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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2000-09-17
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 ** Gnus changes.
35
36 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
37 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
38 internationalization and mail-fetching.
39
40 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
41 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
42
43 If you used procmail like in
44
45 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
46 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
47 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
48 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
49
50 this now has changed to
51
52 (setq mail-sources
53 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
54 :suffix ".in")))
55
56 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
57 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
58
59 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
60 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
61
62 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too
63 many parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables.
64
65 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
66 called to position point.
67
68 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
69 summary buffers and NOV files.
70
71 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
72 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
73
74 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
75 subtly different manner.
76
77 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
78 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
79 ever-changing layouts.
80
81 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
82
83 *** There is image support.
84
85 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
86 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
87 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
88 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
89 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
90 on.
91
92 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
93 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
94 file that is already visited under a different name.
95
96 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
97 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
98
99 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
100 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
101 signaled.
102
103 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
104 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
105 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
106 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
107 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
108 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
109
110 +++
111 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
112 and displayes information about that.
113
114 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
115 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
116
117 ** Polish and German translations of Emacs' reference card have been
118 added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex' and `de-refcard.tex'.
119 Postscript files are included.
120
121 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
122 `dired-ref.tex'.
123
124 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
125 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
126
127 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
128 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
129 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
130 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
131 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
132 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
133
134 +++
135 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
136 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
137 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
138 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
139
140 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
141 a version-dependent component.
142
143 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
144 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
145 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
146 character is still bound as before.
147
148 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
149 using that menu.
150
151 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
152 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
153
154 +++
155 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
156 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
157 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
158 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
159 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
160 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
161 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
162
163 +++
164 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
165 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
166 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
167 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
168 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
169 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
170 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
171 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
172 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
173
174 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
175 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
176
177 +++
178 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
179 point in a pop-up window.
180
181 +++
182 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
183 displays all characters in that character set.
184
185 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
186 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
187
188 +++
189 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
190 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
191 defined on newcomment.el.
192
193 +++
194 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
195
196 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
197 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
198
199 +++
200 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
201 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
202 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
203 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
204
205 +++
206 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
207 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
208 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
209 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
210
211 +++
212 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
213 on the display using several methods
214
215 +++
216 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
217 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
218 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
219
220 +++
221 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
222 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
223
224 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
225
226 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
227 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
228
229 +++
230 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
231 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
232 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
233 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
234
235 +++
236 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
237 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
238 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
239
240 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
241 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
242
243 +++
244 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
245 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
246 this behavior.
247
248 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
249 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
250 Emacs dump core.
251
252 +++
253 ** New X resources recognized
254
255 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
256 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
257 is useful for debugging X problems.
258
259 Example:
260
261 emacs.synchronous: true
262
263 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
264 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
265 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
266 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
267 visual class names are
268
269 TrueColor
270 PseudoColor
271 DirectColor
272 StaticColor
273 GrayScale
274 StaticGray
275
276 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
277 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
278 meaning.
279
280 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
281 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
282 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
283 visual.
284
285 Example:
286
287 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
288
289 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
290 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
291 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
292 resource values are `true' or `on'.
293
294 Example:
295
296 emacs.privateColormap: true
297
298 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
299 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
300 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
301
302 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
303 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
304 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
305 be customized.
306
307 +++
308 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
309
310 +++
311 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
312 all frames except the selected one.
313
314 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
315 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
316
317 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
318 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
319 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
320 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
321
322 +++
323 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
324 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
325
326 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
327 read mail from the menu etc.
328
329 +++
330 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
331 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
332
333 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
334
335 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
336 macros
337
338 Key binding Macro
339 -------------------------
340 C-c C-c C-s @strong
341 C-c C-c C-e @emph
342 C-c C-c u @url
343 C-c C-c q @quotation
344 C-c C-c m @email
345
346 ** Changes in Outline mode.
347
348 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
349 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
350 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
351
352 ** Changes to Emacs Server
353
354 +++
355 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
356 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
357 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
358 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
359 buffers to kill, as before.
360
361 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
362 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
363 this way.
364
365 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
366
367 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
368 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
369 use. Default is 1000.
370
371 +++
372 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
373 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
374
375 +++
376 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
377 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
378 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
379 buffers.
380
381 +++
382 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
383 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
384 .emacs file.
385
386 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
387 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
388
389 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
390 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
391 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
392
393 ** Faces and frame parameters.
394
395 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
396 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
397 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
398 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
399 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
400 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
401 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
402
403 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
404 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
405 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
406 `default' face and vice versa.
407
408 +++
409 ** New face `menu'.
410
411 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
412 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
413 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
414
415 +++
416 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
417
418 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
419 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
420 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
421 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
422
423 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
424 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
425 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
426
427 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
428 `ScreenGamma'.
429
430 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
431
432 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
433 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
434 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
435 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
436 the text.
437
438 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
439
440 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
441 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
442 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
443 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
444 specify a font.
445
446 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
447 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
448 under Lisp changes, below.
449
450 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
451
452 +++
453 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
454 of its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid;
455 otherwise, it is hollow.
456
457 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
458 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
459 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
460 customizing face `fringe'.
461
462 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
463 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
464
465 ** LessTif support.
466
467 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see <http://www.lesstif.org>).
468 You will need a version 0.88.1 or later.
469
470 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
471
472 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
473 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
474 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
475 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
476 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
477 Emacs.
478
479 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
480 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
481 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
482 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
483 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
484 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
485
486 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
487 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
488 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
489 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
490 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
491 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
492
493 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
494 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
495 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
496 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
497 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
498
499 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
500
501 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
502 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
503 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
504
505 +++
506 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
507
508 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
509 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
510 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
511 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
512 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
513 whitespace.
514
515 +++
516 ** Busy-cursor.
517
518 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
519 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
520
521 +++
522 ** Blinking cursor
523
524 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
525 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
526 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
527 the group `cursor'.
528
529 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
530
531 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
532 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
533 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
534 details.
535
536 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
537 have to do anything to activate it.
538
539 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
540
541 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
542 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
543 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
544 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
545
546 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
547
548 +++
549 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
550
551 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
552
553 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
554 LessTif/Motif one.
555
556 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
557 LessTif and Motif.
558
559 +++
560 ** Hscrolling in C code.
561
562 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
563 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
564 customized.
565
566 ** Tool bar support.
567
568 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
569 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
570 Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is displayed.
571 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
572 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
573
574 +++
575 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
576
577 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
578 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
579 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
580 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
581 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
582
583 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
584
585 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
586 buffers.
587
588 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
589 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
590
591 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
592
593 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
594 `*') toggles the status.
595
596 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
597
598 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
599
600 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
601 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
602 non-nil.
603
604 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
605
606 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
607 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
608 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
609 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
610 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
611 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
612 on terminals.
613
614 ** Sound support
615
616 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
617 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
618 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
619
620 +++
621 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
622 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
623 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
624 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
625 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
626 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
627
628 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
629
630 +++
631 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
632
633 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
634 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
635 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
636
637 +++
638 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
639 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
640
641 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
642 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
643 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
644
645 +++
646 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
647
648 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
649 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
650 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
651 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
652
653 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
654 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
655 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
656 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
657
658 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
659 notably at the end of lines.
660
661 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
662 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
663
664 +++
665 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
666
667 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
668 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
669 after each match to get the replacement text.
670
671 +++
672 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
673 you edit the replacement string.
674
675 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
676 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
677 lisp-complete-symbol.
678
679 +++
680 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
681
682 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
683 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
684 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
685 window size by setting the following variable:
686
687 - User option: max-mini-window-height
688
689 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
690 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
691 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
692
693 Default is 0.25.
694
695 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
696
697 ** Changes to hideshow.el
698
699 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
700 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
701
702 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
703
704 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
705 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
706 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
707 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
708 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
709 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
710
711 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
712 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
713 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
714 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
715
716 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
717
718 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
719 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
720 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
721 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
722 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
723
724 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
725 something like this in your .emacs.
726
727 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
728 (lambda ()
729 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
730
731 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
732
733 +++
734 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
735 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
736 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
737
738 +++
739 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
740 buffer.
741
742 +++
743 New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries in
744 a log file.
745
746 +++
747 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
748 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
749
750 +++
751 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
752 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
753 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be cutomized.
754 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
755
756 ** Changes in Font Lock
757
758 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
759 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
760 mode.
761
762 ** Comint (subshell) changes
763
764 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
765 distiguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
766 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
767 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
768 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
769 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
770 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
771 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
772
773 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
774 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
775
776 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
777 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
778 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
779
780 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
781 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
782 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
783
784 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and scheme-interaction-mode
785 now highlight user input and program prompts, and support choosing
786 previous input with mouse-2. To control these feature, see the
787 user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
788
789 ** Changes to Rmail mode
790
791 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
792 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
793 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
794 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
795 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
796 as correspondent.
797
798 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
799 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
800 regexp matching your mail addresses.
801
802 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
803 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
804 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
805 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
806 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
807
808 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
809 like `j'.
810
811 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
812 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
813 digest message.
814
815 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
816 in which folder to put messages automatically.
817
818 ** Changes to TeX mode
819
820 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
821 `latex-mode'.
822
823 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
824
825 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
826 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
827 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
828 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
829 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
830 can be edited from that buffer.
831
832 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
833 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
834 `A' to use all marked entries).
835
836 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
837 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
838
839 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
840 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
841 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
842 been cited.
843
844 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
845 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
846 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
847 in column 1 are always made leaves.
848
849 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
850 has the following new features:
851
852 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
853 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
854 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
855 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
856
857 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
858 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
859 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
860 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
861 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
862 defaults to 1.
863
864 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
865 file names.
866
867 +++
868 ** Tooltips.
869
870 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
871 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
872 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
873
874 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
875 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
876 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
877 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
878
879 +++
880 ** Customize changes
881
882 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
883 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
884 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
885
886 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
887 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
888 default).
889
890 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
891 between custom options. Example:
892
893 (defcustom default-input-method nil
894 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
895 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
896 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
897 :group 'mule
898 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
899 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
900
901 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
902 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
903 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
904
905 ** New features in evaluation commands
906
907 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
908 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
909 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
910 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
911 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
912
913 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
914 code when called with a prefix argument.
915
916 ** Ispell changes
917
918 +++
919 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
920 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
921 spell-checks the current buffer.
922
923 +++
924 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
925 added.
926
927 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
928 correction is made and re-checked.
929
930 *** An Italian and a Portuguese dictionary definition has been added.
931
932 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
933 cases.
934
935 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
936 on syntax errors.
937
938 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
939 end of the buffer.
940
941 ** Dired changes
942
943 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
944 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
945 is, delete only empty directories.
946
947 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
948 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
949 copy directories recursively.
950
951 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
952 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
953 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
954
955 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
956 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
957 directory.
958
959 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
960 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
961 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
962 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
963 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
964
965 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
966 from ls switches.
967
968 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
969 use the -f option when sending mail.
970
971 ** CC mode changes.
972
973 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
974 current user setups (although it's believed that these
975 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
976 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
977 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
978 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
979 release.
980
981 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
982 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
983 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
984 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
985 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
986 have to bother.
987
988 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
989 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
990 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
991 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
992 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
993 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
994
995 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
996 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
997 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
998 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
999 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
1000 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
1001 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
1002 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
1003
1004 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
1005 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
1006 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
1007 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
1008 above.
1009
1010 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
1011 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
1012 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
1013 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
1014 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
1015 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
1016 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
1017 function documentation for more info.
1018
1019 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
1020 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
1021 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
1022 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
1023 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
1024 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
1025 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
1026 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
1027
1028 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
1029
1030 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
1031 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
1032
1033 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
1034 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
1035 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
1036 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
1037 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
1038 style system.
1039
1040 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
1041 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
1042 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
1043 as far as possible.
1044
1045 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
1046 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
1047 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
1048 chapter about this in the manual.
1049
1050 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
1051 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
1052 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
1053 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
1054 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
1055
1056 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
1057 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
1058 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
1059
1060 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
1061 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1062
1063 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
1064 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
1065 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
1066 inside CC Mode.
1067
1068 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
1069 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
1070 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
1071 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
1072 cc-mode/).
1073
1074 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
1075 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
1076 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
1077 literals.
1078
1079 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
1080 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
1081 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
1082 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1083 this function.
1084
1085 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1086 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1087 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1088 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1089 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1090
1091 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1092 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1093 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1094
1095 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1096
1097 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1098 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1099 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1100 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1101
1102 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1103 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1104 the column specified by comment-column.
1105
1106 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1107 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1108 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1109 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1110 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1111 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1112
1113 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1114 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1115 arguments.
1116
1117 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1118
1119 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1120 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1121 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1122 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1123 Provan).
1124
1125 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1126
1127 ** Makefile mode changes
1128
1129 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1130
1131 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1132 Fontlock mode is active.
1133
1134 ** Isearch changes
1135
1136 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1137 so that searches can be resumed.
1138
1139 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1140 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1141 that started the search.
1142
1143 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1144 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1145
1146 +++
1147 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1148
1149 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1150 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1151 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1152 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1153 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1154 `secondary-selection'.
1155
1156 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1157 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1158 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1159 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1160 usual snappy response.
1161
1162 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1163 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1164 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1165 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1166
1167 +++
1168 ** Changes in sort.el
1169
1170 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1171 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1172 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
1173 numeric base.
1174
1175 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1176
1177 +++
1178 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1179 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1180 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1181
1182 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1183 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1184
1185 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1186 output ^M at the end of lines.
1187
1188 ** Shell script mode changes.
1189
1190 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1191 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1192 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1193
1194 ** Etags changes.
1195
1196 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1197
1198 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1199 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1200 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1201 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1202 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1203
1204 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1205 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1206
1207 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1208 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1209
1210 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1211 types.
1212
1213 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1214
1215 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1216
1217 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1218 are now tagged.
1219
1220 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1221 variables are tagged.
1222
1223 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1224
1225 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1226 for PSWrap.
1227
1228 +++
1229 ** Changes in etags.el
1230
1231 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1232 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1233 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1234
1235 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1236 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1237
1238 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1239 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1240 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1241 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1242
1243 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1244
1245 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1246 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1247
1248 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1249
1250 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1251 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1252 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1253
1254 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1255 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1256
1257 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1258 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1259
1260 +++
1261 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1262 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1263 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1264
1265 +++
1266 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1267 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1268 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1269 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet; there are basic 8859-14 and
1270 8859-15 fonts at <URL:http://czyborra.com/charsets/> and recent X
1271 releases have 8859-15. There are new Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix
1272 (only) and Polish slash input methods in Leim.
1273
1274 +++
1275 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1276 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1277 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1278
1279 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1280
1281 +++
1282 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1283
1284 +++
1285 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
1286 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1287 expression from that list, are not checked.
1288
1289 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1290 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1291 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1292 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1293
1294 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1295
1296 +++
1297 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
1298 displays local abbrevs, only.
1299
1300 ** VC Changes
1301
1302 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
1303 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
1304 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
1305 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
1306 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
1307 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of atoms that identify
1308 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
1309 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
1310 file is registered in that backend.
1311
1312 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
1313 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
1314 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
1315 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
1316 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
1317 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
1318
1319 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
1320 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
1321 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
1322 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
1323 where it doesn't make sense.)
1324
1325 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
1326 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
1327 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
1328
1329 *** General Changes
1330
1331 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
1332 checks are always done now.
1333
1334 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
1335 operations.
1336
1337 *** Changes for CVS
1338
1339 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
1340 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
1341 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
1342 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
1343 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
1344 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
1345 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
1346
1347 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
1348 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
1349 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
1350 commit, you can either use C-u C-x v m to perform an update on the
1351 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
1352 entire directory tree.
1353
1354 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
1355 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
1356 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
1357 "watched" by other developers.)
1358
1359 *** Lisp Changes in VC
1360
1361 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
1362 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
1363 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
1364 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
1365 a version system named FOO, you write a library named vc-foo.el, which
1366 provides a number of functions vc-foo-... (see commentary at the end
1367 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
1368 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the atom
1369 `FOO' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
1370
1371 ** New modes and packages
1372
1373 +++
1374 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1375 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1376 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1377 on certain projects.
1378
1379 +++
1380 *** The new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1381 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1382
1383 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1384
1385 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1386 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1387 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1388 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1389 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1390 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1391 corresponding file is read.
1392
1393 +++
1394 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1395 Emacs is idle.
1396
1397 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1398 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1399
1400 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1401 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1402 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1403
1404 +++
1405 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1406 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1407 separate Texinfo file.
1408
1409 +++
1410 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1411 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1412 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1413 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1414 enter checkin log messages.
1415
1416 +++
1417 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1418 without invoking external programs.
1419
1420 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1421 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1422 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1423 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1424 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1425
1426 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1427 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1428
1429 +++
1430 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1431 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1432
1433 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1434 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1435 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1436 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1437 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1438 single step.
1439
1440 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1441 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1442 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1443 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1444
1445 +++
1446 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1447 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1448 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1449
1450 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1451 PostScript.
1452
1453 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1454
1455 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1456
1457 ; comment (until end of line)
1458 A non-terminal
1459 "C" terminal
1460 ?C? special
1461 $A default non-terminal
1462 $"C" default terminal
1463 $?C? default special
1464 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1465 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1466 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1467 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1468 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1469 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1470 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1471 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1472 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1473 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1474 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1475 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1476 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1477 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1478 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1479
1480 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1481
1482 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1483 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1484 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1485 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1486 equal signs of assignments.
1487
1488 +++
1489 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1490 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1491
1492 +++
1493 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1494 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1495 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1496 customize the package.
1497
1498 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1499
1500 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1501 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1502 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1503 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1504 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1505 which answers different needs.
1506
1507 +++
1508 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1509 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1510 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1511 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1512 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1513 to be enabled.
1514
1515 +++
1516 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1517 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1518
1519 +++
1520 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1521
1522 +++
1523 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1524
1525 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1526
1527 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1528 Pascal) language.
1529
1530 +++
1531 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1532 the text at point.
1533
1534 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1535
1536 +++
1537 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1538
1539 *** whitespace.el ???
1540
1541 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1542 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1543 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1544 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1545 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1546 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1547 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1548
1549 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1550
1551 Here is an example of columns:
1552
1553 horse apple bus
1554 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1555 porcupine strawberry airplane
1556
1557 Doing the following settings:
1558
1559 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1560 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1561 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1562 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1563
1564
1565 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1566
1567 M-x delimit-columns-region
1568
1569 It results:
1570
1571 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1572 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1573 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1574
1575 delim-col has the following options:
1576
1577 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1578 before all columns.
1579
1580 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1581 between each column.
1582
1583 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1584 after all columns.
1585
1586 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1587 each column.
1588
1589 delim-col has the following commands:
1590
1591 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1592 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1593
1594 +++
1595 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1596 were operated on recently.
1597
1598 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1599
1600 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1601 recentf at Emacs startup.
1602
1603 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1604 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1605 file list can be displayed:
1606
1607 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1608 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1609 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1610
1611 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1612 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1613
1614 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1615 text.
1616
1617 +++
1618 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1619 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1620 specific to Message mode.
1621
1622 +++
1623 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1624 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1625 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1626
1627 +++
1628 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1629 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1630 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1631
1632 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1633 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1634
1635 +++
1636 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1637
1638 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1639 minibuffer with completion.
1640
1641 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1642 with the diary features.
1643
1644 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1645 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1646
1647 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1648 Fill mode.
1649
1650 ** Withdrawn packages
1651
1652 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1653 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1654
1655 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1656
1657 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1658
1659 \f
1660 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1661 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1662
1663 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
1664 with the more general `:mask' property.
1665
1666 ** Image specifications accept more `:algorithm's.
1667
1668 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
1669 backslash.
1670
1671 +++
1672 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
1673 is running in batch mode. For example,
1674
1675 (message "%s" (read t))
1676
1677 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
1678 to standard output.
1679
1680 +++
1681 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
1682 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
1683
1684 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1685 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1686 frame or window.
1687
1688 +++
1689 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1690 were added
1691
1692 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1693
1694 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1695 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1696
1697 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1698
1699 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1700 comparison is done with `eq'.
1701
1702 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1703
1704 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1705 has been changed.
1706
1707 +++
1708 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1709 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1710 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1711
1712 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1713 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1714
1715 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1716 function was declared obsolete.
1717
1718 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1719 retained as an alias).
1720
1721 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1722 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1723 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1724
1725 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1726
1727 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1728
1729 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1730 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1731
1732 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1733
1734 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1735
1736 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1737
1738 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1739 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1740 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1741 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1742 returned.
1743
1744 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1745 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1746 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1747 minibuffer even if it is active.
1748
1749 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1750 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1751 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1752 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1753 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1754 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1755
1756 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1757 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1758 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1759 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1760 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1761 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1762 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1763
1764 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1765 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1766 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1767
1768 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1769 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1770 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1771 Default value is nil.
1772
1773 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1774 meaning no limit.
1775
1776 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1777 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1778 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1779
1780 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1781 of a primitive.
1782
1783 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1784 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1785 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1786 than replacing the local map.
1787
1788 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1789 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1790
1791 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1792
1793 +++
1794 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1795 promised long ago.
1796
1797 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1798 \f
1799 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1800
1801 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1802 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1803 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1804 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1805
1806 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
1807 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
1808 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
1809 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
1810
1811 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1812 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1813 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1814 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1815
1816 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1817 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1818 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1819
1820 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1821 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1822 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1823 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1824 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1825 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1826 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1827 eight-bit-graphic.
1828
1829 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1830
1831 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1832 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1833 character set as previously.
1834
1835 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1836 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1837 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1838
1839 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1840 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1841 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1842 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1843
1844 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1845 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1846
1847 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1848 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1849 "fontset-default".
1850
1851 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1852 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1853
1854 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1855 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1856 buffers and strings.
1857
1858 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1859 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1860 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1861 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1862 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1863 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1864 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1865 also been deleted.
1866
1867 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1868 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1869 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1870
1871 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1872 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1873 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1874 may differ between buffer and string text.
1875
1876 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1877 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1878
1879 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1880 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1881 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1882 `composition' from STRING.
1883
1884 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1885 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1886
1887 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1888 obsolete.
1889
1890 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1891 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1892 character set is not used.
1893
1894 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1895 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1896 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1897
1898 +++
1899 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1900 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1901 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1902
1903 +++
1904 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1905 that offset in the file before writing.
1906
1907 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1908 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1909
1910 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1911 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1912 from which the command was issued.
1913
1914 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1915 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1916 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1917 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1918 operate on.
1919
1920 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1921 to `window-buffer-height'.
1922
1923 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1924
1925 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1926 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1927 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1928
1929 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1930 respectively.
1931
1932 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1933 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1934
1935 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1936 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1937 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1938
1939 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1940 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1941 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1942 is currently displayed in some window.
1943
1944 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1945 argument function's results.
1946
1947 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1948 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1949
1950 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1951 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1952
1953 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1954 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1955
1956 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1957 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1958 as follows:
1959
1960 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1961 nil don't display a cursor
1962 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1963 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1964 others display a box cursor.
1965
1966 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1967 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1968 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1969 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1970
1971 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1972 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1973 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1974 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1975
1976 Example:
1977
1978 (string-to-syntax "()")
1979 => (4 . 41)
1980
1981 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1982 other than 10.
1983
1984 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1985 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1986
1987 #b1111
1988 => 15
1989 #b-1111
1990 => -15
1991
1992 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1993
1994 #o666
1995 => 438
1996
1997 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1998
1999 #xbeef
2000 => 48815
2001
2002 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
2003
2004 #2R-111
2005 => -7
2006 #25rah
2007 => 267
2008
2009 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
2010 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
2011 and isn't a string.
2012
2013 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
2014 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
2015 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
2016 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
2017
2018 +++
2019 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
2020
2021 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
2022 for a regexp in a string.
2023
2024 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
2025 `mouse-position-function'.
2026
2027 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
2028 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
2029
2030 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
2031 Keywords are now always considered constants.
2032
2033 +++
2034 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
2035 returns it.
2036
2037 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
2038 returned by function `recent-keys'.
2039
2040 +++
2041 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
2042 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
2043 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
2044 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
2045 mode.
2046
2047 +++
2048 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
2049 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
2050
2051 +++
2052 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
2053 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
2054 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
2055 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
2056 been performed."
2057
2058 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
2059 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
2060 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
2061 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
2062
2063 +++
2064 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
2065 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
2066 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
2067
2068 +++
2069 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
2070 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
2071 specified table.
2072
2073 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
2074
2075 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
2076 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
2077 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
2078 what BODY returns.
2079
2080 +++
2081 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
2082 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
2083
2084 +++
2085 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
2086 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
2087
2088 +++
2089 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
2090 instead of being optional.
2091
2092 +++
2093 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
2094 modify read-only text.
2095
2096 +++
2097 ** New functions and variables for locales.
2098
2099 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
2100 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
2101 time functions like strftime. The new variables
2102 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
2103 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
2104
2105 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
2106 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
2107 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
2108 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
2109 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
2110 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
2111 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
2112
2113 +++
2114 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
2115 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
2116 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
2117 start sequences.
2118
2119 +++
2120 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
2121 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
2122
2123 +++
2124 ** New function `propertize'
2125
2126 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
2127 strings with text properties.
2128
2129 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
2130
2131 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
2132 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
2133 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
2134 specified value of that property. Example:
2135
2136 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
2137
2138 +++
2139 ** push and pop macros.
2140
2141 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
2142 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
2143 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
2144
2145 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
2146 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
2147 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
2148
2149 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
2150
2151 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
2152 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
2153
2154 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
2155 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
2156 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
2157 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2158
2159 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
2160 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
2161 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
2162 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2163
2164 +++
2165 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
2166 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
2167
2168 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
2169 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
2170 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
2171 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
2172 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
2173 space, and DEL.
2174 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2175 and DEL.
2176 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
2177 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2178 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2179 [:alpha:] matches letters.
2180 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2181 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2182 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2183 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2184 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
2185 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
2186 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2187 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2188 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2189 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
2190 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
2191
2192 +++
2193 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2194
2195 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2196
2197 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2198
2199 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2200 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2201
2202 :test TEST
2203
2204 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2205 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2206 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2207
2208 :size SIZE
2209
2210 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2211 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2212
2213 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2214
2215 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2216 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2217 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2218 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2219 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2220
2221 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2222
2223 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2224 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2225 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2226
2227 :weakness WEAK
2228
2229 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2230 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2231 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2232 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2233 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2234
2235 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2236
2237 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2238
2239 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2240
2241 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2242
2243 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2244
2245 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2246 values are shared.
2247
2248 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2249
2250 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2251
2252 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2253
2254 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2255
2256 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2257
2258 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2259
2260 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2261
2262 Returns the size of TABLE.
2263
2264 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2265
2266 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2267
2268 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2269
2270 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2271
2272 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2273
2274 Clear TABLE.
2275
2276 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2277
2278 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2279 not found.
2280
2281 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2282
2283 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2284 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2285
2286 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2287
2288 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2289
2290 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2291
2292 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2293 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2294
2295 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2296
2297 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2298
2299 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2300
2301 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2302 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2303 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2304 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2305 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2306
2307 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2308
2309 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2310 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2311 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
2312
2313 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
2314 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
2315
2316 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
2317 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
2318
2319 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2320 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2321
2322 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2323 'case-fold-string-hash))
2324
2325 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2326
2327 +++
2328 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2329
2330 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2331 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2332 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2333
2334 +++
2335 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2336
2337 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2338 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2339
2340 +++
2341 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2342 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2343 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2344 is too short to reach that column.
2345
2346 +++
2347 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2348 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2349 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2350 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2351
2352 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2353 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2354 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2355
2356 +++
2357 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2358 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2359
2360 +++
2361 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2362 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2363
2364 +++
2365 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2366 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2367 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2368 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2369 temporary-file-directory instead.
2370
2371 +++
2372 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2373 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2374 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2375 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2376
2377 +++
2378 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2379 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2380
2381 +++
2382 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2383
2384 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2385 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2386 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2387
2388 +++
2389 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2390
2391 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2392 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2393 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2394 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2395 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2396 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2397
2398 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2399 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2400 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2401 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2402
2403 +++
2404 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2405
2406 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2407 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2408 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2409 result string.
2410
2411 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2412 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2413
2414 Example:
2415
2416 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2417 (s2 "world"))
2418 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2419 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2420 (format s1 s2))
2421
2422 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2423
2424 +++
2425 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2426
2427 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2428 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2429 argument in it.
2430
2431 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2432 (arg "world"))
2433 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2434 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2435 (message msg arg))
2436
2437 +++
2438 ** Sound support
2439
2440 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2441 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2442
2443 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2444 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2445 to enable sound support.
2446
2447 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2448 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2449 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2450 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2451 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2452
2453 The following sound properties are supported:
2454
2455 - `:file FILE'
2456
2457 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2458 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2459
2460 - `:data DATA'
2461
2462 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2463 may be present, but not both.
2464
2465 - `:volume VOLUME'
2466
2467 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2468 0..1. This property is optional.
2469
2470 Other properties are ignored.
2471
2472 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2473
2474 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2475 a keyword symbol.
2476
2477 ** Changes to garbage collection
2478
2479 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2480 of live and free strings.
2481
2482 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2483 strings that have been consed so far.
2484
2485 \f
2486 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2487 Lisp Manual
2488
2489 *** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
2490
2491 +++
2492 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2493
2494 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2495 image.
2496
2497 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2498
2499 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2500
2501 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2502 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2503 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2504 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2505 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2506
2507 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
2508 has a mask bitmap.
2509
2510 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
2511
2512 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
2513 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
2514 or omitted means use the selected frame.
2515
2516 +++
2517 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2518 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2519
2520 +++
2521 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2522 optional.
2523
2524 +++
2525 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
2526 below).
2527
2528 \f
2529 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2530
2531 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2532 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2533 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2534 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2535
2536 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2537 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2538
2539 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2540 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2541 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2542 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2543 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2544 just display it black instead.
2545
2546 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2547 a line like
2548
2549 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2550
2551 in your `.emacs'.
2552
2553 ** New face implementation.
2554
2555 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2556 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2557
2558 +++
2559 *** New faces.
2560
2561 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2562
2563 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2564
2565 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2566 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2567
2568 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2569
2570 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2571
2572 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2573
2574 6. Foreground color.
2575
2576 7. Background color.
2577
2578 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2579
2580 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2581
2582 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2583
2584 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2585
2586 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2587 color.
2588
2589 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2590 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2591
2592 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2593 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2594 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2595 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2596 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2597 attributes mentioned above.
2598
2599 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2600 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2601 created frames.
2602
2603 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2604 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2605 `fully-specified'.
2606
2607 +++
2608 *** Face merging.
2609
2610 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2611 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2612 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2613 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2614 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2615 results in a fully-specified face.
2616
2617 +++
2618 *** Face realization.
2619
2620 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2621 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2622 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2623 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2624 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2625 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2626
2627 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2628 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2629 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2630 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2631
2632 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2633 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2634 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2635 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2636 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2637
2638 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2639 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2640 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2641 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2642 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2643 Emacs.
2644
2645 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2646 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2647 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2648 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2649
2650 ++++
2651 **** Clearing face caches.
2652
2653 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2654 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2655 unused fonts.
2656
2657 +++
2658 *** Font selection.
2659
2660 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2661 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2662 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2663
2664 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2665 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2666 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2667 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2668 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2669
2670 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2671 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2672 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2673
2674 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2675
2676 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2677 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2678 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2679 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2680 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2681 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2682 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2683
2684 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2685 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2686 face doesn't exist.
2687
2688 +++
2689 **** Scalable fonts
2690
2691 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2692 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2693 servers.
2694
2695 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2696 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2697 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2698 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2699 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2700 that list. Example:
2701
2702 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2703
2704 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2705
2706 +++
2707 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2708
2709 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2710
2711 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2712 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2713 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2714
2715 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2716 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2717 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2718 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2719 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2720 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2721 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2722 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2723 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2724 of the face font sort order.
2725
2726 - Function: x-font-family-list
2727
2728 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2729 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2730 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2731 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2732
2733 - Variable: font-list-limit
2734
2735 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2736 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2737 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2738
2739 +++
2740 *** Setting face attributes.
2741
2742 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2743 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2744 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2745 `face-attribute'.
2746
2747 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2748 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2749
2750 The following attributes are recognized:
2751
2752 `:family'
2753
2754 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2755 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2756 and `?' are allowed.
2757
2758 `:width'
2759
2760 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2761 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2762 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2763 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2764
2765 `:height'
2766
2767 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
2768 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
2769 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
2770 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
2771
2772 `:weight'
2773
2774 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2775 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2776 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2777
2778 `:slant'
2779
2780 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2781 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2782 `reverse-oblique'.
2783
2784 `:foreground', `:background'
2785
2786 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2787
2788 `:underline'
2789
2790 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2791 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2792 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2793 don't underline.
2794
2795 `:overline'
2796
2797 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2798 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2799 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2800 overline.
2801
2802 `:strike-through'
2803
2804 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2805 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2806 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2807 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2808
2809 `:box'
2810
2811 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2812 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2813 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2814 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2815 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2816 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2817 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2818 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2819 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2820 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2821 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2822 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2823 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2824 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2825 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2826 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2827 box.
2828
2829 `:inverse-video'
2830
2831 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2832 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2833
2834 `:stipple'
2835
2836 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2837 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2838 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2839 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2840 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2841 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2842
2843 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2844 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2845
2846 `:font'
2847
2848 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2849 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2850 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2851 versions of Emacs.
2852
2853 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2854 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2855 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2856
2857 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2858 `defface'.
2859
2860 `:inherit'
2861
2862 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
2863 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
2864 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
2865
2866 *** Face attributes and X resources
2867
2868 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2869 from X resources:
2870
2871 Face attribute X resource class
2872 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2873 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2874 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2875 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2876 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2877 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2878 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2879 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2880 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2881 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2882 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2883 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2884 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2885 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2886 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2887 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2888 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2889 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2890 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2891 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2892
2893 +++
2894 *** Text property `face'.
2895
2896 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2897 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2898 specification can be
2899
2900 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2901
2902 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2903 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2904 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2905 for face attribute names.
2906
2907 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2908 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2909 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2910
2911 +++
2912 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2913
2914 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2915 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2916 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2917 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2918 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2919 used to clear the mapping table.
2920
2921 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2922
2923 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2924 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2925 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2926 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2927 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2928 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2929 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2930 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2931 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2932 modify their color-related behavior.
2933
2934 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2935 any frame type.
2936
2937 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2938
2939 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2940 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2941 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2942 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2943 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2944 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2945 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2946 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2947 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2948
2949 +++
2950 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2951
2952 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2953
2954 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2955 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2956 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2957
2958 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2959
2960 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2961 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2962 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
2963
2964 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2965 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2966 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2967 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2968 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2969 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2970 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2971 functions.
2972
2973 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2974 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2975 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2976
2977 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2978
2979 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
2980
2981 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2982
2983 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2984 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2985 constrained position if that is is different.
2986
2987 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2988 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2989 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2990 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
2991 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2992 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2993 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
2994 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
2995 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
2996
2997 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2998 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2999 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
3000 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
3001 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
3002
3003 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
3004 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
3005
3006 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
3007
3008 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
3009
3010 Delete the field surrounding POS.
3011 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3012 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3013
3014 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3015
3016 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
3017 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3018 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3019 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
3020 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
3021
3022 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3023
3024 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
3025 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3026 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3027 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
3028 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
3029
3030 - Function: field-string &optional POS
3031
3032 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
3033 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3034 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3035
3036 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
3037
3038 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
3039 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3040 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3041
3042 +++
3043 ** Image support.
3044
3045 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
3046 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
3047 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
3048 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
3049
3050 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
3051 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
3052 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
3053 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
3054 area.
3055
3056 IMAGE is an image specification.
3057
3058 *** Image specifications
3059
3060 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
3061 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
3062 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
3063 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
3064 described below are ignored.
3065
3066 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
3067
3068 `:ascent ASCENT'
3069
3070 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
3071 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
3072 to use for its ascent.
3073
3074 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
3075 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
3076
3077 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
3078 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
3079 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
3080 overlays that apply to the image.
3081
3082 `:margin MARGIN'
3083
3084 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
3085 margin around the image. Default is 0.
3086
3087 `:relief RELIEF'
3088
3089 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
3090 around an image.
3091
3092 `:algorithm ALGO'
3093
3094 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
3095
3096 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
3097 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
3098
3099 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
3100 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
3101 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
3102 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
3103 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
3104 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
3105 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
3106 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
3107 below.
3108
3109 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
3110 x-1/y x/y x+1/y
3111 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
3112
3113 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
3114 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
3115 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
3116 of the factors' absolute values.
3117
3118 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
3119
3120 (1 0 0
3121 0 0 0
3122 9 9 -1)
3123
3124 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
3125
3126 ( 2 -1 0
3127 -1 0 1
3128 0 1 -2)
3129
3130 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
3131 ``disabled''.
3132
3133 `:mask MASK'
3134
3135 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
3136 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
3137 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
3138 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
3139 image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from the corners is
3140 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
3141 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
3142 image.
3143
3144 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
3145 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
3146 `:mask nil'.
3147
3148 `:file FILE'
3149
3150 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
3151 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
3152 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
3153 may be present in the image specification.
3154
3155 `:data DATA'
3156
3157 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
3158 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
3159 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
3160 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
3161
3162 *** Supported image types
3163
3164 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
3165
3166 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
3167 properties supported are
3168
3169 `:foreground FG'
3170
3171 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
3172 is the frame's foreground.
3173
3174 `:background FG'
3175
3176 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
3177 the frame's background color.
3178
3179 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
3180 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
3181 instead of a `:file' property.
3182
3183 `:width WIDTH'
3184
3185 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
3186
3187 `:height HEIGHT'
3188
3189 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
3190
3191 `:data DATA'
3192
3193 DATA must be either
3194
3195 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
3196 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
3197
3198 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
3199
3200 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
3201 bitmap.
3202
3203 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
3204 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
3205 in the file.
3206
3207 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
3208
3209 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
3210 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
3211 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
3212 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
3213
3214 Additional image properties supported are:
3215
3216 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
3217
3218 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
3219 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
3220 name.
3221
3222 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
3223 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
3224
3225 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
3226 to display compressed images.
3227
3228 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
3229
3230 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
3231 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
3232 defined.
3233
3234 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
3235
3236 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
3237 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
3238 are:
3239
3240 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
3241
3242 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
3243 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3244 properties defined.
3245
3246 **** GIF, image type `gif'
3247
3248 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
3249 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
3250
3251 Additional image properties supported are:
3252
3253 `:index INDEX'
3254
3255 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3256 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
3257
3258 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3259 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3260 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3261 every 0.1 seconds.
3262
3263 (defun show-anim (file max)
3264 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3265 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3266
3267 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
3268 (when (= idx max)
3269 (setq idx 0))
3270 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
3271 (save-excursion
3272 (set-buffer buffer)
3273 (goto-char (point-min))
3274 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
3275 (insert-image img "x"))
3276 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
3277
3278 **** PNG, image type `png'
3279
3280 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
3281 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3282 properties defined.
3283
3284 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
3285
3286 Additional image properties supported are:
3287
3288 `:pt-width WIDTH'
3289
3290 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
3291 integer. This is a required property.
3292
3293 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
3294
3295 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
3296 must be a integer. This is an required property.
3297
3298 `:bounding-box BOX'
3299
3300 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
3301 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
3302 files. This is an required property.
3303
3304 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
3305 lisp/gs.el.
3306
3307 *** Lisp interface.
3308
3309 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
3310 which are supported in the current configuration.
3311
3312 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
3313 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
3314 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
3315 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
3316 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
3317
3318 *** Simplified image API, image.el
3319
3320 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
3321 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
3322 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
3323 define an image based on available image types. The functions
3324 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
3325 buffer.
3326
3327 +++
3328 ** Display margins.
3329
3330 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
3331 and images.
3332
3333 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
3334 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
3335 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
3336 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
3337 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3338 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3339 of the display margins.
3340
3341 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
3342 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
3343 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
3344 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
3345 in this file).
3346
3347 +++
3348 ** Help display
3349
3350 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
3351 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
3352 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
3353 that have a `help-echo' property.
3354
3355 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
3356 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
3357 the window in which the help was found.
3358
3359 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
3360 `help-echo' text property was found.
3361
3362 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
3363 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
3364
3365 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
3366 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
3367 mouse.
3368
3369 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
3370 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
3371
3372 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
3373 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
3374 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
3375 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
3376 used as help string.
3377
3378 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
3379 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
3380 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
3381
3382 +++
3383 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3384
3385 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3386 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3387
3388 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3389 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3390 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3391 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3392 used.
3393
3394 (global-set-key [A-down]
3395 #'(lambda ()
3396 (interactive)
3397 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3398 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3399 (global-set-key [A-up]
3400 #'(lambda ()
3401 (interactive)
3402 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3403 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3404
3405 +++
3406 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3407
3408 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3409 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3410 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3411 is called with one argument, POS.
3412
3413 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3414 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3415 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3416 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3417 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3418
3419 +++
3420 ** Tool bar support.
3421
3422 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3423 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3424 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3425 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3426 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3427 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3428
3429 *** Tool bar item definitions
3430
3431 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3432 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3433 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3434
3435 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3436 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3437 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3438 property (see below).
3439
3440 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3441 binding are currently ignored.
3442
3443 The following properties are recognized:
3444
3445 `:enable FORM'.
3446
3447 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3448 or disabled.
3449
3450 `:visible FORM'
3451
3452 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3453
3454 `:filter FUNCTION'
3455
3456 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3457 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3458 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3459
3460 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3461
3462 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3463 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3464
3465 `:image IMAGES'
3466
3467 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3468 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3469 meaning of each of the four elements:
3470
3471 Index Use when item is
3472 ----------------------------------------
3473 0 enabled and selected
3474 1 enabled and deselected
3475 2 disabled and selected
3476 3 disabled and deselected
3477
3478 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3479 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3480
3481 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3482
3483 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3484 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3485
3486 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
3487 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
3488 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
3489 menu bar.
3490
3491 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3492
3493 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3494 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3495 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3496
3497 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3498 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3499
3500 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3501 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3502 pixels. Default is 1.
3503
3504 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3505 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3506
3507 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3508
3509 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3510 a tool bar item. If
3511
3512 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3513 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3514 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3515
3516 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3517
3518 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3519
3520 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3521 item.
3522
3523 ** Mode line changes.
3524
3525 +++
3526 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3527
3528 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3529 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3530 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3531
3532 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3533 a `local-map' text property.
3534
3535 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3536 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3537
3538 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3539 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3540 `local-map' property.
3541
3542 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3543 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3544 example.
3545
3546 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3547 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3548
3549 +++
3550 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3551 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3552
3553 +++
3554 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3555
3556 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3557 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3558 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3559 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3560 line.
3561
3562 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3563 `header-line'.
3564
3565 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3566 position in the header-line.
3567
3568 +++
3569 ** Text property `display'
3570
3571 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3572 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3573 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3574 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3575
3576 *** Variable width and height spaces
3577
3578 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3579 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3580 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3581 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3582 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3583 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3584 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3585
3586 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3587 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3588 properties described below.
3589
3590 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3591 characters having the `display' property.
3592
3593 - :width WIDTH
3594
3595 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3596 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3597
3598 - :relative-width FACTOR
3599
3600 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3601 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3602 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3603 width of that character by FACTOR.
3604
3605 - :align-to HPOS
3606
3607 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3608 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3609
3610 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3611
3612 - :height HEIGHT
3613
3614 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3615 normal line height.
3616
3617 - :relative-height FACTOR
3618
3619 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3620 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3621
3622 - :ascent ASCENT
3623
3624 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3625 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3626 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3627 equal to 100.
3628
3629 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3630
3631 *** Images
3632
3633 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3634 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3635 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3636 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3637 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3638 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3639 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3640 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3641 as display specification.
3642
3643 *** Other display properties
3644
3645 - :space-width FACTOR
3646
3647 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3648 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3649 integer or float.
3650
3651 - :height HEIGHT
3652
3653 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3654
3655 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3656 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3657 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3658 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3659 a font is available counts as a step.
3660
3661 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3662 as tall as the frame's default font.
3663
3664 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3665 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3666
3667 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3668 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3669
3670 - :raise FACTOR
3671
3672 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3673 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3674 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3675 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3676 `:height' subproperty.
3677
3678 *** Conditional display properties
3679
3680 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3681 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3682 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3683 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3684 the text having the `display' property.
3685
3686 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3687 `(:when t SPEC)'.
3688
3689 +++
3690 ** New menu separator types.
3691
3692 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3693 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3694 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3695 to specify other menu separator types.
3696
3697 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3698
3699 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3700 separator occurs.
3701
3702 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3703
3704 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3705
3706 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3707
3708 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3709
3710 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3711
3712 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3713
3714 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3715
3716 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3717
3718 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3719
3720 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3721 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3722
3723 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3724
3725 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3726
3727 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3728
3729 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3730
3731 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3732
3733 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3734
3735 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3736
3737 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3738
3739 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3740
3741 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3742
3743 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3744
3745 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3746
3747 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3748
3749 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3750
3751 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3752 the corresponding single-line separators.
3753
3754 +++
3755 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3756
3757 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3758 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3759 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3760 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3761 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3762 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3763 default foreground is black.
3764
3765 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3766 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3767 `ScrollBarBackground').
3768
3769 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3770 settings for scroll bar colors.
3771
3772 +++
3773 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3774 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3775
3776 ---
3777 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3778 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3779 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3780 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3781 the original window start.
3782
3783 ---
3784 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3785 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3786 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3787
3788 +++
3789 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3790
3791 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3792 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3793 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3794 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3795
3796 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3797 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3798
3799 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3800
3801 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3802 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3803 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3804 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3805 temporarily to nil, for example
3806
3807 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3808 (enlarge-window 10))
3809
3810 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3811 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3812
3813 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3814 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3815 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3816 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3817 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3818 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3819
3820
3821 ^L
3822 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3823
3824 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3825 input.
3826
3827 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3828
3829 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3830
3831 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3832 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3833 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3834 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3835 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3836
3837 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3838 been added.
3839
3840 ^L
3841 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3842
3843 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3844
3845 ^L
3846 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3847
3848 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3849 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3850 \f
3851 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3852
3853 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3854
3855 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3856 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3857 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3858
3859 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3860 is the one that is used.
3861
3862 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3863 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3864 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3865 separate from the command's regular output.
3866 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3867 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3868 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3869 the buffer name.
3870
3871 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3872 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3873 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3874 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3875
3876 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3877 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3878 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3879 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3880
3881 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3882 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3883 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3884 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3885
3886 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3887 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3888 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3889 they never ignore case.
3890
3891 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3892 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3893 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3894 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3895 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3896 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3897 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3898
3899 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3900 the same format that was used in the file before.
3901
3902 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3903 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3904
3905 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3906 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3907 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3908
3909 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3910 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3911 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3912 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3913 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3914 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3915 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3916
3917 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3918 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3919 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3920 format. You can now customize these variables.
3921
3922 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3923 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3924 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3925 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3926
3927 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3928 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3929 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3930
3931 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3932 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3933 doesn't have any effect.
3934
3935 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3936 not one per buffer.
3937
3938 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3939 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3940 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3941
3942 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3943 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3944 `auto-show-mode' command.
3945
3946 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3947 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3948 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3949 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3950 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3951
3952 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3953 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3954
3955 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3956 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3957 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3958
3959 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3960 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3961 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3962 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3963
3964 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3965
3966 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3967 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3968 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3969 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3970 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3971
3972 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3973 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3974
3975 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3976 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3977 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3978 `?' on other systems.
3979
3980 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3981 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3982 Unix.
3983
3984 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3985 current codepage when it starts.
3986
3987 ** Mail changes
3988
3989 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3990 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3991 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3992 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3993 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3994 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3995 latin-1:
3996
3997 MIME-version: 1.0
3998 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3999 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
4000
4001 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
4002 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
4003 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
4004 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
4005 buffer-file-coding-system.
4006
4007 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
4008 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
4009 mail.
4010
4011 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
4012 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
4013 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
4014 list of possible coding systems.
4015
4016 ** CC Mode changes
4017
4018 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
4019 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
4020 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
4021 docstring for details.
4022
4023 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
4024 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
4025 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
4026 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
4027 lineup functions use this feature currently.
4028
4029 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
4030 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
4031
4032 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
4033 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
4034
4035 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
4036 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
4037 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
4038 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
4039 anonymous classes.
4040
4041 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
4042 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
4043
4044 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
4045 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
4046 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
4047 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
4048
4049 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
4050 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
4051 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
4052 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
4053 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
4054
4055 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
4056
4057 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
4058
4059 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
4060 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
4061
4062 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
4063
4064 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
4065 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
4066 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
4067 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
4068 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
4069
4070 ** Gnus changes.
4071
4072 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
4073 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
4074 Gnus manual for the full story.
4075
4076 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
4077 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
4078 group, which is created automatically.
4079
4080 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
4081 values.
4082
4083 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
4084
4085 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
4086 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
4087
4088 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
4089 `C-u C-c C-c'.
4090
4091 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
4092
4093 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
4094 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
4095
4096 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
4097
4098 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
4099 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
4100
4101 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
4102 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
4103
4104 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
4105 control over simplification.
4106
4107 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
4108
4109 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
4110 limit.
4111
4112 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
4113
4114 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
4115
4116 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
4117 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
4118 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
4119
4120 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
4121 `a' forces normal posting method.
4122
4123 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
4124 -- `W d'.
4125
4126 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
4127 to a non-nil value.
4128
4129 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
4130 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
4131
4132 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
4133 has been added.
4134
4135 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
4136
4137 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
4138
4139 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
4140 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
4141
4142 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
4143 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
4144
4145 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
4146
4147 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
4148 been added.
4149
4150 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
4151 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
4152
4153 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
4154 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
4155
4156 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
4157
4158 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
4159
4160 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
4161
4162 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
4163
4164 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
4165 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
4166 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
4167
4168 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
4169 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
4170 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
4171 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
4172 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
4173
4174 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
4175 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
4176 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
4177 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
4178
4179 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
4180 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
4181 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
4182 mismatch.
4183
4184 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4185
4186 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
4187 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
4188
4189 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
4190 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
4191 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
4192 removed from the label.
4193
4194 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
4195 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
4196
4197 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
4198 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
4199
4200 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
4201 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
4202 expressions.
4203
4204 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
4205
4206 ** New/deleted modes and packages
4207
4208 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
4209 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
4210
4211 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
4212 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
4213 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
4214
4215 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
4216 changes with a special face.
4217
4218 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
4219 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
4220 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
4221 \f
4222 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
4223
4224 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
4225 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
4226 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
4227 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
4228 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
4229
4230 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
4231 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
4232 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
4233
4234 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
4235 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
4236 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
4237 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
4238 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
4239 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
4240 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
4241 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
4242 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
4243
4244 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
4245 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
4246 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
4247 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
4248 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
4249 program.
4250
4251 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
4252 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
4253 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
4254 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
4255 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
4256 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
4257
4258 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
4259 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
4260 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
4261 was not documented clearly before.
4262
4263 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
4264 This includes Tetris and Snake.
4265 \f
4266 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
4267
4268 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
4269 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
4270 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
4271 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
4272
4273 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
4274 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
4275 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
4276
4277 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
4278
4279 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
4280 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
4281
4282 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
4283 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
4284 integers.
4285
4286 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
4287 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
4288 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
4289 file names and attributes are returned.
4290
4291 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
4292 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
4293 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
4294 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
4295 returns the result.
4296
4297 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
4298 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
4299
4300 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
4301
4302 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
4303 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
4304 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
4305 optionally.
4306
4307 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
4308 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
4309
4310 **
4311 The new function process-running-child-p
4312 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
4313 terminal to its own child process.
4314
4315 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
4316 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
4317 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
4318 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
4319
4320 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
4321 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
4322
4323 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
4324 :included is an alias for :visible.
4325
4326 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
4327 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
4328 to move or copy menu entries.
4329
4330 ** Multibyte editing changes
4331
4332 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
4333 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
4334 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
4335 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
4336 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
4337 (setq char (sref str idx)
4338 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
4339 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
4340
4341 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
4342 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
4343 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
4344
4345 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
4346 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
4347 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
4348
4349 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
4350
4351 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
4352 across the boundary.
4353
4354 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
4355 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
4356 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
4357 contains 8-bit characters.
4358 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
4359 contains invalid characters.
4360
4361 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
4362 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
4363 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
4364 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
4365 way.
4366
4367 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
4368 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
4369 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
4370 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
4371
4372 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
4373 compose Thai characters in a string.
4374
4375 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
4376 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
4377 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
4378 menus should always use the third argument.
4379
4380 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
4381 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
4382 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
4383 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
4384
4385 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
4386 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
4387 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
4388 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
4389
4390 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4391 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4392 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4393 echo area contents.
4394
4395 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4396
4397 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4398 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4399 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4400
4401 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4402 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4403 means to clear out that attribute.
4404
4405 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4406 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4407
4408 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4409 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4410 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4411 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4412
4413 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4414 the gap of the current buffer.
4415
4416 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4417 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4418 current buffer.
4419
4420 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4421 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4422 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4423 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4424 \f
4425 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4426
4427 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4428 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4429 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4430 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4431 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4432
4433 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4434 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4435 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4436 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4437 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4438
4439 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4440 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4441 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4442
4443 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4444 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4445 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4446 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4447 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4448 results.
4449
4450 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4451 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4452 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4453 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4454 \f
4455 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4456
4457 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4458 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4459 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4460 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4461
4462 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4463 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4464 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4465 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4466 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4467 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4468 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4469 region.
4470
4471 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4472 selective undo.
4473
4474 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4475 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4476 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4477 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4478 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4479
4480 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4481 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4482 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4483 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4484
4485 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4486 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4487 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4488 something that most users not do.
4489
4490 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4491 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4492 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4493 applications.
4494
4495 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4496 pasting operations.
4497
4498 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4499 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4500 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4501 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4502 `ps-printer-name'.
4503
4504 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4505 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4506 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4507 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4508 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4509 hits a new word.
4510
4511 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4512 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4513 to be confused by TeX commands.
4514
4515 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4516 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4517 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4518 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4519
4520 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4521 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4522 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4523 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4524 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4525
4526 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4527 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4528
4529 ** Changes in input method usage.
4530
4531 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4532 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4533 respectively.
4534
4535 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4536
4537 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4538 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4539
4540 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4541 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4542
4543 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4544
4545 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4546
4547 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4548 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4549
4550 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4551 given in the following case:
4552 o When you are using a complex input method.
4553 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4554
4555 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4556 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4557 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4558 setting it to t is helpful.
4559
4560 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4561
4562 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4563 keys:
4564 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4565 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4566 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4567 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4568 environment.
4569
4570 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4571 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4572 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4573 get
4574
4575 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4576
4577 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4578
4579 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4580 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4581
4582 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4583 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4584 its owner and group.
4585
4586 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4587 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4588
4589 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4590 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4591
4592 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4593 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4594 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4595 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4596
4597 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4598 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4599 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4600 for writing keyboard macros.
4601
4602 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4603 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4604 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4605 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4606 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4607 info.
4608
4609 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4610
4611 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4612 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4613 contents only.
4614
4615 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4616 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4617 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4618 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4619
4620 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4621 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4622 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4623
4624 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4625 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4626 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4627 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4628
4629 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4630 failure if the command produces no output.
4631
4632 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4633 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4634 the mouse.
4635
4636 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4637 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4638 function and variable names.
4639
4640 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4641 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4642 file-coding-system-alist.
4643
4644 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4645 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4646 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4647 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4648 according to the current fontset.
4649
4650 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4651
4652 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4653 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4654 nonascii-insert-offset.
4655
4656 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4657 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4658 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4659 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4660
4661 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4662 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4663
4664 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4665 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4666
4667 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4668 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4669 command keys.
4670
4671 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4672 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4673
4674 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4675 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4676 all variables that have documentation.
4677
4678 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4679 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4680 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4681 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4682 it should show; the default is 20.
4683
4684 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4685 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4686 of your input.
4687
4688 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4689 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4690 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4691 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4692 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4693 Newly added options are included as well.
4694
4695 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4696 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4697 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4698
4699 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4700 Customize menu.
4701
4702 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4703 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4704
4705 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4706 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4707 invoked.
4708
4709 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4710 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4711 The default is 1.
4712
4713 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4714 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4715 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4716 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4717 sensibly.
4718
4719 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4720
4721 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4722 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4723 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4724
4725 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4726 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4727 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4728 every night.
4729
4730 ** Desktop changes
4731
4732 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4733 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4734
4735 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4736 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4737
4738 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4739 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4740
4741 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4742 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4743 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4744 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4745 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4746 made invisible again.
4747
4748 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4749
4750 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4751 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4752 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4753 toggle.
4754
4755 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4756 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4757 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4758 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4759 rmail-default-body-file.
4760
4761 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4762 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4763 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4764
4765 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4766 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4767 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4768
4769 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4770 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4771 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4772 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4773 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4774 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4775
4776 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4777 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4778 provided by feedmail are:
4779
4780 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4781 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4782 there is also a queue for draft messages
4783
4784 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4785 be prompted for confirmation
4786
4787 **** does smart filling of address headers
4788
4789 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4790 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4791 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4792
4793 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4794 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4795 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4796 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4797
4798 ** Dired changes
4799
4800 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4801 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4802
4803 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4804 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4805
4806 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4807 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4808 for a specified regexp.
4809
4810 ** VC Changes
4811
4812 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4813 conveniently.
4814
4815 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4816 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4817 Dired.
4818
4819 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4820 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4821 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4822 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4823
4824 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4825 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4826 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4827 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4828 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4829
4830 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4831 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4832 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4833 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4834 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4835
4836 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4837 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4838 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4839 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4840
4841 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4842 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4843 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4844
4845 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4846 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4847 session to resolve them.
4848
4849 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4850 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4851 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4852 uses as well).
4853
4854 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4855 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4856 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4857 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4858 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4859 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4860 using ediff.
4861
4862 ** Changes in Font Lock
4863
4864 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4865 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4866 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4867 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4868 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4869
4870 ** Frame name display changes
4871
4872 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4873 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4874 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4875 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4876
4877 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4878 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4879 menu.
4880
4881 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4882
4883 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4884 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4885 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4886
4887 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4888
4889 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4890 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4891 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4892
4893 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4894 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4895 the following line.
4896
4897 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4898 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4899 previously sent input.
4900
4901 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4902 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4903 as the search string.
4904
4905 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4906 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4907
4908 ** C mode changes
4909
4910 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4911 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4912 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4913 definition.
4914
4915 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4916 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4917 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4918 style is still the default however.
4919
4920 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4921
4922 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4923 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4924 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4925
4926 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4927 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4928
4929 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4930 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4931
4932 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4933 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4934
4935 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4936 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4937
4938 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4939 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4940 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4941 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4942
4943 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4944
4945 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4946 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4947 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4948
4949 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4950 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4951 expanding dynamically.
4952
4953 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4954 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4955
4956 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4957 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4958 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4959 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4960
4961 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4962
4963 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4964
4965 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4966 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4967 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4968 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4969 against the first word in the title.
4970
4971 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4972 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4973 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4974 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4975 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4976 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4977
4978 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4979 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4980 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4981 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4982
4983 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4984
4985 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4986 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4987 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4988 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4989 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4990 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4991
4992 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4993 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4994
4995 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4996 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4997 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4998
4999 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
5000 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
5001
5002 ** Ispell changes.
5003
5004 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
5005 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
5006 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
5007
5008 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
5009 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
5010 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
5011 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
5012 include:
5013
5014 o URLs are automatically skipped
5015 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
5016
5017 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
5018
5019 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5020
5021 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
5022 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
5023 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
5024 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
5025
5026 *** New recursive parser.
5027
5028 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
5029 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
5030 recursive parser scans the individual files.
5031
5032 *** Parsing only part of a document.
5033
5034 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
5035 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
5036 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
5037
5038 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
5039
5040 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
5041
5042 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
5043
5044 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
5045
5046 *** Using multiple selection buffers
5047
5048 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
5049 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
5050
5051 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
5052
5053 *** References to external documents.
5054
5055 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
5056 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
5057 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
5058 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
5059 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
5060 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
5061 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
5062
5063 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
5064
5065 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
5066 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
5067
5068 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
5069 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
5070
5071 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
5072
5073 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
5074 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
5075
5076 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
5077
5078 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
5079 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
5080 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
5081 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
5082 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
5083 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
5084 more.
5085
5086 *** Support for the varioref package
5087
5088 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
5089
5090 *** New hooks
5091
5092 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
5093 and citations are created. These hooks are
5094 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
5095 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
5096
5097 *** Citations outside LaTeX
5098
5099 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
5100 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
5101
5102 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
5103
5104 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
5105 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
5106 fontified, use
5107
5108 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
5109
5110 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
5111 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
5112 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
5113 directories that contain the same file name.
5114
5115 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
5116 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
5117 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
5118 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
5119 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
5120 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
5121 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
5122 directory.
5123
5124 ** New modes and packages
5125
5126 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
5127 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
5128 it, but some do not.
5129
5130 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
5131 code.
5132
5133 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
5134 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
5135 around in a buffer.
5136
5137 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
5138
5139 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
5140 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
5141 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
5142 established system of notation similar to Chess.
5143
5144 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
5145 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
5146 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
5147
5148 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
5149 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
5150 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
5151 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
5152 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
5153 the like.
5154
5155 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
5156 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
5157
5158 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
5159 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
5160 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
5161 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
5162
5163 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
5164
5165 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
5166 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
5167 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
5168 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
5169 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
5170 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
5171 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
5172 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
5173 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
5174 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
5175 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
5176
5177 Platform-specific modes:
5178
5179 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
5180 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
5181 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
5182 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
5183 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
5184 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
5185 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
5186 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
5187 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
5188 \f
5189 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5190
5191 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
5192 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
5193 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
5194 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
5195
5196 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
5197 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
5198 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
5199
5200 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
5201 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
5202 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
5203 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
5204
5205 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
5206 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
5207 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
5208 environment.
5209
5210 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
5211 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
5212 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
5213 current input method for reading this one event.
5214
5215 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
5216 now control whether to output certain characters as
5217 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
5218 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
5219 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
5220 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
5221 \f
5222 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5223
5224 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
5225 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
5226
5227 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
5228 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
5229 always increases point by 1.
5230
5231 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
5232 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
5233
5234 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
5235
5236 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
5237 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
5238 default value changed. For example,
5239
5240 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
5241 :type 'integer
5242 :group 'foo
5243 :version "20.3")
5244
5245 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
5246 :version "20.3")
5247
5248 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
5249 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
5250 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
5251 `:version' in the top level group.
5252
5253 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
5254
5255 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
5256 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
5257
5258 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
5259 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
5260 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
5261 to themselves.
5262
5263 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
5264 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
5265 values whatever.
5266
5267 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
5268 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
5269 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
5270
5271 ** Frame-local variables.
5272
5273 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
5274 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
5275 local bindings for that variable.
5276
5277 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
5278 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
5279 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
5280 parameter name.
5281
5282 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
5283 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
5284 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
5285 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
5286
5287 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
5288 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
5289 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
5290 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
5291
5292 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
5293 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
5294 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
5295 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
5296 See the documentation in sregex.el.
5297
5298 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
5299 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
5300 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
5301 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
5302
5303 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
5304 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
5305
5306 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
5307 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
5308 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
5309
5310 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
5311 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
5312 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
5313 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
5314
5315 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
5316 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
5317 empty input.
5318
5319 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
5320 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
5321 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
5322 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
5323 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
5324
5325 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
5326 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
5327 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
5328 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
5329
5330 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
5331 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
5332 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
5333 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
5334 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
5335
5336 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
5337 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
5338 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
5339 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
5340
5341 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
5342 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
5343 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
5344
5345 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
5346 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
5347 was directed to display this buffer.
5348
5349 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
5350 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
5351 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
5352 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
5353 set-window-configuration.
5354
5355 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
5356 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
5357 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
5358 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
5359
5360 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
5361 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
5362 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
5363
5364 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
5365 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
5366 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
5367
5368 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
5369 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
5370
5371 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
5372 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
5373
5374 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
5375 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
5376 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
5377
5378 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
5379 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
5380 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
5381 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
5382
5383 ** Menu changes
5384
5385 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
5386 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
5387 better supported.
5388
5389 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
5390 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5391 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5392 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5393 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5394
5395 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5396
5397 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5398 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5399 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5400 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5401
5402 The format is:
5403 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5404 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5405 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5406 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5407 The supported properties include
5408
5409 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5410 item is enabled.
5411 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5412 item should appear in the menu.
5413 :filter FILTER-FN
5414 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5415 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5416 It should return a binding to use instead.
5417 :keys DESCRIPTION
5418 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5419 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5420 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5421 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5422 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5423 keyboard binding.
5424 :key-sequence nil
5425 This means that the command normally has no
5426 keyboard equivalent.
5427 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5428 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5429 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5430 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5431 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5432
5433 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5434 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5435
5436 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5437
5438 ** New event types
5439
5440 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5441 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5442 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5443 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5444
5445 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5446
5447 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5448 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5449 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5450 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5451 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5452 forward, away from the user.
5453
5454 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5455
5456 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5457 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5458 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5459 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5460 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5461
5462 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5463
5464 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5465 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5466 that were dragged and dropped.
5467
5468 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5469
5470 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5471
5472 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5473 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5474 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5475
5476 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5477 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5478 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5479
5480 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5481 in Emacs 19 and before.
5482
5483 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5484 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5485
5486 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5487 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5488 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5489 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5490
5491 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5492 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5493 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5494 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5495 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5496
5497 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5498 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5499 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5500 consistent with the new representation.
5501
5502 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5503 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5504 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5505 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5506
5507 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5508 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5509 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5510
5511 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5512 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5513 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5514
5515 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5516 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5517 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5518
5519 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5520 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5521
5522 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5523 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5524
5525 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5526 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5527 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5528 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5529
5530 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5531 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5532
5533 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5534 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5535 buffer or string being searched.
5536
5537 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5538 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5539 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5540 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5541 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5542 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5543 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5544
5545 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5546
5547 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5548 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5549 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5550 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5551 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5552 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5553 define-coding-system-alias.
5554
5555 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5556 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5557 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5558 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5559 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5560 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5561 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5562 `iso-8859-1'.
5563
5564 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5565 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5566 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5567 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5568
5569 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5570 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5571 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5572 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5573
5574 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5575 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5576 This function requires a user interaction.
5577
5578 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5579 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5580 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5581 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5582 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5583 select-safe-coding-system.
5584
5585 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5586 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5587 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5588 was done.
5589
5590 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5591 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5592 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5593
5594 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5595 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5596 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5597 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5598
5599 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5600 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5601 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5602 converted.
5603
5604 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5605 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5606
5607 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5608 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5609 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5610 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5611 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5612 range of characters.
5613
5614 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5615 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5616
5617 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5618 in the current buffer at position POS.
5619
5620 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5621 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5622 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5623 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5624 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5625 binding input-method-function to nil.
5626
5627 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5628 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5629 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5630 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5631 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5632
5633 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5634 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5635
5636 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5637 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5638
5639 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5640 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5641 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5642 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5643 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5644 \f
5645 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5646
5647 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5648 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5649 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5650 tree structure.
5651
5652 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5653 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5654
5655 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5656 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5657 in your .emacs file.)
5658
5659 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5660 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5661
5662 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5663 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5664
5665 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5666 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5667 kills the region.
5668
5669 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5670 delete the character before point, as usual.
5671
5672 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5673 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5674 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5675
5676 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5677 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5678 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5679 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5680 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5681 past.)
5682
5683 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5684 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5685 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5686 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5687 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5688
5689 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5690 and is an alias for it.
5691
5692 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5693 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5694
5695 ** Scrolling changes
5696
5697 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5698 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5699
5700 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5701 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5702 where it started.
5703
5704 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5705 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5706 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5707 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5708
5709 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5710 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5711 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5712 recenters the window.
5713
5714 ** International character set support (MULE)
5715
5716 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5717 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5718 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5719 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5720 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5721 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5722
5723 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5724 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5725 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5726 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5727 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5728
5729 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5730 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5731 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5732 language, to make it possible to type them.
5733
5734 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5735 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5736
5737 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5738 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5739
5740 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5741
5742 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5743
5744 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5745 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5746 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5747 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5748 characters for their work until they want to change.
5749
5750 *** Input methods
5751
5752 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5753 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5754 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5755 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5756 support several input methods.
5757
5758 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5759 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5760 work.
5761
5762 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5763 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5764 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5765 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5766 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5767 letter.
5768
5769 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5770 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5771 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5772 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5773 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5774
5775 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5776 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5777 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5778 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5779
5780 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5781 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5782 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5783 the first guess is wrong.
5784
5785 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5786 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5787
5788 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5789 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5790 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5791 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5792
5793 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5794 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5795 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5796 translate automatically to and from either one.
5797
5798 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5799
5800 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5801 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5802 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5803 what you want.
5804
5805 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5806 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5807 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5808 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5809
5810 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5811 character conversion as well.
5812
5813 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5814
5815 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5816 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5817 requires using many fonts.
5818
5819 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5820 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5821
5822 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5823 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5824 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5825 you would use a font.
5826
5827 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5828 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5829 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5830
5831 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5832 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5833 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5834 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5835 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5836
5837 *** Defining fontsets.
5838
5839 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5840 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5841 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5842
5843 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5844 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5845 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5846 standard fontset are created automatically.
5847
5848 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5849 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5850 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5851 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5852 name is `fontset-startup'.
5853
5854 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5855 The resource value should have this form:
5856 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5857 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5858 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5859 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5860 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5861 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5862 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5863 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5864 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5865
5866 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5867 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5868 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5869
5870 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5871 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5872 following resource,
5873 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5874 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5875 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5876 Here is the substitution rule:
5877 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5878 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5879 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5880 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5881 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5882
5883 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5884 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5885 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5886
5887 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5888 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5889 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5890 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5891 fontsets.
5892
5893 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5894 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5895
5896 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5897 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5898 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5899 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5900 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5901 system for new files that you create.
5902
5903 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5904 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5905 whole Emacs session.
5906
5907 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5908 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5909 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5910
5911 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5912 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5913 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5914 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5915 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5916
5917 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5918 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5919 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5920 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5921 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5922
5923 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5924 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5925
5926 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5927 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5928
5929 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5930 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5931
5932 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5933 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5934 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5935 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5936 of the file.
5937
5938 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5939 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5940 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5941 translated into that character code.
5942
5943 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5944 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5945
5946 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5947
5948 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5949 the coding system for keyboard input.
5950
5951 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5952 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5953 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5954
5955 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5956
5957 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5958 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5959 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5960 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5961 designed to work with terminals.
5962
5963 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5964 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5965 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5966 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5967 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5968 in the corresponding buffer.
5969
5970 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5971
5972 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5973 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5974 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5975
5976 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5977 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5978 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5979 want to use.
5980
5981 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5982 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5983
5984 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5985 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5986 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5987 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5988
5989 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5990 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5991 related information.
5992
5993 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5994 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5995 scripts.
5996
5997 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5998 information about the support for a particular language.
5999 You specify the language as an argument.
6000
6001 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
6002 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
6003 first dash.
6004
6005 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
6006 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
6007 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
6008 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
6009
6010 A alternativnyj (Russian)
6011 B big5 (Chinese)
6012 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
6013 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
6014 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
6015 E euc-japan (Japanese)
6016 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6017 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
6018 K euc-korea (Korean)
6019 R koi8 (Russian)
6020 Q tibetan
6021 S shift_jis (Japanese)
6022 T lao
6023 T tis620 (Thai)
6024 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
6025 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6026 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
6027 v viqr (Vietnamese)
6028 z hz (Chinese)
6029
6030 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
6031 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
6032 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
6033 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
6034
6035 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
6036 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
6037
6038 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
6039 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
6040 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
6041 Rmail files themselves.
6042
6043 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
6044 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
6045
6046 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
6047 for sending mail:
6048
6049 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
6050 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
6051 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
6052 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
6053 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
6054
6055 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
6056 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
6057 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
6058 translations.
6059
6060 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
6061 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
6062 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
6063 without any conversion.
6064
6065 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
6066 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
6067 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
6068 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
6069
6070 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
6071 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
6072
6073 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
6074 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
6075
6076 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
6077 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
6078
6079 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
6080 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
6081 in the buffer before point.
6082
6083 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
6084 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
6085 you are using.
6086
6087 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
6088 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
6089
6090 ** File locking works with NFS now.
6091
6092 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
6093 in the same directory as FILENAME.
6094
6095 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
6096 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
6097 can become a bottleneck.
6098
6099 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
6100 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
6101 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
6102 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
6103 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
6104 so useful that the change is worth while.
6105
6106 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
6107 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
6108 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
6109 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
6110
6111 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
6112 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
6113 show-paren-mode.
6114
6115 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
6116 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
6117 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
6118
6119 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
6120 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
6121 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
6122
6123 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
6124 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
6125 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
6126
6127 ** Changes in View mode.
6128
6129 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
6130 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
6131
6132 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
6133 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
6134
6135 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
6136 previous state.
6137
6138 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
6139 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
6140
6141 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
6142 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
6143 not just the selected window.
6144
6145 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
6146 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
6147 turns View mode on or off.
6148
6149 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
6150 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
6151 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
6152
6153 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
6154 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
6155
6156 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
6157 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
6158 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
6159 which version to compare with.
6160
6161 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
6162 blocks if a match is inside the block.
6163
6164 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
6165 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
6166 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
6167 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
6168
6169 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
6170 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
6171 blocks, all of them or none.
6172
6173 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
6174 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
6175 confirmation first.
6176
6177 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
6178 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
6179 However, the mode will not be changed if
6180 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
6181 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
6182 not suitable for ordinary files, or
6183 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
6184
6185 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
6186
6187 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
6188 these commands do not change the major mode.
6189
6190 ** M-x occur changes.
6191
6192 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
6193 it performs a case-sensitive search.
6194
6195 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
6196 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
6197 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
6198
6199 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
6200 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
6201 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
6202 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
6203 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
6204
6205 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
6206 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
6207 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
6208 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
6209
6210 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6211 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
6212 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
6213
6214 ** Outline mode changes.
6215
6216 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
6217
6218 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
6219
6220 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
6221 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
6222 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
6223 was already active.
6224
6225 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
6226 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
6227 get confused by it.
6228
6229 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
6230 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
6231
6232 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
6233
6234 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6235 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
6236 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
6237 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
6238
6239 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
6240 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
6241 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
6242
6243 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
6244 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
6245 values.
6246
6247 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
6248 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
6249 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
6250 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
6251
6252 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
6253 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
6254 can be. The default value is 30.
6255
6256 ** Changes in Mail mode.
6257
6258 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
6259 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
6260 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
6261 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
6262 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
6263 behavior.
6264
6265 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
6266 compose-mail-other-frame.
6267
6268 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
6269 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
6270 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
6271 buffer that shows the original message.
6272
6273 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
6274 with separator lines around the contents.
6275
6276 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
6277 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
6278 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
6279 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
6280
6281 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
6282
6283 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
6284 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
6285 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
6286 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
6287
6288 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
6289 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
6290 /etc/passwd.
6291
6292 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
6293 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
6294 /etc/passwd.
6295
6296 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
6297 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
6298 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
6299 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
6300
6301 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
6302 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
6303 be taken to be magic.
6304
6305 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
6306 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
6307 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
6308
6309 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
6310 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
6311
6312 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
6313 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
6314
6315 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
6316
6317 new key dired.el binding old key
6318 ------- ---------------- -------
6319 * c dired-change-marks c
6320 * m dired-mark m
6321 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
6322 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
6323 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
6324 * u dired-unmark u
6325 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
6326 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
6327 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
6328 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
6329 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
6330 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
6331
6332 ** Rmail changes.
6333
6334 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
6335 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
6336 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
6337 each time you run it.
6338
6339 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
6340 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
6341
6342 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
6343 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
6344 means to move in the opposite direction.
6345
6346 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
6347 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
6348
6349 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
6350 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
6351 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
6352 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
6353 for output.
6354
6355 ** Gnus changes.
6356
6357 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
6358
6359 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
6360 Gnus.
6361
6362 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
6363 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
6364
6365 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
6366 article mode line.
6367
6368 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
6369
6370 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
6371
6372 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
6373
6374 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
6375 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
6376 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
6377
6378 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
6379
6380 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
6381
6382 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
6383 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
6384
6385 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
6386 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
6387 used to pick articles.
6388
6389 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
6390 another have been added.
6391
6392 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6393
6394 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6395 generating lines in buffers.
6396
6397 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6398 `M-C-_'.
6399
6400 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6401
6402 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6403
6404 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6405
6406 *** Scores can be decayed.
6407
6408 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6409
6410 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6411 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6412
6413 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6414 the native server.
6415
6416 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6417
6418 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6419 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6420
6421 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6422
6423 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6424 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6425
6426 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6427 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6428
6429 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6430 a group.
6431
6432 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6433 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6434
6435 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6436
6437 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6438
6439 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6440
6441 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6442
6443 Use the `Y c' command.
6444
6445 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6446
6447 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6448
6449 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6450
6451 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6452 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6453
6454 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6455
6456 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6457
6458 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6459 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6460
6461 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6462
6463 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6464 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6465 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6466 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6467 this issue.)
6468
6469 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6470 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6471 particular news group. This can be done by:
6472
6473 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6474
6475 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6476 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6477 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6478 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6479 for reading and posting).
6480
6481 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6482 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6483 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6484 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6485 there.
6486
6487 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6488 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6489
6490 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6491 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6492 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6493 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6494 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6495
6496 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6497 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6498
6499 ** CC mode changes.
6500
6501 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6502 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6503 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6504 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6505 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6506 loaded.
6507
6508 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6509 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6510 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6511 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6512 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6513 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6514
6515 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6516 of the current buffer.
6517
6518 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6519 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6520 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6521
6522 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6523 style that the Python developers like.
6524
6525 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6526 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6527 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6528
6529 ** VC Changes [new]
6530
6531 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6532 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6533 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6534
6535 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6536 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6537 developers.
6538
6539 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6540 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6541
6542 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6543 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6544 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6545 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6546
6547 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6548 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6549
6550 ** Calendar changes.
6551
6552 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6553 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6554 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6555
6556 ** ps-print changes
6557
6558 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6559
6560 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6561
6562 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6563 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6564 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6565 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6566 It defaults to `letter'.
6567 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6568
6569 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6570 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6571 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6572
6573 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6574 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6575 It defaults to 1.
6576
6577 *** Horizontal layout
6578
6579 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6580 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6581 All are measured in points.
6582
6583 *** Vertical layout
6584
6585 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6586 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6587 All are measured in points.
6588
6589 *** Headers
6590
6591 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6592 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6593 margin above the text.
6594
6595 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6596 framing box is printed around the header.
6597
6598 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6599 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6600
6601 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6602 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6603 `ps-header-font-size'.
6604
6605 *** Font managing
6606
6607 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6608 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6609 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6610 elements to this alist.
6611
6612 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6613 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6614
6615 ** hideshow changes.
6616
6617 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6618 C++, ; for lisp).
6619
6620 *** Support for java-mode added.
6621
6622 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6623 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6624
6625 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6626 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6627 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6628
6629 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6630 robust and a lot faster.
6631
6632 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6633
6634 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6635 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6636 documentation for more details.
6637
6638 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6639
6640 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6641 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6642 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6643 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6644 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6645
6646 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6647 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6648 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6649 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6650
6651 ** Font Lock mode
6652
6653 *** Custom support
6654
6655 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6656 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6657 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6658 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6659 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6660 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6661
6662 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6663
6664 *** Maximum decoration
6665
6666 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6667 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6668 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6669 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6670 to get the old behavior.
6671
6672 *** New support
6673
6674 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6675
6676 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6677 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6678
6679 *** Configurable support
6680
6681 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6682 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6683 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6684 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6685 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6686 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6687 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6688
6689 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6690 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6691 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6692
6693 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6694
6695 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6696 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6697 for any mode.
6698
6699 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6700
6701 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6702
6703 in your ~/.emacs.
6704
6705 *** New faces
6706
6707 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6708 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6709 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6710 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6711
6712 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6713
6714 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6715 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6716 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6717
6718 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6719
6720 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6721 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6722 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6723 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6724 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6725 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6726 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6727
6728 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6729 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6730 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6731 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6732 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6733 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6734
6735 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6736
6737 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6738 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6739 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6740 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6741
6742 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6743 settings.
6744
6745 ** Ada mode changes.
6746
6747 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6748 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6749 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6750 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6751 stubs.
6752
6753 *** There are two new commands:
6754 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6755 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6756
6757 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6758 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6759 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6760
6761 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6762 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6763 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6764
6765 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6766 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6767 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6768 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6769
6770 ** Scheme mode changes.
6771
6772 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6773 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6774 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6775 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6776 have any effect.
6777
6778 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6779 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6780 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6781 variables as buffer-local variables.
6782
6783 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6784 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
6785
6786 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6787
6788 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6789 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6790 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6791 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6792
6793 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6794 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6795 buffer in Emacs.
6796
6797 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6798 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6799 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6800 option takes precedence.
6801
6802 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6803 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6804 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6805
6806 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6807 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6808 the current defun.
6809
6810 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6811 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6812
6813 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6814 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6815 necessary).
6816
6817 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6818 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6819 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6820 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6821 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6822 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6823
6824 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6825 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6826 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6827 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6828
6829 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6830 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6831 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6832 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6833 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6834
6835 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6836 since it applies only to the current frame.
6837
6838 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6839 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6840 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6841
6842 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6843 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6844 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6845 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6846 instead of just the file you are editing.
6847
6848 ** RefTeX mode
6849
6850 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6851 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6852 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6853 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6854 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6855
6856 C-c ( reftex-label
6857 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6858 knows which kind of label is needed.
6859
6860 C-c ) reftex-reference
6861 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6862 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6863
6864 C-c [ reftex-citation
6865 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6866 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6867
6868 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6869 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6870
6871 C-c = reftex-toc
6872 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6873 can quickly jump to every section.
6874
6875 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6876 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6877 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6878 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6879 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6880
6881 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6882
6883 *** Info documentation is now available.
6884
6885 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6886 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6887
6888 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6889 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6890
6891 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6892 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6893
6894 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6895 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6896 appropriate functions.
6897
6898 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6899 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6900
6901 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6902 been cleaned.
6903
6904 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6905 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6906
6907 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6908 shall be delimited.
6909
6910 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6911 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6912 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6913
6914 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6915 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6916 prefixed with `ALT'.
6917
6918 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6919 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6920 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6921 documentation).
6922
6923 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6924 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6925 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6926
6927 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6928 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6929
6930 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6931 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6932 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6933
6934 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6935
6936 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6937
6938 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6939 from alien sources.
6940
6941 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6942 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6943 crossref entries.
6944
6945 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6946 region.
6947
6948 *** Added support for imenu.
6949
6950 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6951 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6952 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6953 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6954
6955 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6956 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6957
6958 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6959
6960 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6961
6962 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6963 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6964 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6965 as an argument.
6966
6967 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6968 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6969
6970 ** browse-url changes
6971
6972 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6973 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6974 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6975 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6976 customization variables.
6977
6978 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6979
6980 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6981 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6982 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6983
6984 ** Changes in Ediff
6985
6986 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6987 pops up the Info file for this command.
6988
6989 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6990 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6991 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6992 directories).
6993
6994 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6995 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6996 files in the same directory.
6997
6998 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6999 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
7000 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
7001
7002 ** Changes in Viper
7003
7004 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
7005 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
7006 instead of vip-.
7007 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
7008 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
7009 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
7010 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
7011 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
7012 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
7013 color when Viper is in insert state.
7014 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
7015 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
7016 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
7017
7018 ** Etags changes.
7019
7020 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
7021 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
7022 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
7023 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
7024 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
7025
7026 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
7027
7028 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
7029 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
7030
7031 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
7032 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
7033 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
7034
7035 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
7036 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
7037 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
7038 methods and protocols.
7039
7040 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
7041 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
7042 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
7043 paragraph name.
7044
7045 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
7046 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
7047 at least M times and as many as N times.
7048
7049 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
7050 in files has changed slightly.
7051
7052 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
7053 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
7054 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
7055 with old time-stamp-format values.
7056
7057 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
7058 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
7059 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
7060 reasons.
7061
7062 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
7063 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
7064 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
7065 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
7066 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
7067 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
7068
7069 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
7070 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
7071 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
7072
7073 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
7074 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
7075 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
7076 recommended now will continue to work then.
7077
7078 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
7079 details.
7080
7081 ** There are some additional major modes:
7082
7083 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
7084 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
7085 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
7086
7087 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
7088 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
7089 into Emacs.
7090
7091 ** New Lisp packages include:
7092
7093 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
7094
7095 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
7096 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
7097
7098 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
7099
7100 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
7101 in shell buffers.
7102
7103 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
7104 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
7105 and `elint-defun'.
7106
7107 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
7108 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
7109 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
7110 strings or comments.
7111
7112 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
7113 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
7114 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
7115 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
7116 at these points.
7117
7118 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
7119 can visit them by short forms of their names.
7120
7121 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
7122 Emacs Lisp function at point.
7123
7124 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
7125
7126 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
7127 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
7128
7129 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
7130
7131 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
7132
7133 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
7134
7135 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
7136 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
7137
7138 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
7139 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
7140 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
7141 original place after inserting the copy.
7142
7143 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
7144 on the buffer.
7145
7146 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
7147 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
7148 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
7149
7150 Enable mouse-drag with:
7151 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
7152 -or-
7153 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
7154
7155 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
7156 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
7157
7158 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
7159 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
7160
7161 *** ogonek
7162
7163 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
7164 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
7165 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
7166 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
7167 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
7168 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
7169 instance) and vice versa.
7170
7171 To use this package load it using
7172 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
7173 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
7174 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
7175 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
7176 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
7177 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
7178
7179 *** Interface to ph.
7180
7181 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
7182
7183 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
7184 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
7185 these servers.
7186
7187 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
7188
7189 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
7190 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
7191 while the real cursor does not move.
7192
7193 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
7194 for visiting your favorite web sites.
7195
7196 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
7197 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
7198
7199 ** movemail change
7200
7201 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
7202 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
7203 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
7204 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
7205
7206 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
7207 \f
7208 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
7209
7210 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
7211
7212 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
7213 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
7214 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
7215 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
7216 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
7217
7218 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
7219 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
7220 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
7221 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
7222 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
7223 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
7224 \f
7225 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
7226
7227 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
7228 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
7229 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
7230 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
7231
7232 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
7233 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
7234
7235 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
7236 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
7237 "win".
7238
7239 ** Basic Lisp changes
7240
7241 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
7242 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
7243
7244 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
7245 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
7246 or by the user.
7247
7248 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
7249
7250 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
7251
7252 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
7253 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
7254
7255 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
7256 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
7257 its argument.
7258
7259 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
7260
7261 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
7262
7263 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
7264
7265 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
7266 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
7267 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
7268 `format' function.
7269
7270 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
7271 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
7272 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
7273
7274 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
7275 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
7276 adding one of these suffixes.
7277
7278 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
7279 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
7280 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
7281
7282 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
7283 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
7284
7285 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
7286
7287 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
7288 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
7289
7290 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
7291 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
7292
7293 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
7294
7295 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
7296 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
7297
7298 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
7299 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
7300 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
7301 works using `save-current-buffer'.
7302
7303 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
7304 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
7305 of the last form.
7306
7307 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
7308 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
7309 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
7310 as the last form.
7311
7312 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
7313 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
7314 matches.
7315
7316 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
7317
7318 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
7319 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
7320 Then it returns that string.
7321
7322 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
7323
7324 (with-output-to-string
7325 (princ "The buffer is ")
7326 (princ (buffer-name)))
7327
7328 returns "The buffer is foo".
7329
7330 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
7331 is non-nil.
7332
7333 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
7334 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
7335 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
7336
7337 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
7338 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
7339
7340 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
7341 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
7342 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
7343 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
7344 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
7345 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
7346
7347 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
7348 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
7349 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
7350 characters".
7351
7352 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
7353 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
7354 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
7355 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
7356 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
7357
7358 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
7359 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
7360 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
7361 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
7362
7363 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
7364 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
7365
7366 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
7367
7368 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
7369 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
7370 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
7371 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
7372 guaranteed.
7373
7374 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
7375 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
7376 character).
7377
7378 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
7379
7380 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
7381 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
7382 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
7383 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
7384 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
7385
7386 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
7387
7388 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
7389 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
7390 more than the number of characters.
7391
7392 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7393 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7394 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7395 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7396 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7397 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7398
7399 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7400 and returns a string containing those characters.
7401
7402 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7403 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7404 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7405 character, sref signals an error.
7406
7407 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7408 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7409 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7410
7411 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7412 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7413 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7414
7415 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7416 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7417 to a vector of the characters in it.
7418
7419 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7420 of a string. You call it as follows:
7421
7422 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7423
7424 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7425 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7426 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7427 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7428 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7429
7430 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7431 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7432
7433 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7434 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7435
7436 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7437 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7438 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7439 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7440
7441 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7442
7443 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7444
7445 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7446 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7447 are not included in the resulting value.
7448
7449 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7450 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7451 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7452 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7453
7454 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7455 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7456 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7457 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7458 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7459 column START-COLUMN.
7460
7461 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7462 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7463 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7464 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7465 changed text, before the change.
7466
7467 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7468 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7469 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7470
7471 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7472
7473 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7474
7475 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7476 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7477
7478 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7479 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7480 which identify the character within that character set.
7481
7482 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7483 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7484 opposite of split-char.
7485
7486 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7487 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7488
7489 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7490 of all the characters in a string.
7491
7492 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7493 and specifying coding systems.
7494
7495 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7496 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7497 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7498 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7499 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7500 as what to do about code conversion.)
7501
7502 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7503 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7504
7505 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7506 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7507 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7508
7509 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7510 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7511 to match against a file name.
7512
7513 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7514 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7515 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7516 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7517 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7518 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7519
7520 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7521 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7522
7523 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7524 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7525
7526 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7527 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7528 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7529 service names.
7530
7531 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7532 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7533 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7534 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7535 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7536 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7537
7538 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7539 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7540
7541 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7542 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7543 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7544 start the subprocess.
7545
7546 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7547 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7548 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7549 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7550 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7551
7552 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7553 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7554 subprocess.
7555
7556 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7557 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7558 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7559 connection permanently or until overridden.
7560
7561 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7562 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7563 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7564 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7565 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7566 system for one operation at a time.
7567
7568 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7569 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7570
7571 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7572 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7573 The value is a cons cell,
7574 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7575 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7576 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7577 input to the subprocess.
7578
7579 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7580 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7581
7582 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7583 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7584 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7585
7586 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7587 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7588 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7589 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7590 customization.
7591
7592 Thus, instead of writing
7593
7594 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7595 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7596
7597 you would now write this:
7598
7599 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7600 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7601 :type 'boolean
7602 :group foo)
7603
7604 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7605 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7606 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7607 for a description of them.
7608
7609 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7610 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7611
7612 (defgroup ispell nil
7613 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7614 :group 'processes)
7615
7616 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7617 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7618 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7619 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7620 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7621
7622 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7623 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7624 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7625 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7626 first-level subgroups.
7627
7628 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7629
7630 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7631 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7632
7633 ** easy-mmode
7634
7635 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7636 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7637 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7638 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7639 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7640 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7641
7642 ** Text property changes
7643
7644 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7645 text property.
7646
7647 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7648 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7649 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7650 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7651 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7652
7653 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7654 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7655 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7656 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7657
7658 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7659 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7660 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7661
7662 ** Changes in invisibility features
7663
7664 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7665 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7666 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7667 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7668 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7669 make the overlay visible.
7670
7671 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7672 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7673 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7674 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7675 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7676 t when it should hide it.
7677
7678 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7679
7680 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7681 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7682 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7683 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7684 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7685 Here is an example of how to do this:
7686
7687 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7688 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7689 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7690 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7691
7692 ...
7693 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7694
7695 ...
7696 ;; When done with the overlays:
7697 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7698 ;; Or respectively:
7699 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7700
7701 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7702
7703 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7704 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7705 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7706 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7707
7708 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7709 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7710 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7711
7712 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7713 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7714
7715 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7716 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7717
7718 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7719 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7720 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7721
7722 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7723 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7724 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7725 determine the syntax type of the character.
7726
7727 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7728 of the current buffer.
7729
7730 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7731 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7732 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7733
7734 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7735 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7736 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7737 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7738 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7739
7740 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7741 text property.
7742
7743 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7744 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7745 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7746
7747 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7748 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7749 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7750 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7751 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7752
7753 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7754 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7755 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7756
7757 ** Changes in face features
7758
7759 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7760 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7761
7762 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7763 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7764
7765 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7766 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7767
7768 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7769 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7770
7771 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7772 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7773 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7774 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7775 overlay property).
7776
7777 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7778 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7779
7780 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7781
7782 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7783 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7784 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7785 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7786
7787 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7788 begins with ~.
7789
7790 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7791 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7792
7793 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7794 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7795
7796 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7797 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7798
7799 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7800 character code conversion as well as other things.
7801
7802 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7803 (formerly it did not).
7804
7805 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7806 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7807
7808 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7809 instead of constant strings.
7810
7811 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7812 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7813 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7814
7815 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7816 in the same way as before.
7817
7818 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7819 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7820 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7821
7822 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7823 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7824 else, and returns nil.
7825
7826 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7827 directory cannot be listed.
7828
7829 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7830
7831 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7832 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7833 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7834 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7835 ways:
7836
7837 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7838 It is available through the history command M-n.
7839
7840 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7841 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7842 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7843 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7844 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7845
7846 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7847 argument in this way.
7848
7849 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7850 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7851 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7852
7853 ** Echo area features
7854
7855 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7856 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7857 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7858 after the echo area is cleared.
7859
7860 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7861 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7862
7863 ** Keyboard input features
7864
7865 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7866 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7867
7868 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7869 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7870 by keyboard macros.
7871
7872 ** Frame-related changes
7873
7874 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7875 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7876 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7877
7878 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7879 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7880 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7881
7882 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7883 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7884 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7885 in the selected frame.
7886
7887 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7888 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7889 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7890
7891 ** X Windows features
7892
7893 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7894 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7895 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7896
7897 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7898 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7899
7900 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7901 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7902 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7903
7904 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7905 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7906
7907 ** Subprocess features
7908
7909 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7910 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7911 automatically.
7912
7913 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7914 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7915
7916 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7917 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7918
7919 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7920 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7921
7922 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7923 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7924 goes after the other menu items.
7925
7926 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7927 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7928 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7929 are in use.
7930
7931 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7932 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7933
7934 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7935 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7936 form.
7937
7938 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7939 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7940 but its hook is still run.
7941
7942 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7943 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7944
7945 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7946 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7947 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7948
7949 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7950 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7951 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7952 warned.
7953
7954 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7955 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7956
7957 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7958 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7959 functions like display-time.
7960
7961 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7962 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7963
7964 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7965 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7966 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7967
7968 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7969 if there is an error in compilation.
7970
7971 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7972 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7973 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7974 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7975
7976 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7977 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7978 the *scratch* buffer.
7979
7980 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7981 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7982 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7983 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7984
7985 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7986 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7987 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7988
7989 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7990 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7991 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7992 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7993
7994 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7995 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7996 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7997
7998 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7999 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
8000 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
8001 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
8002 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
8003 files at all.
8004
8005 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
8006 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
8007 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
8008 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
8009
8010 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
8011 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
8012 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
8013 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
8014
8015 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
8016
8017 ** imenu.el changes.
8018
8019 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
8020 item from menu created by imenu.
8021
8022 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
8023 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
8024 select one of those items.
8025 \f
8026 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
8027 \f
8028 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
8029
8030 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
8031 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
8032
8033 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
8034 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
8035 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
8036 \f
8037 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
8038
8039 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
8040 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
8041
8042 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
8043 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
8044 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
8045 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
8046 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
8047 all caps.
8048
8049 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
8050 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
8051
8052 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
8053 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
8054 as in previous Emacs versions.
8055
8056 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
8057 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
8058 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
8059 frames.
8060
8061 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
8062 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
8063 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
8064 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
8065 accident.
8066
8067 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
8068 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
8069 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
8070 line and then executing the macro.
8071
8072 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
8073
8074 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
8075 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
8076 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
8077 characters.
8078
8079 ** Font Lock mode
8080
8081 *** Font Lock support modes
8082
8083 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
8084 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
8085 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
8086 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
8087 Font Lock mode is enabled.
8088
8089 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
8090
8091 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
8092
8093 in your ~/.emacs.
8094
8095 *** lazy-lock
8096
8097 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
8098 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
8099 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
8100 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
8101 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
8102 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
8103 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
8104
8105 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
8106
8107 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
8108
8109 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
8110
8111 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8112
8113 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
8114 paren and key.
8115
8116 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
8117 supported.
8118
8119 ** Gnus changes.
8120
8121 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
8122 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
8123 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
8124 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
8125
8126 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
8127 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
8128
8129 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
8130 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
8131 obsolete.
8132
8133 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
8134 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
8135
8136 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
8137
8138 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
8139
8140 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
8141
8142 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
8143 referred.
8144
8145 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
8146
8147 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
8148
8149 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
8150
8151 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
8152
8153 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
8154 buffers.
8155
8156 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
8157
8158 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
8159
8160 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
8161
8162 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
8163
8164 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
8165
8166 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
8167
8168 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
8169
8170 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
8171 is possible.
8172
8173 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
8174
8175 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
8176 groups of groups.
8177
8178 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
8179
8180 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
8181 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
8182
8183 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
8184
8185 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
8186
8187 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
8188
8189 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
8190
8191 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
8192 expiration times.
8193
8194 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
8195
8196 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
8197 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
8198
8199 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
8200 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
8201 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
8202
8203 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
8204 articles with the `*' command.
8205
8206 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
8207
8208 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
8209
8210 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
8211
8212 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
8213
8214 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
8215 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
8216
8217 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
8218 buffer.
8219
8220 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
8221
8222 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
8223
8224 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
8225
8226 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
8227
8228 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
8229
8230 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
8231
8232 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
8233
8234 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
8235
8236 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
8237
8238 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
8239 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
8240
8241 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
8242 refetching.
8243
8244 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
8245
8246 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
8247 buffer to allow easier treatment.
8248
8249 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
8250
8251 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
8252
8253 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
8254
8255 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
8256 articles.
8257
8258 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
8259
8260 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
8261
8262 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
8263 cited text to hide is now customizable.
8264
8265 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
8266
8267 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
8268
8269 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
8270
8271 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
8272
8273 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
8274
8275 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
8276 in greater detail.
8277 \f
8278 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
8279
8280 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
8281 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
8282 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
8283 exists.
8284
8285 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
8286 as well as lists.
8287
8288 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
8289 of a given keymap.
8290
8291 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
8292 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
8293 keymap or nil.
8294
8295 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
8296 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
8297 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
8298 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
8299 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
8300 alias.
8301 \f
8302 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
8303
8304 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
8305
8306 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
8307 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
8308 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
8309 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
8310 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
8311
8312 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
8313 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
8314 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
8315
8316 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
8317
8318 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
8319 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
8320 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
8321 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
8322 chapter of the manual for details.
8323
8324 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
8325 customization variables take effect.
8326
8327 ** Marking with the mouse.
8328
8329 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
8330 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
8331 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
8332
8333 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
8334
8335 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
8336
8337 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
8338 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
8339
8340 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
8341 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
8342 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
8343 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
8344 applications, these problems are significant.
8345
8346 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
8347 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
8348 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
8349 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
8350 other DOS application as a subprocess.
8351
8352 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
8353 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
8354
8355 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
8356 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
8357 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
8358 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
8359 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
8360 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
8361
8362 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
8363
8364 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
8365 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
8366 minibuffer contains.
8367
8368 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
8369
8370 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
8371 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
8372 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
8373 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
8374
8375 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
8376 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
8377 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
8378 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
8379
8380 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
8381 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
8382
8383 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
8384 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
8385 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
8386
8387 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
8388 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
8389 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
8390 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8391
8392 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8393
8394 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8395 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8396
8397 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8398
8399 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8400 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8401 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8402 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8403 immediately after the selected one.
8404
8405 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8406 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8407
8408 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8409
8410 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8411 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8412 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8413 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8414 recover-session.
8415
8416 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8417 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8418 will not work.
8419
8420 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8421 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8422 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8423 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8424 now that the bug is fixed.
8425
8426 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8427
8428 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8429 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8430 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8431 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8432
8433 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8434 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8435 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8436 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8437
8438 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8439 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8440 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8441
8442 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8443 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8444 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8445 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8446 remain normal.
8447
8448 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8449 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8450
8451 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8452 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8453 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8454 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8455
8456 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8457 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8458 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8459 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8460 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8461 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8462
8463 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8464 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8465 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8466 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8467
8468 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8469 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8470 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8471
8472 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8473 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8474 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8475 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8476 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8477 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8478 to a limitation in font-lock).
8479
8480 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8481
8482 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8483 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8484 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8485 this example:
8486
8487 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8488 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8489
8490 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8491
8492 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8493
8494 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8495
8496 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8497
8498 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8499 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8500 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8501 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8502 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8503 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8504
8505 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8506 does the same job.
8507
8508 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8509 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8510
8511 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8512 text.
8513
8514 ** Font Lock mode
8515
8516 *** Global Font Lock mode
8517
8518 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8519 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8520 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8521 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8522 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8523
8524 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8525
8526 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8527
8528 in your ~/.emacs.
8529
8530 *** Local Refontification
8531
8532 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8533 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8534 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8535 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8536
8537 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8538 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8539 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8540 above and below point.
8541
8542 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8543
8544 ** Follow mode
8545
8546 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8547 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8548 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8549 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8550 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8551 follow-mode.
8552
8553 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8554
8555 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8556 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8557
8558 ** hide-show changes.
8559
8560 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8561 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8562 normal hooks.
8563
8564 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8565 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8566
8567 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8568 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8569 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8570
8571 ** MSDOS Changes
8572
8573 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8574 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8575
8576 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8577 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8578
8579 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8580
8581 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8582 pressing both mouse buttons.
8583
8584 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8585 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8586 are:
8587
8588 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8589 now works.
8590
8591 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8592
8593 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8594 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8595
8596 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8597
8598 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8599
8600 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8601
8602 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8603
8604 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8605 \f
8606 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8607
8608 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8609 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8610 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8611 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8612 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8613
8614 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8615
8616 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8617 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8618 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8619 be different.
8620
8621 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8622 than `system-type'.
8623
8624 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8625
8626 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8627 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8628
8629 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8630 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8631
8632 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8633 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8634 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8635
8636 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8637 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8638 like this:
8639
8640 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8641
8642 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8643 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8644 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8645
8646 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8647 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8648 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8649
8650 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8651 up if too much time passes.
8652
8653 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8654
8655 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8656 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8657 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8658 form in BODY.
8659
8660 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8661 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8662 call looks like this:
8663
8664 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8665
8666 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8667 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8668 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8669 ARGS.
8670
8671 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8672 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8673 command.
8674
8675 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8676 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8677 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8678 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8679
8680 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8681 idle for SECS seconds.
8682
8683 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8684 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8685 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8686 instead.
8687
8688 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8689 there is no answer within a certain time.
8690
8691 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8692
8693 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8694 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8695 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8696
8697 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8698 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8699 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8700 arguments in between are ignored.
8701
8702 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8703 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8704
8705 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8706 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8707 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8708 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8709 version.
8710
8711 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8712 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8713 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8714 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8715 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8716 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8717
8718 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8719 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8720 systems with limited file name syntax.
8721
8722 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8723 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8724 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8725 completions.el:
8726
8727 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8728 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8729 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8730
8731 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8732 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8733 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8734 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8735 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8736
8737 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8738 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8739 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8740
8741 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8742 marker from its buffer position.
8743
8744 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8745 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8746 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8747
8748 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8749 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8750 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8751 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8752 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8753 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8754
8755 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8756 errors that happen often during editing.
8757
8758 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8759 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8760 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8761
8762 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8763 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8764
8765 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8766 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8767 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8768 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8769 and not get-buffer-window.
8770
8771 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8772 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8773 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8774
8775 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8776 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8777 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8778 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8779 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8780 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8781 over and over for the same text.
8782
8783 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8784
8785 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8786 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8787
8788 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8789 ;; $HEADER: text $
8790
8791 in addition to the normal
8792
8793 ;; HEADER: text
8794
8795 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8796 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8797 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8798
8799
8800 \f
8801 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
8802
8803 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8804 Copyright information:
8805
8806 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8807
8808 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8809 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8810 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8811 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8812
8813 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8814 of this document, or of portions of it,
8815 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8816 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8817 \f
8818 Local variables:
8819 mode: outline
8820 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
8821 end: