 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3740 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3741 Unix.
3742
3743 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3744 current codepage when it starts.
3745
3746 ** Mail changes
3747
3748 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3749 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3750 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3751 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3752 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3753 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3754 latin-1:
3755
3756 MIME-version: 1.0
3757 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3758 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3759
3760 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3761 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3762 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3763 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3764 buffer-file-coding-system.
3765
3766 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3767 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3768 mail.
3769
3770 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3771 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3772 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3773 list of possible coding systems.
3774
3775 ** CC Mode changes
3776
3777 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3778 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3779 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3780 docstring for details.
3781
3782 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3783 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3784 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3785 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3786 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3787
3788 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3789 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3790
3791 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3792 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3793
3794 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3795 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3796 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3797 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3798 anonymous classes.
3799
3800 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3801 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3802
3803 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3804 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3805 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3806 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3807
3808 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3809 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3810 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3811 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3812 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3813
3814 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3815
3816 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
3817
3818 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
3819 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
3820
3821 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
3822
3823 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
3824 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
3825 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
3826 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
3827 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
3828
3829 ** Gnus changes.
3830
3831 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
3832 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
3833 Gnus manual for the full story.
3834
3835 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
3836 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
3837 group, which is created automatically.
3838
3839 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
3840 values.
3841
3842 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
3843
3844 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
3845 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
3846
3847 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
3848 `C-u C-c C-c'.
3849
3850 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
3851
3852 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
3853 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
3854
3855 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
3856
3857 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
3858 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
3859
3860 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
3861 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
3862
3863 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
3864 control over simplification.
3865
3866 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
3867
3868 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
3869 limit.
3870
3871 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
3872
3873 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
3874
3875 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
3876 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
3877 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
3878
3879 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
3880 `a' forces normal posting method.
3881
3882 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
3883 -- `W d'.
3884
3885 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
3886 to a non-nil value.
3887
3888 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
3889 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
3890
3891 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
3892 has been added.
3893
3894 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
3895
3896 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
3897
3898 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
3899 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
3900
3901 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
3902 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
3903
3904 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
3905
3906 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
3907 been added.
3908
3909 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
3910 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
3911
3912 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
3913 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
3914
3915 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
3916
3917 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
3918
3919 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
3920
3921 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
3922
3923 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
3924 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
3925 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
3926
3927 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
3928 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
3929 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
3930 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
3931 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3932
3933 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3934 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3935 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3936 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3937
3938 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3939 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3940 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3941 mismatch.
3942
3943 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3944
3945 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3946 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3947
3948 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3949 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3950 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3951 removed from the label.
3952
3953 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3954 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3955
3956 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3957 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3958
3959 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3960 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3961 expressions.
3962
3963 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3964
3965 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3966
3967 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3968 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3969
3970 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3971 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3972 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3973
3974 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3975 changes with a special face.
3976
3977 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3978 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3979 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3980 \f
3981 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3982
3983 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3984 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3985 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3986 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3987 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3988
3989 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3990 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3991 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3992
3993 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3994 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
3995 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
3996 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
3997 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
3998 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
3999 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
4000 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
4001 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
4002
4003 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
4004 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
4005 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
4006 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
4007 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
4008 program.
4009
4010 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
4011 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
4012 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
4013 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
4014 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
4015 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
4016
4017 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
4018 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
4019 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
4020 was not documented clearly before.
4021
4022 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
4023 This includes Tetris and Snake.
4024 \f
4025 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
4026
4027 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
4028 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
4029 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
4030 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
4031
4032 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
4033 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
4034 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
4035
4036 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
4037
4038 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
4039 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
4040
4041 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
4042 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
4043 integers.
4044
4045 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
4046 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
4047 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
4048 file names and attributes are returned.
4049
4050 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
4051 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
4052 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
4053 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
4054 returns the result.
4055
4056 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
4057 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
4058
4059 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
4060
4061 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
4062 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
4063 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
4064 optionally.
4065
4066 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
4067 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
4068
4069 **
4070 The new function process-running-child-p
4071 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
4072 terminal to its own child process.
4073
4074 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
4075 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
4076 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
4077 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
4078
4079 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
4080 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
4081
4082 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
4083 :included is an alias for :visible.
4084
4085 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
4086 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
4087 to move or copy menu entries.
4088
4089 ** Multibyte editing changes
4090
4091 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
4092 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
4093 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
4094 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
4095 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
4096 (setq char (sref str idx)
4097 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
4098 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
4099
4100 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
4101 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
4102 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
4103
4104 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
4105 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
4106 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
4107
4108 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
4109
4110 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
4111 across the boundary.
4112
4113 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
4114 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
4115 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
4116 contains 8-bit characters.
4117 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
4118 contains invalid characters.
4119
4120 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
4121 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
4122 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
4123 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
4124 way.
4125
4126 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
4127 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
4128 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
4129 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
4130
4131 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
4132 compose Thai characters in a string.
4133
4134 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
4135 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
4136 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
4137 menus should always use the third argument.
4138
4139 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
4140 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
4141 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
4142 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
4143
4144 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
4145 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
4146 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
4147 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
4148
4149 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4150 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4151 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4152 echo area contents.
4153
4154 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4155
4156 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4157 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4158 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4159
4160 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4161 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4162 means to clear out that attribute.
4163
4164 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4165 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4166
4167 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4168 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4169 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4170 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4171
4172 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4173 the gap of the current buffer.
4174
4175 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4176 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4177 current buffer.
4178
4179 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4180 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4181 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4182 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4183 \f
4184 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4185
4186 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4187 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4188 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4189 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4190 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4191
4192 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4193 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4194 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4195 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4196 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4197
4198 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4199 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4200 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4201
4202 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4203 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4204 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4205 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4206 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4207 results.
4208
4209 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4210 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4211 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4212 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4213 \f
4214 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4215
4216 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4217 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4218 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4219 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4220
4221 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4222 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4223 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4224 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4225 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4226 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4227 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4228 region.
4229
4230 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4231 selective undo.
4232
4233 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4234 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4235 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4236 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4237 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4238
4239 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4240 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4241 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4242 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4243
4244 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4245 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4246 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4247 something that most users not do.
4248
4249 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4250 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4251 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4252 applications.
4253
4254 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4255 pasting operations.
4256
4257 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4258 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4259 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4260 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4261 `ps-printer-name'.
4262
4263 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4264 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4265 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4266 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4267 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4268 hits a new word.
4269
4270 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4271 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4272 to be confused by TeX commands.
4273
4274 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4275 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4276 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4277 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4278
4279 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4280 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4281 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4282 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4283 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4284
4285 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4286 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4287
4288 ** Changes in input method usage.
4289
4290 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4291 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4292 respectively.
4293
4294 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4295
4296 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4297 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4298
4299 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4300 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4301
4302 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4303
4304 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4305
4306 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4307 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4308
4309 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4310 given in the following case:
4311 o When you are using a complex input method.
4312 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4313
4314 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4315 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4316 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4317 setting it to t is helpful.
4318
4319 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4320
4321 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4322 keys:
4323 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4324 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4325 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4326 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4327 environment.
4328
4329 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4330 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4331 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4332 get
4333
4334 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4335
4336 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4337
4338 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4339 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4340
4341 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4342 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4343 its owner and group.
4344
4345 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4346 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4347
4348 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4349 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4350
4351 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4352 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4353 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4354 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4355
4356 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4357 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4358 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4359 for writing keyboard macros.
4360
4361 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4362 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4363 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4364 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4365 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4366 info.
4367
4368 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4369
4370 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4371 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4372 contents only.
4373
4374 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4375 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4376 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4377 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4378
4379 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4380 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4381 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4382
4383 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4384 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4385 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4386 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4387
4388 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4389 failure if the command produces no output.
4390
4391 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4392 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4393 the mouse.
4394
4395 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4396 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4397 function and variable names.
4398
4399 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4400 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4401 file-coding-system-alist.
4402
4403 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4404 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4405 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4406 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4407 according to the current fontset.
4408
4409 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4410
4411 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4412 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4413 nonascii-insert-offset.
4414
4415 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4416 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4417 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4418 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4419
4420 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4421 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4422
4423 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4424 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4425
4426 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4427 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4428 command keys.
4429
4430 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4431 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4432
4433 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4434 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4435 all variables that have documentation.
4436
4437 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4438 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4439 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4440 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4441 it should show; the default is 20.
4442
4443 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4444 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4445 of your input.
4446
4447 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4448 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4449 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4450 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4451 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4452 Newly added options are included as well.
4453
4454 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4455 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4456 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4457
4458 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4459 Customize menu.
4460
4461 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4462 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4463
4464 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4465 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4466 invoked.
4467
4468 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4469 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4470 The default is 1.
4471
4472 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4473 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4474 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4475 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4476 sensibly.
4477
4478 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4479
4480 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4481 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4482 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4483
4484 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4485 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4486 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4487 every night.
4488
4489 ** Desktop changes
4490
4491 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4492 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4493
4494 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4495 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4496
4497 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4498 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4499
4500 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4501 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4502 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4503 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4504 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4505 made invisible again.
4506
4507 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4508
4509 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4510 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4511 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4512 toggle.
4513
4514 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4515 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4516 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4517 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4518 rmail-default-body-file.
4519
4520 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4521 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4522 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4523
4524 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4525 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4526 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4527
4528 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4529 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4530 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4531 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4532 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4533 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4534
4535 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4536 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4537 provided by feedmail are:
4538
4539 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4540 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4541 there is also a queue for draft messages
4542
4543 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4544 be prompted for confirmation
4545
4546 **** does smart filling of address headers
4547
4548 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4549 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4550 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4551
4552 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4553 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4554 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4555 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4556
4557 ** Dired changes
4558
4559 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4560 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4561
4562 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4563 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4564
4565 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4566 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4567 for a specified regexp.
4568
4569 ** VC Changes
4570
4571 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4572 conveniently.
4573
4574 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4575 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4576 Dired.
4577
4578 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4579 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4580 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4581 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4582
4583 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4584 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4585 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4586 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4587 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4588
4589 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4590 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4591 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4592 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4593 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4594
4595 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4596 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4597 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4598 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4599
4600 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4601 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4602 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4603
4604 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4605 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4606 session to resolve them.
4607
4608 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4609 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4610 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4611 uses as well).
4612
4613 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4614 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4615 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4616 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4617 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4618 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4619 using ediff.
4620
4621 ** Changes in Font Lock
4622
4623 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4624 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4625 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4626 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4627 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4628
4629 ** Frame name display changes
4630
4631 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4632 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4633 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4634 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4635
4636 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4637 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4638 menu.
4639
4640 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4641
4642 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4643 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4644 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4645
4646 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4647
4648 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4649 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4650 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4651
4652 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4653 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4654 the following line.
4655
4656 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4657 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4658 previously sent input.
4659
4660 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4661 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4662 as the search string.
4663
4664 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4665 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4666
4667 ** C mode changes
4668
4669 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4670 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4671 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4672 definition.
4673
4674 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4675 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4676 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4677 style is still the default however.
4678
4679 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4680
4681 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4682 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4683 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4684
4685 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4686 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4687
4688 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4689 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4690
4691 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4692 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4693
4694 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4695 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4696
4697 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4698 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4699 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4700 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4701
4702 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4703
4704 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4705 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4706 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4707
4708 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4709 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4710 expanding dynamically.
4711
4712 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4713 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4714
4715 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4716 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4717 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4718 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4719
4720 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4721
4722 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4723
4724 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4725 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4726 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4727 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4728 against the first word in the title.
4729
4730 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4731 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4732 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4733 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4734 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4735 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4736
4737 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4738 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4739 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4740 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4741
4742 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4743
4744 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4745 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4746 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4747 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4748 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4749 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4750
4751 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4752 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4753
4754 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4755 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4756 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4757
4758 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4759 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4760
4761 ** Ispell changes.
4762
4763 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4764 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4765 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4766
4767 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4768 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4769 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4770 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4771 include:
4772
4773 o URLs are automatically skipped
4774 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4775
4776 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4777
4778 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4779
4780 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4781 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4782 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4783 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4784
4785 *** New recursive parser.
4786
4787 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4788 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4789 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4790
4791 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4792
4793 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4794 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4795 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4796
4797 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4798
4799 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4800
4801 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4802
4803 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4804
4805 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4806
4807 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4808 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4809
4810 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4811
4812 *** References to external documents.
4813
4814 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4815 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4816 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
4817 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
4818 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
4819 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
4820 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
4821
4822 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
4823
4824 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
4825 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
4826
4827 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
4828 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
4829
4830 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
4831
4832 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
4833 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
4834
4835 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
4836
4837 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
4838 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
4839 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
4840 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
4841 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
4842 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
4843 more.
4844
4845 *** Support for the varioref package
4846
4847 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
4848
4849 *** New hooks
4850
4851 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
4852 and citations are created. These hooks are
4853 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
4854 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
4855
4856 *** Citations outside LaTeX
4857
4858 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
4859 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
4860
4861 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
4862
4863 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
4864 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
4865 fontified, use
4866
4867 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
4868
4869 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
4870 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
4871 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
4872 directories that contain the same file name.
4873
4874 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
4875 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
4876 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
4877 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
4878 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
4879 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
4880 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
4881 directory.
4882
4883 ** New modes and packages
4884
4885 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
4886 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
4887 it, but some do not.
4888
4889 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
4890 code.
4891
4892 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
4893 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
4894 around in a buffer.
4895
4896 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
4897
4898 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
4899 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
4900 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
4901 established system of notation similar to Chess.
4902
4903 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
4904 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
4905 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
4906
4907 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
4908 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
4909 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
4910 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
4911 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
4912 the like.
4913
4914 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
4915 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
4916
4917 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
4918 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
4919 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
4920 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
4921
4922 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
4923
4924 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
4925 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
4926 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
4927 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
4928 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
4929 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
4930 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
4931 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
4932 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
4933 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
4934 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
4935
4936 Platform-specific modes:
4937
4938 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4939 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4940 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4941 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4942 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4943 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4944 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4945 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4946 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4947 \f
4948 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4949
4950 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4951 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4952 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4953 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4954
4955 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4956 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4957 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4958
4959 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4960 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4961 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4962 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4963
4964 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4965 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4966 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4967 environment.
4968
4969 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4970 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4971 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4972 current input method for reading this one event.
4973
4974 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4975 now control whether to output certain characters as
4976 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4977 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4978 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4979 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4980 \f
4981 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4982
4983 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4984 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4985
4986 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4987 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4988 always increases point by 1.
4989
4990 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4991 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4992
4993 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4994
4995 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
4996 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
4997 default value changed. For example,
4998
4999 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
5000 :type 'integer
5001 :group 'foo
5002 :version "20.3")
5003
5004 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
5005 :version "20.3")
5006
5007 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
5008 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
5009 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
5010 `:version' in the top level group.
5011
5012 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
5013
5014 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
5015 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
5016
5017 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
5018 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
5019 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
5020 to themselves.
5021
5022 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
5023 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
5024 values whatever.
5025
5026 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
5027 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
5028 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
5029
5030 ** Frame-local variables.
5031
5032 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
5033 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
5034 local bindings for that variable.
5035
5036 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
5037 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
5038 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
5039 parameter name.
5040
5041 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
5042 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
5043 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
5044 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
5045
5046 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
5047 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
5048 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
5049 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
5050
5051 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
5052 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
5053 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
5054 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
5055 See the documentation in sregex.el.
5056
5057 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
5058 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
5059 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
5060 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
5061
5062 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
5063 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
5064
5065 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
5066 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
5067 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
5068
5069 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
5070 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
5071 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
5072 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
5073
5074 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
5075 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
5076 empty input.
5077
5078 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
5079 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
5080 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
5081 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
5082 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
5083
5084 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
5085 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
5086 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
5087 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
5088
5089 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
5090 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
5091 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
5092 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
5093 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
5094
5095 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
5096 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
5097 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
5098 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
5099
5100 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
5101 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
5102 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
5103
5104 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
5105 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
5106 was directed to display this buffer.
5107
5108 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
5109 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
5110 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
5111 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
5112 set-window-configuration.
5113
5114 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
5115 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
5116 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
5117 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
5118
5119 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
5120 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
5121 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
5122
5123 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
5124 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
5125 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
5126
5127 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
5128 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
5129
5130 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
5131 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
5132
5133 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
5134 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
5135 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
5136
5137 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
5138 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
5139 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
5140 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
5141
5142 ** Menu changes
5143
5144 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
5145 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
5146 better supported.
5147
5148 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
5149 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5150 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5151 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5152 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5153
5154 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5155
5156 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5157 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5158 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5159 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5160
5161 The format is:
5162 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5163 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5164 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5165 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5166 The supported properties include
5167
5168 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5169 item is enabled.
5170 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5171 item should appear in the menu.
5172 :filter FILTER-FN
5173 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5174 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5175 It should return a binding to use instead.
5176 :keys DESCRIPTION
5177 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5178 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5179 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5180 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5181 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5182 keyboard binding.
5183 :key-sequence nil
5184 This means that the command normally has no
5185 keyboard equivalent.
5186 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5187 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5188 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5189 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5190 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5191
5192 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5193 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5194
5195 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5196
5197 ** New event types
5198
5199 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5200 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5201 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5202 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5203
5204 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5205
5206 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5207 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5208 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5209 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5210 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5211 forward, away from the user.
5212
5213 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5214
5215 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5216 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5217 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5218 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5219 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5220
5221 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5222
5223 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5224 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5225 that were dragged and dropped.
5226
5227 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5228
5229 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5230
5231 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5232 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5233 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5234
5235 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5236 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5237 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5238
5239 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5240 in Emacs 19 and before.
5241
5242 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5243 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5244
5245 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5246 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5247 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5248 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5249
5250 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5251 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5252 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5253 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5254 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5255
5256 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5257 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5258 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5259 consistent with the new representation.
5260
5261 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5262 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5263 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5264 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5265
5266 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5267 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5268 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5269
5270 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5271 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5272 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5273
5274 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5275 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5276 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5277
5278 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5279 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5280
5281 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5282 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5283
5284 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5285 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5286 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5287 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5288
5289 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5290 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5291
5292 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5293 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5294 buffer or string being searched.
5295
5296 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5297 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5298 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5299 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5300 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5301 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5302 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5303
5304 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5305
5306 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5307 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5308 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5309 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5310 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5311 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5312 define-coding-system-alias.
5313
5314 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5315 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5316 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5317 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5318 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5319 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5320 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5321 `iso-8859-1'.
5322
5323 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5324 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5325 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5326 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5327
5328 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5329 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5330 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5331 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5332
5333 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5334 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5335 This function requires a user interaction.
5336
5337 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5338 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5339 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5340 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5341 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5342 select-safe-coding-system.
5343
5344 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5345 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5346 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5347 was done.
5348
5349 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5350 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5351 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5352
5353 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5354 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5355 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5356 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5357
5358 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5359 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5360 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5361 converted.
5362
5363 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5364 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5365
5366 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5367 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5368 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5369 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5370 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5371 range of characters.
5372
5373 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5374 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5375
5376 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5377 in the current buffer at position POS.
5378
5379 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5380 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5381 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5382 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5383 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5384 binding input-method-function to nil.
5385
5386 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5387 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5388 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5389 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5390 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5391
5392 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5393 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5394
5395 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5396 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5397
5398 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5399 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5400 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5401 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5402 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5403 \f
5404 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5405
5406 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5407 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5408 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5409 tree structure.
5410
5411 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5412 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5413
5414 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5415 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5416 in your .emacs file.)
5417
5418 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5419 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5420
5421 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5422 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5423
5424 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5425 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5426 kills the region.
5427
5428 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5429 delete the character before point, as usual.
5430
5431 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5432 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5433 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5434
5435 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5436 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5437 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5438 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5439 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5440 past.)
5441
5442 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5443 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5444 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5445 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5446 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5447
5448 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5449 and is an alias for it.
5450
5451 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5452 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5453
5454 ** Scrolling changes
5455
5456 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5457 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5458
5459 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5460 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5461 where it started.
5462
5463 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5464 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5465 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5466 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5467
5468 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5469 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5470 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5471 recenters the window.
5472
5473 ** International character set support (MULE)
5474
5475 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5476 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5477 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5478 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5479 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5480 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5481
5482 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5483 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5484 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5485 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5486 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5487
5488 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5489 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5490 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5491 language, to make it possible to type them.
5492
5493 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5494 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5495
5496 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5497 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5498
5499 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5500
5501 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5502
5503 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5504 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5505 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5506 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5507 characters for their work until they want to change.
5508
5509 *** Input methods
5510
5511 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5512 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5513 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5514 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5515 support several input methods.
5516
5517 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5518 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5519 work.
5520
5521 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5522 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5523 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5524 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5525 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5526 letter.
5527
5528 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5529 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5530 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5531 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5532 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5533
5534 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5535 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5536 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5537 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5538
5539 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5540 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5541 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5542 the first guess is wrong.
5543
5544 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5545 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5546
5547 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5548 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5549 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5550 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5551
5552 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5553 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5554 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5555 translate automatically to and from either one.
5556
5557 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5558
5559 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5560 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5561 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5562 what you want.
5563
5564 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5565 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5566 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5567 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5568
5569 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5570 character conversion as well.
5571
5572 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5573
5574 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5575 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5576 requires using many fonts.
5577
5578 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5579 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5580
5581 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5582 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5583 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5584 you would use a font.
5585
5586 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5587 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5588 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5589
5590 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5591 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5592 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5593 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5594 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5595
5596 *** Defining fontsets.
5597
5598 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5599 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5600 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5601
5602 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5603 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5604 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5605 standard fontset are created automatically.
5606
5607 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5608 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5609 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5610 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5611 name is `fontset-startup'.
5612
5613 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5614 The resource value should have this form:
5615 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5616 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5617 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5618 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5619 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5620 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5621 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5622 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5623 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5624
5625 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5626 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5627 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5628
5629 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5630 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5631 following resource,
5632 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5633 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5634 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5635 Here is the substitution rule:
5636 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5637 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5638 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5639 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5640 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5641
5642 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5643 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5644 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5645
5646 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5647 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5648 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5649 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5650 fontsets.
5651
5652 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5653 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5654
5655 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5656 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5657 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5658 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5659 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5660 system for new files that you create.
5661
5662 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5663 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5664 whole Emacs session.
5665
5666 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5667 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5668 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5669
5670 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5671 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5672 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5673 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5674 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5675
5676 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5677 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5678 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5679 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5680 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5681
5682 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5683 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5684
5685 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5686 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5687
5688 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5689 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5690
5691 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5692 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5693 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5694 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5695 of the file.
5696
5697 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5698 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5699 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5700 translated into that character code.
5701
5702 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5703 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5704
5705 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5706
5707 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5708 the coding system for keyboard input.
5709
5710 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5711 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5712 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5713
5714 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5715
5716 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5717 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5718 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5719 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5720 designed to work with terminals.
5721
5722 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5723 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5724 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5725 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5726 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5727 in the corresponding buffer.
5728
5729 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5730
5731 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5732 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5733 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5734
5735 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5736 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5737 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5738 want to use.
5739
5740 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5741 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5742
5743 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5744 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5745 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5746 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5747
5748 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5749 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5750 related information.
5751
5752 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5753 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5754 scripts.
5755
5756 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5757 information about the support for a particular language.
5758 You specify the language as an argument.
5759
5760 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5761 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5762 first dash.
5763
5764 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5765 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5766 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5767 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5768
5769 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5770 B big5 (Chinese)
5771 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5772 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5773 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5774 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5775 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5776 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5777 K euc-korea (Korean)
5778 R koi8 (Russian)
5779 Q tibetan
5780 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5781 T lao
5782 T tis620 (Thai)
5783 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5784 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5785 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5786 v viqr (Vietnamese)
5787 z hz (Chinese)
5788
5789 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5790 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5791 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5792 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5793
5794 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5795 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5796
5797 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5798 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5799 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5800 Rmail files themselves.
5801
5802 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5803 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5804
5805 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5806 for sending mail:
5807
5808 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5809 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5810 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5811 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5812 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5813
5814 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5815 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5816 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
5817 translations.
5818
5819 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
5820 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
5821 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
5822 without any conversion.
5823
5824 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
5825 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
5826 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
5827 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
5828
5829 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
5830 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
5831
5832 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
5833 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
5834
5835 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
5836 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
5837
5838 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
5839 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
5840 in the buffer before point.
5841
5842 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
5843 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
5844 you are using.
5845
5846 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
5847 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
5848
5849 ** File locking works with NFS now.
5850
5851 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
5852 in the same directory as FILENAME.
5853
5854 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
5855 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
5856 can become a bottleneck.
5857
5858 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
5859 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
5860 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
5861 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
5862 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
5863 so useful that the change is worth while.
5864
5865 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
5866 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
5867 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
5868 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
5869
5870 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
5871 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
5872 show-paren-mode.
5873
5874 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
5875 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
5876 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
5877
5878 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
5879 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
5880 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
5881
5882 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
5883 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
5884 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
5885
5886 ** Changes in View mode.
5887
5888 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
5889 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
5890
5891 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
5892 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
5893
5894 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
5895 previous state.
5896
5897 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
5898 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
5899
5900 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
5901 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
5902 not just the selected window.
5903
5904 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
5905 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
5906 turns View mode on or off.
5907
5908 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
5909 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
5910 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
5911
5912 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
5913 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
5914
5915 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
5916 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
5917 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
5918 which version to compare with.
5919
5920 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
5921 blocks if a match is inside the block.
5922
5923 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
5924 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
5925 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
5926 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
5927
5928 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
5929 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
5930 blocks, all of them or none.
5931
5932 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
5933 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
5934 confirmation first.
5935
5936 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5937 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5938 However, the mode will not be changed if
5939 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5940 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5941 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5942 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5943
5944 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5945
5946 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5947 these commands do not change the major mode.
5948
5949 ** M-x occur changes.
5950
5951 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5952 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5953
5954 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5955 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5956 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5957
5958 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5959 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5960 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5961 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5962 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5963
5964 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5965 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5966 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5967 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5968
5969 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5970 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5971 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5972
5973 ** Outline mode changes.
5974
5975 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5976
5977 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5978
5979 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5980 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5981 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5982 was already active.
5983
5984 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5985 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5986 get confused by it.
5987
5988 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5989 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5990
5991 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5992
5993 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5994 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
5995 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
5996 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
5997
5998 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
5999 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
6000 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
6001
6002 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
6003 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
6004 values.
6005
6006 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
6007 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
6008 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
6009 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
6010
6011 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
6012 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
6013 can be. The default value is 30.
6014
6015 ** Changes in Mail mode.
6016
6017 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
6018 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
6019 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
6020 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
6021 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
6022 behavior.
6023
6024 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
6025 compose-mail-other-frame.
6026
6027 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
6028 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
6029 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
6030 buffer that shows the original message.
6031
6032 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
6033 with separator lines around the contents.
6034
6035 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
6036 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
6037 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
6038 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
6039
6040 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
6041
6042 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
6043 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
6044 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
6045 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
6046
6047 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
6048 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
6049 /etc/passwd.
6050
6051 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
6052 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
6053 /etc/passwd.
6054
6055 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
6056 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
6057 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
6058 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
6059
6060 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
6061 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
6062 be taken to be magic.
6063
6064 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
6065 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
6066 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
6067
6068 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
6069 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
6070
6071 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
6072 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
6073
6074 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
6075
6076 new key dired.el binding old key
6077 ------- ---------------- -------
6078 * c dired-change-marks c
6079 * m dired-mark m
6080 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
6081 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
6082 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
6083 * u dired-unmark u
6084 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
6085 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
6086 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
6087 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
6088 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
6089 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
6090
6091 ** Rmail changes.
6092
6093 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
6094 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
6095 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
6096 each time you run it.
6097
6098 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
6099 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
6100
6101 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
6102 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
6103 means to move in the opposite direction.
6104
6105 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
6106 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
6107
6108 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
6109 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
6110 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
6111 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
6112 for output.
6113
6114 ** Gnus changes.
6115
6116 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
6117
6118 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
6119 Gnus.
6120
6121 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
6122 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
6123
6124 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
6125 article mode line.
6126
6127 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
6128
6129 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
6130
6131 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
6132
6133 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
6134 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
6135 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
6136
6137 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
6138
6139 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
6140
6141 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
6142 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
6143
6144 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
6145 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
6146 used to pick articles.
6147
6148 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
6149 another have been added.
6150
6151 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6152
6153 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6154 generating lines in buffers.
6155
6156 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6157 `M-C-_'.
6158
6159 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6160
6161 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6162
6163 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6164
6165 *** Scores can be decayed.
6166
6167 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6168
6169 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6170 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6171
6172 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6173 the native server.
6174
6175 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6176
6177 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6178 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6179
6180 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6181
6182 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6183 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6184
6185 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6186 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6187
6188 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6189 a group.
6190
6191 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6192 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6193
6194 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6195
6196 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6197
6198 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6199
6200 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6201
6202 Use the `Y c' command.
6203
6204 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6205
6206 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6207
6208 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6209
6210 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6211 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6212
6213 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6214
6215 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6216
6217 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6218 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6219
6220 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6221
6222 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6223 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6224 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6225 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6226 this issue.)
6227
6228 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6229 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6230 particular news group. This can be done by:
6231
6232 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6233
6234 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6235 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6236 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6237 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6238 for reading and posting).
6239
6240 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6241 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6242 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6243 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6244 there.
6245
6246 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6247 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6248
6249 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6250 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6251 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6252 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6253 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6254
6255 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6256 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6257
6258 ** CC mode changes.
6259
6260 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6261 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6262 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6263 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6264 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6265 loaded.
6266
6267 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6268 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6269 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6270 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6271 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6272 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6273
6274 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6275 of the current buffer.
6276
6277 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6278 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6279 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6280
6281 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6282 style that the Python developers like.
6283
6284 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6285 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6286 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6287
6288 ** VC Changes [new]
6289
6290 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6291 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6292 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6293
6294 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6295 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6296 developers.
6297
6298 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6299 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6300
6301 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6302 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6303 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6304 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6305
6306 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6307 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6308
6309 ** Calendar changes.
6310
6311 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6312 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6313 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6314
6315 ** ps-print changes
6316
6317 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6318
6319 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6320
6321 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6322 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6323 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6324 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6325 It defaults to `letter'.
6326 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6327
6328 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6329 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6330 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6331
6332 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6333 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6334 It defaults to 1.
6335
6336 *** Horizontal layout
6337
6338 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6339 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6340 All are measured in points.
6341
6342 *** Vertical layout
6343
6344 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6345 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6346 All are measured in points.
6347
6348 *** Headers
6349
6350 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6351 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6352 margin above the text.
6353
6354 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6355 framing box is printed around the header.
6356
6357 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6358 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6359
6360 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6361 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6362 `ps-header-font-size'.
6363
6364 *** Font managing
6365
6366 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6367 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6368 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6369 elements to this alist.
6370
6371 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6372 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6373
6374 ** hideshow changes.
6375
6376 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6377 C++, ; for lisp).
6378
6379 *** Support for java-mode added.
6380
6381 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6382 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6383
6384 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6385 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6386 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6387
6388 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6389 robust and a lot faster.
6390
6391 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6392
6393 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6394 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6395 documentation for more details.
6396
6397 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6398
6399 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6400 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6401 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6402 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6403 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6404
6405 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6406 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6407 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6408 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6409
6410 ** Font Lock mode
6411
6412 *** Custom support
6413
6414 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6415 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6416 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6417 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6418 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6419 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6420
6421 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6422
6423 *** Maximum decoration
6424
6425 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6426 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6427 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6428 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6429 to get the old behavior.
6430
6431 *** New support
6432
6433 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6434
6435 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6436 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6437
6438 *** Configurable support
6439
6440 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6441 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6442 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6443 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6444 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6445 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6446 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6447
6448 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6449 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6450 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6451
6452 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6453
6454 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6455 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6456 for any mode.
6457
6458 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6459
6460 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6461
6462 in your ~/.emacs.
6463
6464 *** New faces
6465
6466 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6467 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6468 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6469 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6470
6471 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6472
6473 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6474 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6475 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6476
6477 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6478
6479 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6480 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6481 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6482 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6483 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6484 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6485 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6486
6487 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6488 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6489 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6490 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6491 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6492 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6493
6494 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6495
6496 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6497 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6498 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6499 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6500
6501 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6502 settings.
6503
6504 ** Ada mode changes.
6505
6506 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6507 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6508 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6509 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6510 stubs.
6511
6512 *** There are two new commands:
6513 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6514 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6515
6516 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6517 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6518 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6519
6520 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6521 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6522 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6523
6524 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6525 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6526 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6527 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6528
6529 ** Scheme mode changes.
6530
6531 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6532 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6533 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6534 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6535 have any effect.
6536
6537 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6538 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6539 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6540 variables as buffer-local variables.
6541
6542 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6543 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
6544
6545 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6546
6547 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6548 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6549 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6550 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6551
6552 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6553 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6554 buffer in Emacs.
6555
6556 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6557 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6558 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6559 option takes precedence.
6560
6561 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6562 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6563 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6564
6565 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6566 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6567 the current defun.
6568
6569 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6570 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6571
6572 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6573 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6574 necessary).
6575
6576 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6577 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6578 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6579 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6580 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6581 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6582
6583 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6584 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6585 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6586 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6587
6588 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6589 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6590 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6591 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6592 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6593
6594 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6595 since it applies only to the current frame.
6596
6597 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6598 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6599 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6600
6601 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6602 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6603 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6604 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6605 instead of just the file you are editing.
6606
6607 ** RefTeX mode
6608
6609 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6610 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6611 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6612 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6613 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6614
6615 C-c ( reftex-label
6616 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6617 knows which kind of label is needed.
6618
6619 C-c ) reftex-reference
6620 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6621 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6622
6623 C-c [ reftex-citation
6624 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6625 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6626
6627 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6628 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6629
6630 C-c = reftex-toc
6631 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6632 can quickly jump to every section.
6633
6634 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6635 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6636 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6637 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6638 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6639
6640 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6641
6642 *** Info documentation is now available.
6643
6644 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6645 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6646
6647 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6648 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6649
6650 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6651 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6652
6653 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6654 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6655 appropriate functions.
6656
6657 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6658 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6659
6660 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6661 been cleaned.
6662
6663 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6664 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6665
6666 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6667 shall be delimited.
6668
6669 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6670 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6671 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6672
6673 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6674 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6675 prefixed with `ALT'.
6676
6677 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6678 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6679 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6680 documentation).
6681
6682 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6683 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6684 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6685
6686 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6687 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6688
6689 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6690 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6691 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6692
6693 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6694
6695 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6696
6697 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6698 from alien sources.
6699
6700 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6701 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6702 crossref entries.
6703
6704 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6705 region.
6706
6707 *** Added support for imenu.
6708
6709 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6710 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6711 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6712 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6713
6714 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6715 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6716
6717 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6718
6719 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6720
6721 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6722 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6723 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6724 as an argument.
6725
6726 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6727 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6728
6729 ** browse-url changes
6730
6731 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6732 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6733 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6734 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6735 customization variables.
6736
6737 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6738
6739 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6740 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6741 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6742
6743 ** Changes in Ediff
6744
6745 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6746 pops up the Info file for this command.
6747
6748 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6749 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6750 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6751 directories).
6752
6753 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6754 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6755 files in the same directory.
6756
6757 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6758 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6759 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6760
6761 ** Changes in Viper
6762
6763 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6764 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6765 instead of vip-.
6766 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6767 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6768 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6769 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6770 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6771 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6772 color when Viper is in insert state.
6773 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6774 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6775 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6776
6777 ** Etags changes.
6778
6779 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6780 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6781 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6782 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6783 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6784
6785 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6786
6787 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6788 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6789
6790 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6791 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6792 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6793
6794 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6795 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6796 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6797 methods and protocols.
6798
6799 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6800 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6801 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6802 paragraph name.
6803
6804 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6805 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6806 at least M times and as many as N times.
6807
6808 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6809 in files has changed slightly.
6810
6811 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6812 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6813 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6814 with old time-stamp-format values.
6815
6816 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
6817 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
6818 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
6819 reasons.
6820
6821 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
6822 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
6823 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
6824 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
6825 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
6826 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
6827
6828 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
6829 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
6830 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
6831
6832 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
6833 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
6834 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
6835 recommended now will continue to work then.
6836
6837 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
6838 details.
6839
6840 ** There are some additional major modes:
6841
6842 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
6843 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
6844 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
6845
6846 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
6847 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
6848 into Emacs.
6849
6850 ** New Lisp packages include:
6851
6852 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
6853
6854 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
6855 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
6856
6857 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
6858
6859 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
6860 in shell buffers.
6861
6862 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
6863 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
6864 and `elint-defun'.
6865
6866 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
6867 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
6868 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
6869 strings or comments.
6870
6871 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
6872 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
6873 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
6874 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
6875 at these points.
6876
6877 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
6878 can visit them by short forms of their names.
6879
6880 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
6881 Emacs Lisp function at point.
6882
6883 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
6884
6885 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
6886 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
6887
6888 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
6889
6890 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
6891
6892 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
6893
6894 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
6895 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
6896
6897 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
6898 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
6899 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
6900 original place after inserting the copy.
6901
6902 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
6903 on the buffer.
6904
6905 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
6906 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
6907 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
6908
6909 Enable mouse-drag with:
6910 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
6911 -or-
6912 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
6913
6914 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
6915 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
6916
6917 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
6918 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
6919
6920 *** ogonek
6921
6922 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
6923 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
6924 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
6925 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
6926 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
6927 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
6928 instance) and vice versa.
6929
6930 To use this package load it using
6931 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
6932 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
6933 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
6934 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
6935 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
6936 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6937
6938 *** Interface to ph.
6939
6940 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6941
6942 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6943 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6944 these servers.
6945
6946 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6947
6948 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6949 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6950 while the real cursor does not move.
6951
6952 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6953 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6954
6955 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6956 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6957
6958 ** movemail change
6959
6960 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6961 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6962 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6963 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6964
6965 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6966 \f
6967 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6968
6969 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6970
6971 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6972 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6973 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6974 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6975 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6976
6977 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6978 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6979 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6980 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6981 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6982 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6983 \f
6984 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6985
6986 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6987 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6988 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6989 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6990
6991 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6992 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6993
6994 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
6995 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
6996 "win".
6997
6998 ** Basic Lisp changes
6999
7000 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
7001 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
7002
7003 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
7004 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
7005 or by the user.
7006
7007 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
7008
7009 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
7010
7011 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
7012 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
7013
7014 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
7015 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
7016 its argument.
7017
7018 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
7019
7020 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
7021
7022 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
7023
7024 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
7025 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
7026 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
7027 `format' function.
7028
7029 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
7030 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
7031 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
7032
7033 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
7034 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
7035 adding one of these suffixes.
7036
7037 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
7038 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
7039 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
7040
7041 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
7042 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
7043
7044 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
7045
7046 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
7047 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
7048
7049 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
7050 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
7051
7052 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
7053
7054 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
7055 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
7056
7057 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
7058 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
7059 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
7060 works using `save-current-buffer'.
7061
7062 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
7063 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
7064 of the last form.
7065
7066 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
7067 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
7068 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
7069 as the last form.
7070
7071 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
7072 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
7073 matches.
7074
7075 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
7076
7077 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
7078 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
7079 Then it returns that string.
7080
7081 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
7082
7083 (with-output-to-string
7084 (princ "The buffer is ")
7085 (princ (buffer-name)))
7086
7087 returns "The buffer is foo".
7088
7089 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
7090 is non-nil.
7091
7092 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
7093 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
7094 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
7095
7096 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
7097 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
7098
7099 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
7100 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
7101 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
7102 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
7103 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
7104 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
7105
7106 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
7107 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
7108 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
7109 characters".
7110
7111 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
7112 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
7113 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
7114 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
7115 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
7116
7117 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
7118 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
7119 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
7120 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
7121
7122 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
7123 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
7124
7125 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
7126
7127 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
7128 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
7129 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
7130 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
7131 guaranteed.
7132
7133 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
7134 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
7135 character).
7136
7137 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
7138
7139 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
7140 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
7141 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
7142 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
7143 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
7144
7145 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
7146
7147 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
7148 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
7149 more than the number of characters.
7150
7151 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7152 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7153 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7154 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7155 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7156 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7157
7158 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7159 and returns a string containing those characters.
7160
7161 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7162 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7163 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7164 character, sref signals an error.
7165
7166 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7167 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7168 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7169
7170 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7171 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7172 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7173
7174 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7175 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7176 to a vector of the characters in it.
7177
7178 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7179 of a string. You call it as follows:
7180
7181 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7182
7183 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7184 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7185 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7186 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7187 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7188
7189 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7190 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7191
7192 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7193 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7194
7195 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7196 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7197 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7198 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7199
7200 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7201
7202 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7203
7204 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7205 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7206 are not included in the resulting value.
7207
7208 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7209 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7210 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7211 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7212
7213 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7214 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7215 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7216 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7217 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7218 column START-COLUMN.
7219
7220 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7221 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7222 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7223 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7224 changed text, before the change.
7225
7226 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7227 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7228 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7229
7230 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7231
7232 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7233
7234 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7235 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7236
7237 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7238 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7239 which identify the character within that character set.
7240
7241 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7242 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7243 opposite of split-char.
7244
7245 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7246 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7247
7248 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7249 of all the characters in a string.
7250
7251 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7252 and specifying coding systems.
7253
7254 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7255 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7256 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7257 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7258 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7259 as what to do about code conversion.)
7260
7261 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7262 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7263
7264 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7265 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7266 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7267
7268 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7269 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7270 to match against a file name.
7271
7272 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7273 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7274 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7275 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7276 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7277 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7278
7279 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7280 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7281
7282 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7283 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7284
7285 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7286 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7287 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7288 service names.
7289
7290 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7291 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7292 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7293 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7294 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7295 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7296
7297 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7298 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7299
7300 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7301 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7302 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7303 start the subprocess.
7304
7305 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7306 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7307 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7308 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7309 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7310
7311 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7312 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7313 subprocess.
7314
7315 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7316 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7317 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7318 connection permanently or until overridden.
7319
7320 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7321 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7322 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7323 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7324 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7325 system for one operation at a time.
7326
7327 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7328 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7329
7330 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7331 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7332 The value is a cons cell,
7333 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7334 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7335 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7336 input to the subprocess.
7337
7338 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7339 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7340
7341 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7342 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7343 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7344
7345 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7346 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7347 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7348 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7349 customization.
7350
7351 Thus, instead of writing
7352
7353 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7354 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7355
7356 you would now write this:
7357
7358 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7359 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7360 :type 'boolean
7361 :group foo)
7362
7363 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7364 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7365 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7366 for a description of them.
7367
7368 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7369 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7370
7371 (defgroup ispell nil
7372 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7373 :group 'processes)
7374
7375 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7376 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7377 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7378 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7379 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7380
7381 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7382 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7383 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7384 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7385 first-level subgroups.
7386
7387 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7388
7389 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7390 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7391
7392 ** easy-mmode
7393
7394 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7395 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7396 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7397 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7398 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7399 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7400
7401 ** Text property changes
7402
7403 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7404 text property.
7405
7406 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7407 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7408 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7409 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7410 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7411
7412 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7413 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7414 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7415 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7416
7417 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7418 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7419 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7420
7421 ** Changes in invisibility features
7422
7423 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7424 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7425 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7426 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7427 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7428 make the overlay visible.
7429
7430 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7431 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7432 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7433 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7434 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7435 t when it should hide it.
7436
7437 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7438
7439 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7440 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7441 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7442 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7443 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7444 Here is an example of how to do this:
7445
7446 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7447 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7448 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7449 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7450
7451 ...
7452 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7453
7454 ...
7455 ;; When done with the overlays:
7456 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7457 ;; Or respectively:
7458 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7459
7460 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7461
7462 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7463 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7464 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7465 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7466
7467 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7468 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7469 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7470
7471 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7472 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7473
7474 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7475 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7476
7477 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7478 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7479 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7480
7481 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7482 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7483 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7484 determine the syntax type of the character.
7485
7486 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7487 of the current buffer.
7488
7489 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7490 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7491 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7492
7493 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7494 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7495 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7496 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7497 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7498
7499 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7500 text property.
7501
7502 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7503 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7504 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7505
7506 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7507 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7508 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7509 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7510 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7511
7512 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7513 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7514 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7515
7516 ** Changes in face features
7517
7518 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7519 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7520
7521 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7522 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7523
7524 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7525 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7526
7527 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7528 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7529
7530 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7531 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7532 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7533 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7534 overlay property).
7535
7536 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7537 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7538
7539 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7540
7541 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7542 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7543 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7544 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7545
7546 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7547 begins with ~.
7548
7549 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7550 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7551
7552 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7553 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7554
7555 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7556 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7557
7558 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7559 character code conversion as well as other things.
7560
7561 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7562 (formerly it did not).
7563
7564 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7565 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7566
7567 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7568 instead of constant strings.
7569
7570 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7571 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7572 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7573
7574 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7575 in the same way as before.
7576
7577 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7578 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7579 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7580
7581 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7582 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7583 else, and returns nil.
7584
7585 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7586 directory cannot be listed.
7587
7588 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7589
7590 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7591 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7592 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7593 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7594 ways:
7595
7596 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7597 It is available through the history command M-n.
7598
7599 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7600 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7601 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7602 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7603 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7604
7605 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7606 argument in this way.
7607
7608 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7609 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7610 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7611
7612 ** Echo area features
7613
7614 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7615 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7616 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7617 after the echo area is cleared.
7618
7619 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7620 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7621
7622 ** Keyboard input features
7623
7624 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7625 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7626
7627 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7628 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7629 by keyboard macros.
7630
7631 ** Frame-related changes
7632
7633 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7634 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7635 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7636
7637 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7638 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7639 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7640
7641 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7642 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7643 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7644 in the selected frame.
7645
7646 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7647 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7648 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7649
7650 ** X Windows features
7651
7652 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7653 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7654 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7655
7656 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7657 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7658
7659 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7660 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7661 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7662
7663 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7664 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7665
7666 ** Subprocess features
7667
7668 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7669 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7670 automatically.
7671
7672 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7673 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7674
7675 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7676 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7677
7678 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7679 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7680
7681 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7682 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7683 goes after the other menu items.
7684
7685 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7686 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7687 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7688 are in use.
7689
7690 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7691 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7692
7693 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7694 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7695 form.
7696
7697 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7698 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7699 but its hook is still run.
7700
7701 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7702 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7703
7704 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7705 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7706 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7707
7708 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7709 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7710 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7711 warned.
7712
7713 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7714 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7715
7716 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7717 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7718 functions like display-time.
7719
7720 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7721 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7722
7723 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7724 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7725 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7726
7727 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7728 if there is an error in compilation.
7729
7730 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7731 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7732 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7733 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7734
7735 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7736 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7737 the *scratch* buffer.
7738
7739 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7740 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7741 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7742 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7743
7744 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7745 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7746 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7747
7748 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7749 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7750 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7751 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7752
7753 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7754 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7755 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7756
7757 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7758 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7759 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7760 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7761 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7762 files at all.
7763
7764 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7765 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7766 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7767 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7768
7769 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7770 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7771 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7772 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7773
7774 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7775
7776 ** imenu.el changes.
7777
7778 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7779 item from menu created by imenu.
7780
7781 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7782 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7783 select one of those items.
7784 \f
7785 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7786 \f
7787 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7788
7789 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7790 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7791
7792 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7793 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7794 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7795 \f
7796 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7797
7798 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7799 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7800
7801 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7802 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7803 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7804 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7805 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7806 all caps.
7807
7808 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7809 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7810
7811 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7812 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7813 as in previous Emacs versions.
7814
7815 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7816 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
7817 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
7818 frames.
7819
7820 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
7821 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
7822 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
7823 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
7824 accident.
7825
7826 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
7827 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
7828 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
7829 line and then executing the macro.
7830
7831 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
7832
7833 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
7834 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
7835 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
7836 characters.
7837
7838 ** Font Lock mode
7839
7840 *** Font Lock support modes
7841
7842 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
7843 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
7844 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
7845 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
7846 Font Lock mode is enabled.
7847
7848 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
7849
7850 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
7851
7852 in your ~/.emacs.
7853
7854 *** lazy-lock
7855
7856 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
7857 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
7858 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
7859 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
7860 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
7861 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
7862 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
7863
7864 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
7865
7866 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
7867
7868 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
7869
7870 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7871
7872 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
7873 paren and key.
7874
7875 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
7876 supported.
7877
7878 ** Gnus changes.
7879
7880 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
7881 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
7882 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
7883 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
7884
7885 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
7886 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
7887
7888 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
7889 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
7890 obsolete.
7891
7892 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
7893 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
7894
7895 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
7896
7897 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
7898
7899 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
7900
7901 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
7902 referred.
7903
7904 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
7905
7906 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
7907
7908 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
7909
7910 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
7911
7912 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
7913 buffers.
7914
7915 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
7916
7917 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
7918
7919 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
7920
7921 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
7922
7923 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
7924
7925 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
7926
7927 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
7928
7929 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
7930 is possible.
7931
7932 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
7933
7934 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
7935 groups of groups.
7936
7937 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7938
7939 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7940 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7941
7942 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7943
7944 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7945
7946 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7947
7948 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7949
7950 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7951 expiration times.
7952
7953 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7954
7955 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7956 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7957
7958 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7959 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7960 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7961
7962 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7963 articles with the `*' command.
7964
7965 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7966
7967 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7968
7969 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7970
7971 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7972
7973 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7974 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7975
7976 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7977 buffer.
7978
7979 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7980
7981 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7982
7983 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7984
7985 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7986
7987 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7988
7989 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7990
7991 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7992
7993 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7994
7995 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
7996
7997 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
7998 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
7999
8000 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
8001 refetching.
8002
8003 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
8004
8005 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
8006 buffer to allow easier treatment.
8007
8008 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
8009
8010 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
8011
8012 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
8013
8014 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
8015 articles.
8016
8017 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
8018
8019 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
8020
8021 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
8022 cited text to hide is now customizable.
8023
8024 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
8025
8026 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
8027
8028 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
8029
8030 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
8031
8032 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
8033
8034 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
8035 in greater detail.
8036 \f
8037 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
8038
8039 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
8040 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
8041 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
8042 exists.
8043
8044 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
8045 as well as lists.
8046
8047 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
8048 of a given keymap.
8049
8050 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
8051 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
8052 keymap or nil.
8053
8054 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
8055 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
8056 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
8057 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
8058 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
8059 alias.
8060 \f
8061 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
8062
8063 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
8064
8065 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
8066 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
8067 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
8068 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
8069 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
8070
8071 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
8072 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
8073 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
8074
8075 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
8076
8077 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
8078 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
8079 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
8080 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
8081 chapter of the manual for details.
8082
8083 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
8084 customization variables take effect.
8085
8086 ** Marking with the mouse.
8087
8088 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
8089 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
8090 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
8091
8092 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
8093
8094 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
8095
8096 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
8097 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
8098
8099 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
8100 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
8101 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
8102 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
8103 applications, these problems are significant.
8104
8105 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
8106 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
8107 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
8108 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
8109 other DOS application as a subprocess.
8110
8111 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
8112 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
8113
8114 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
8115 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
8116 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
8117 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
8118 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
8119 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
8120
8121 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
8122
8123 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
8124 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
8125 minibuffer contains.
8126
8127 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
8128
8129 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
8130 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
8131 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
8132 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
8133
8134 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
8135 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
8136 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
8137 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
8138
8139 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
8140 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
8141
8142 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
8143 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
8144 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
8145
8146 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
8147 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
8148 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
8149 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8150
8151 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8152
8153 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8154 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8155
8156 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8157
8158 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8159 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8160 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8161 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8162 immediately after the selected one.
8163
8164 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8165 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8166
8167 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8168
8169 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8170 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8171 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8172 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8173 recover-session.
8174
8175 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8176 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8177 will not work.
8178
8179 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8180 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8181 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8182 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8183 now that the bug is fixed.
8184
8185 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8186
8187 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8188 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8189 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8190 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8191
8192 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8193 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8194 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8195 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8196
8197 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8198 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8199 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8200
8201 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8202 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8203 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8204 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8205 remain normal.
8206
8207 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8208 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8209
8210 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8211 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8212 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8213 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8214
8215 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8216 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8217 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8218 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8219 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8220 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8221
8222 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8223 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8224 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8225 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8226
8227 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8228 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8229 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8230
8231 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8232 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8233 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8234 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8235 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8236 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8237 to a limitation in font-lock).
8238
8239 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8240
8241 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8242 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8243 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8244 this example:
8245
8246 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8247 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8248
8249 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8250
8251 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8252
8253 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8254
8255 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8256
8257 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8258 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8259 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8260 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8261 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8262 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8263
8264 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8265 does the same job.
8266
8267 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8268 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8269
8270 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8271 text.
8272
8273 ** Font Lock mode
8274
8275 *** Global Font Lock mode
8276
8277 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8278 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8279 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8280 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8281 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8282
8283 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8284
8285 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8286
8287 in your ~/.emacs.
8288
8289 *** Local Refontification
8290
8291 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8292 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8293 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8294 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8295
8296 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8297 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8298 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8299 above and below point.
8300
8301 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8302
8303 ** Follow mode
8304
8305 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8306 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8307 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8308 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8309 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8310 follow-mode.
8311
8312 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8313
8314 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8315 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8316
8317 ** hide-show changes.
8318
8319 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8320 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8321 normal hooks.
8322
8323 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8324 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8325
8326 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8327 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8328 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8329
8330 ** MSDOS Changes
8331
8332 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8333 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8334
8335 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8336 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8337
8338 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8339
8340 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8341 pressing both mouse buttons.
8342
8343 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8344 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8345 are:
8346
8347 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8348 now works.
8349
8350 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8351
8352 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8353 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8354
8355 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8356
8357 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8358
8359 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8360
8361 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8362
8363 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8364 \f
8365 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8366
8367 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8368 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8369 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8370 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8371 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8372
8373 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8374
8375 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8376 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8377 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8378 be different.
8379
8380 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8381 than `system-type'.
8382
8383 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8384
8385 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8386 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8387
8388 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8389 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8390
8391 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8392 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8393 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8394
8395 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8396 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8397 like this:
8398
8399 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8400
8401 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8402 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8403 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8404
8405 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8406 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8407 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8408
8409 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8410 up if too much time passes.
8411
8412 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8413
8414 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8415 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8416 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8417 form in BODY.
8418
8419 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8420 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8421 call looks like this:
8422
8423 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8424
8425 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8426 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8427 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8428 ARGS.
8429
8430 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8431 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8432 command.
8433
8434 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8435 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8436 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8437 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8438
8439 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8440 idle for SECS seconds.
8441
8442 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8443 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8444 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8445 instead.
8446
8447 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8448 there is no answer within a certain time.
8449
8450 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8451
8452 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8453 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8454 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8455
8456 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8457 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8458 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8459 arguments in between are ignored.
8460
8461 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8462 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8463
8464 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8465 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8466 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8467 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8468 version.
8469
8470 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8471 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8472 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8473 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8474 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8475 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8476
8477 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8478 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8479 systems with limited file name syntax.
8480
8481 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8482 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8483 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8484 completions.el:
8485
8486 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8487 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8488 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8489
8490 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8491 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8492 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8493 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8494 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8495
8496 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8497 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8498 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8499
8500 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8501 marker from its buffer position.
8502
8503 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8504 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8505 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8506
8507 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8508 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8509 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8510 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8511 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8512 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8513
8514 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8515 errors that happen often during editing.
8516
8517 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8518 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8519 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8520
8521 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8522 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8523
8524 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8525 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8526 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8527 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8528 and not get-buffer-window.
8529
8530 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8531 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8532 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8533
8534 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8535 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8536 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8537 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8538 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8539 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8540 over and over for the same text.
8541
8542 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8543
8544 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8545 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8546
8547 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8548 ;; $HEADER: text $
8549
8550 in addition to the normal
8551
8552 ;; HEADER: text
8553
8554 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8555 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8556 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8557
8558
8559 \f
8560 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
8561
8562 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8563 Copyright information:
8564
8565 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8566
8567 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8568 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8569 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8570 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8571
8572 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8573 of this document, or of portions of it,
8574 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8575 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8576 \f
8577 Local variables:
8578 mode: outline
8579 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
8580 end: