1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 5 Jan 2000
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS.
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
11 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
13 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
14 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
16 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
17 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
20 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
21 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if they these are available.
23 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
24 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
26 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
27 support 64-bit executables. See etc/MACHINES for instructions.
30 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
32 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
33 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
34 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
35 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
37 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
38 a version-dependent component.
40 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
41 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
42 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
43 character is still bound as before.
45 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
48 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
49 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to executable-chmod.
51 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
52 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
53 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
54 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
55 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
56 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
57 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
59 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
60 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
61 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
62 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
63 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
64 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
65 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
66 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
67 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
69 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
70 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
72 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
73 point in a pop-up window.
75 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
76 displays all characters in that character set.
78 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
79 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
81 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
84 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
86 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
87 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
89 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
90 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
91 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
92 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
94 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
95 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
96 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
97 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
99 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
100 on the display using several methods
102 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
103 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
104 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
106 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
107 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
109 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
111 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
112 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
114 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
115 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
116 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
117 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
119 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
120 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
121 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
123 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
124 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
126 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
127 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
130 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
131 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
134 ** New X resources recognized
136 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
137 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
138 is useful for debugging X problems.
142 emacs.synchronous: true
144 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
145 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
146 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
147 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
148 visual class names are
157 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
158 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
161 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
162 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
163 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
168 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
170 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
171 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
172 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
173 resource values are `true' or `on'.
177 emacs.privateColormap: true
179 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
180 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
181 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
183 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
184 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
185 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
188 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
190 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
191 all frames except the selected one.
193 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
194 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
196 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
197 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
198 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
199 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
201 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
202 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
204 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
205 read mail from the menu etc.
207 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
208 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
210 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
212 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
216 -------------------------
223 ** Changes in Outline mode.
225 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
226 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
227 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
229 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
230 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
232 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either M-x clone-buffer
233 or C-u m <entry> RET. M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and
234 several other special buffers.
236 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
237 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
240 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
241 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
243 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
244 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
245 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
247 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
248 is running in batch mode. For example,
250 (message "%s" (read t))
252 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
255 ** Faces and frame parameters.
257 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
258 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
259 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
260 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
261 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
262 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
263 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
265 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
266 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
267 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
268 `default' face and vice versa.
272 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
273 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
274 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
276 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
278 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
279 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
280 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
281 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
283 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
284 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
285 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
287 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
290 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
292 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
293 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
294 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
295 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
298 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
300 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
301 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
302 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
303 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
306 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
307 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
308 under Lisp changes, below.
310 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
312 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
313 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
316 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
317 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
318 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
319 customizing face `fringe'.
321 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
322 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
326 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
327 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
329 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
331 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
332 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
333 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
334 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
335 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
338 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
339 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
340 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
341 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
342 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
343 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
345 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
346 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
347 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
348 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
349 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
350 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
352 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
353 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
354 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
355 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
356 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
358 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
360 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
361 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
362 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
364 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
366 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
367 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
368 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
369 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
370 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
375 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
376 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
380 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
381 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
382 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
385 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
387 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
388 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
389 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
392 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
393 have to do anything to activate it.
395 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
397 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
398 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
399 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
400 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
402 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
404 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
406 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
408 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
411 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
414 ** Hscrolling in C code.
416 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
417 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
422 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
423 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
425 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
427 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
428 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
429 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
430 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
431 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
433 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
435 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
438 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
439 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
441 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
443 - Mouse-2 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
444 toggles the read-only status.
446 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
448 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
450 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
451 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
454 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
456 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
457 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
458 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
459 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
460 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
461 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
466 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
467 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
468 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
470 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
471 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
472 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
473 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
474 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
475 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
477 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
479 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
481 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
482 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
483 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
485 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
486 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
488 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
489 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
490 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
492 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
494 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
495 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
496 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
497 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
499 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
500 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
501 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
502 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
504 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
505 notably at the end of lines.
507 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
508 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
510 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
512 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
513 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
514 after each match to get the replacement text.
516 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
517 you edit the replacement string.
519 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', let's
520 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
521 lisp-complete-symbol.
523 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
525 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
526 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
527 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
528 window size by setting the following variable:
530 - User option: max-mini-window-height
532 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
533 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
534 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
538 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
540 ** Changes to hideshow.el
542 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
543 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
545 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
547 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
548 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
549 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
550 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
551 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
552 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
554 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
555 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
556 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
557 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
559 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
561 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
562 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
563 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
564 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
565 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
567 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
568 something like this in your .emacs.
570 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
572 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
574 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
576 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
577 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
578 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
580 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
581 buffer, fixing old-style date formats if necessary.
583 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
584 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
586 The search for a file's version number is performed based on regular
587 expressions from `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be
588 cutomized. Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of
591 ** Changes in Font Lock
593 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
594 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
597 ** Comint (subshell) changes
599 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
600 distiguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
601 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
602 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
603 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
604 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
605 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
606 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
608 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
609 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
611 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
612 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
613 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
615 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
616 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
617 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
619 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and
620 scheme-interaction-mode now highlight user input, and support choosing
621 previous input with mouse-2. To control this feature, see the
622 user-option `comint-highlight-input'.
624 ** Changes to Rmail mode
626 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
627 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
628 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
629 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
630 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
633 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
634 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
635 regexp matching your mail addresses.
637 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
638 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
639 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
640 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
641 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
643 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
646 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
647 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
650 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
651 in which folder to put messages automatically.
653 ** Changes to TeX mode
655 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
658 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
660 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
661 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
662 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
663 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
664 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
665 can be edited from that buffer.
667 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
668 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
669 `A' to use all marked entries).
671 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
672 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
674 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
675 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
676 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
679 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
680 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
681 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
682 in column 1 are always made leaves.
684 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
685 has the following new features:
687 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
688 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
689 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
690 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
692 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
693 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
694 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
695 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
696 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
699 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
704 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
705 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
706 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
708 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
709 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
710 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
711 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
715 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
716 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
717 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
719 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
720 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
723 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
724 between custom options. Example:
726 (defcustom default-input-method nil
727 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
728 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
729 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
731 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
732 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
734 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
735 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
736 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
738 ** New features in evaluation commands
740 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
741 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
742 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
743 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
744 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
746 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
747 code when called with a prefix argument.
751 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
752 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
753 spell-checks the current buffer.
757 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
758 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
759 is, delete only empty directories.
761 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
762 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
763 copy directories recursively.
765 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
766 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
767 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
769 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
770 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
773 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
774 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
775 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
776 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
777 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
779 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
782 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
783 use the -f option when sending mail.
787 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
788 current user setups (although it's believed that these
789 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
790 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
791 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
792 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
795 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
796 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
797 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
798 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
799 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
802 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
803 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
804 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
805 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
806 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
807 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
809 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
810 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
811 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
812 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
813 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
814 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
815 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
816 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
818 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
819 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
820 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
821 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
824 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
825 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
826 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
827 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
828 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
829 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
830 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
831 function documentation for more info.
833 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
834 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
835 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
836 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
837 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
838 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
839 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
840 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
842 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
844 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
845 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
847 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
848 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
849 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
850 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
851 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
854 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
855 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
856 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
859 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
860 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
861 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
862 chapter about this in the manual.
864 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
865 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
866 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
867 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
868 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
870 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
871 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
872 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
874 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
875 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
877 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
878 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
879 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
882 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
883 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
884 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
885 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
888 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
889 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
890 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
893 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
894 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
895 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
896 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
899 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
900 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
901 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
902 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
905 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
906 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
907 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
909 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
911 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
912 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
913 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
914 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
916 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
917 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
918 the column specified by comment-column.
920 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
921 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
922 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
923 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
924 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
925 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
927 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
928 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
931 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
933 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
934 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
935 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
936 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
939 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
941 ** Makefile mode changes
943 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
945 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
946 Fontlock mode is active.
950 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
951 so that searches can be resumed.
953 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
954 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
955 that started the search.
957 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
958 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
960 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
962 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
963 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
964 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
965 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
966 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
967 `secondary-selection'.
969 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
970 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
971 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
972 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
973 usual snappy response.
975 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
976 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
977 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
978 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
980 ** Changes in sort.el
982 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
983 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
984 new user-option sort-numberic-base can be used to specify a default
987 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
989 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
990 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
991 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
993 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
994 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
996 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
997 output ^M at the end of lines.
999 ** Shell script mode changes.
1001 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1002 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1003 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1007 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1009 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1010 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1011 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1012 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1013 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1015 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1016 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1018 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1019 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1021 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1024 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1026 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1028 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1031 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1032 variables are tagged.
1034 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1036 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1039 ** Changes in etags.el
1041 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1042 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1043 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1045 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1046 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1048 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1049 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1050 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1051 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1053 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1055 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1056 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1058 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1060 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1061 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1062 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1064 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1065 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1067 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1068 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1070 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1071 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1072 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1074 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1075 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1076 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1077 There is currently no specific input method support for them.
1079 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1080 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1081 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1083 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1085 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1087 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignore-regexps'
1088 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1089 expression from that list, are not checked.
1091 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1092 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1093 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1094 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1096 ** New modes and packages
1098 *** THe new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1099 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1101 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1103 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1104 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1105 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1106 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1107 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1108 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1109 corresponding file is read.
1111 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1114 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1115 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1117 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1118 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1119 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1121 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1122 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1123 separate Texinfo file.
1125 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine
1126 or by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1127 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS.
1128 It comes with log-view-mode to view RCS and SCCS logs and log-edit-mode
1129 used to enter checkin log messages.
1131 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1132 without invoking external programs.
1134 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1135 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1136 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1137 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1138 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1140 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1141 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1143 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1144 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1146 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1147 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1148 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1149 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1150 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1153 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1154 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1155 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1156 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1158 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1159 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1160 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1162 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1165 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1167 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1169 ; comment (until end of line)
1173 $A default non-terminal
1174 $"C" default terminal
1175 $?C? default special
1176 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1177 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1178 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1179 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1180 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1181 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1182 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1183 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1184 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1185 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1186 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1187 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1188 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1189 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1190 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1192 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1194 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1195 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1196 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1197 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1198 equal signs of assignments.
1200 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1201 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1203 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1204 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1205 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1206 customize the package.
1208 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1210 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1211 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1212 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1213 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1214 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1215 which answers different needs.
1217 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1218 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1219 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1220 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1221 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1224 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1225 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1227 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1229 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1231 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1233 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1236 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1239 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1241 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1243 *** whitespace.el ???
1245 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1246 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1247 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1248 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1249 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1250 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1251 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1253 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1255 Here is an example of columns:
1258 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1259 porcupine strawberry airplane
1261 Doing the following settings:
1263 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1264 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1265 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1266 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1269 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1271 M-x delimit-columns-region
1275 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1276 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1277 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1279 delim-col has the following options:
1281 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1284 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1285 between each column.
1287 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1290 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1293 delim-col has the following commands:
1295 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1296 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1298 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1299 were operated on recently.
1301 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1303 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1304 recentf at Emacs startup.
1306 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1307 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1308 file list can be displayed:
1310 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1311 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1312 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1314 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1315 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1317 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1320 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1321 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1322 specific to Message mode.
1324 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1325 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1326 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1328 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1329 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1330 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1332 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1333 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1335 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1337 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1338 minibuffer with completion.
1340 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1341 with the diary features.
1343 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1344 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1346 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1349 ** Withdrawn packages
1351 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1352 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1354 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1356 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1359 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1360 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1362 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1363 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1366 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1369 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1371 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1372 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1374 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1376 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1377 comparison is done with `eq'.
1379 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1381 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1384 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1385 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1386 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1388 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1389 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1391 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1392 function was declared obsolete.
1394 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1395 retained as an alias).
1397 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1398 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1399 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1401 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1403 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1405 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1406 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1408 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1410 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1412 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1414 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1415 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1416 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1417 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1420 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1421 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1422 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1423 minibuffer even if it is active.
1425 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1426 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1427 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1428 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1429 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1430 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1432 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1433 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1434 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1435 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1436 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1437 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1438 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1440 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1441 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1442 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1444 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1445 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1446 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1447 Default value is nil.
1449 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1452 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1453 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1454 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1456 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1459 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1460 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1461 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1462 than replacing the local map.
1464 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1465 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1467 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1469 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1472 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1474 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1476 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1477 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1478 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1479 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1481 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1482 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1483 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1484 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1486 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1487 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1488 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1490 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1491 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1492 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1493 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1494 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1495 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1496 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1499 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1501 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1502 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1503 character set as previously.
1505 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1506 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1507 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1509 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1510 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1511 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1512 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1514 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1515 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1517 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1518 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1521 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1522 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1524 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1525 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1526 buffers and strings.
1528 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1529 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1530 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1531 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1532 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1533 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1534 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1537 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1538 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1539 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1541 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1542 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1543 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1544 may differ between buffer and string text.
1546 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1547 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1549 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1550 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1551 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1552 `composition' from STRING.
1554 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1555 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1557 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1560 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1561 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1562 character set is not used.
1564 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1565 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1566 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1569 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1570 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1571 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1574 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1575 that offset in the file before writing.
1577 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1578 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1580 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1581 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1582 from which the command was issued.
1584 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1585 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1586 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1587 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1590 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1591 to `window-buffer-height'.
1593 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1595 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1596 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1597 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1599 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1602 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1603 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1605 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1606 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1607 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1609 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1610 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1611 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1612 is currently displayed in some window.
1614 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1615 argument function's results.
1617 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1618 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1620 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1621 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1623 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1624 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1626 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1627 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1630 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1631 nil don't display a cursor
1632 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1633 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1634 others display a box cursor.
1636 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1637 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1638 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1639 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1641 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1642 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1643 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1644 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1648 (string-to-syntax "()")
1651 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1654 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1655 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1662 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1667 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1672 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1679 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1680 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1683 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1684 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1685 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1686 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1689 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1691 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1692 for a regexp in a string.
1694 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1695 `mouse-position-function'.
1697 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1698 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1700 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1701 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1704 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1707 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1708 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1711 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1712 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1713 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1714 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1718 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1719 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1722 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1723 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1724 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1725 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1728 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1729 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1730 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1731 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1734 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1735 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1736 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1739 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1740 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1743 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1745 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1746 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1747 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1751 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1752 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1755 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1756 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1759 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1760 instead of being optional.
1763 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1764 modify read-only text.
1767 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1769 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1770 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1771 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1772 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1773 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1775 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1776 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1777 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1778 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1779 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1780 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1781 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1784 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1785 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1786 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1790 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1791 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1794 ** New function `propertize'
1796 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1797 strings with text properties.
1799 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1801 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1802 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1803 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1804 specified value of that property. Example:
1806 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1809 ** push and pop macros.
1811 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1812 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1813 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1815 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1816 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1817 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1819 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1821 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1822 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1824 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1825 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1826 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1827 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1829 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1830 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1831 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1832 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1835 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1836 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1838 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1839 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1840 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1841 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1842 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1844 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1846 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1847 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1848 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1849 [:alpha:] matches letters.
1850 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1851 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1852 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
1853 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
1854 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
1855 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
1856 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1857 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
1858 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
1859 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
1860 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
1863 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
1865 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
1867 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
1869 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
1870 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
1874 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
1875 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
1876 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
1880 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
1881 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
1883 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
1885 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
1886 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
1887 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
1888 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
1889 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
1891 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
1893 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
1894 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
1895 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
1899 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
1900 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
1901 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
1902 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
1903 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
1905 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
1907 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
1909 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
1911 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
1913 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
1915 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
1918 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
1920 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
1922 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1924 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
1926 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
1928 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
1930 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1932 Returns the size of TABLE.
1934 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
1936 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
1938 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
1940 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
1942 - Function: clrhash TABLE
1946 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
1948 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
1951 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
1953 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
1954 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
1956 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
1958 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
1960 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
1962 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
1963 arguments KEY and VALUE.
1965 - Function: sxhash OBJ
1967 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
1969 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
1971 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
1972 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
1973 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
1974 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
1975 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
1977 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
1979 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
1980 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
1981 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
1983 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
1984 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
1986 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
1987 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
1989 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
1990 (sxhash (upcase a)))
1992 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
1993 'case-fold-string-hash))
1995 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
1998 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2000 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2001 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2002 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2005 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2007 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2008 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2011 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2012 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2013 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2014 is too short to reach that column.
2017 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2018 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2019 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2020 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2022 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2023 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2024 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2027 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2028 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2031 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2032 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2035 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2036 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2037 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2038 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2039 temporary-file-directory instead.
2042 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2043 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2044 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2045 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2048 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2049 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2052 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2054 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2055 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2056 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2059 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2061 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2062 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2063 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2064 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2065 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2066 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2068 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2069 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2070 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2071 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2074 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2076 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2077 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2078 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2081 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2082 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2086 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2088 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2089 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2092 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2095 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2097 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2098 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2101 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2103 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2104 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2110 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2111 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2113 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2114 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2115 to enable sound support.
2117 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2118 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2119 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2120 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2121 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2123 The following sound properties are supported:
2127 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2128 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2132 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2133 may be present, but not both.
2137 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2138 0..1. This property is optional.
2140 Other properties are ignored.
2142 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2144 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2147 ** Changes to garbage collection
2149 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2150 of live and free strings.
2152 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2153 strings that have been consed so far.
2156 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2160 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2162 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2165 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2167 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2169 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2170 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2171 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2172 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2173 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2175 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2176 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2179 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2182 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center'.
2184 When this property is specified, the image is vertically centered
2185 around a centerline which would be the vertical center of text drawn
2186 at the position of the image, in the manner specified by the text
2187 properties and overlays that apply to the image.
2190 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2192 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2193 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2194 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2195 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2197 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2198 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2200 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2201 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2202 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2203 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2204 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2205 just display it black instead.
2207 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2210 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2214 ** New face implementation.
2216 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2217 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2222 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2224 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2226 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2227 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2229 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2231 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2233 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2235 6. Foreground color.
2237 7. Background color.
2239 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2241 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2243 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2245 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2247 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2250 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2251 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2253 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2254 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2255 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2256 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2257 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2258 attributes mentioned above.
2260 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2261 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2264 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2265 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2271 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2272 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2273 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2274 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2275 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2276 results in a fully-specified face.
2279 *** Face realization.
2281 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2282 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2283 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2284 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2285 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2286 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2288 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2289 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2290 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2291 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2293 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2294 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2295 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2296 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2297 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2299 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2300 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2301 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2302 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2303 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2306 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2307 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2308 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2309 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2312 **** Clearing face caches.
2314 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2315 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2321 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2322 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2323 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2325 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2326 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2327 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2328 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2329 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2331 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2332 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2333 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2335 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2337 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2338 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2339 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2340 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2341 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2342 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2343 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2345 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2346 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2352 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2353 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2356 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2357 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2358 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2359 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2360 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2363 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2365 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2368 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2370 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2372 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2373 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2374 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2376 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2377 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2378 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2379 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2380 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2381 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2382 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2383 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2384 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2385 of the face font sort order.
2387 - Function: x-font-family-list
2389 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2390 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2391 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2392 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2394 - Variable: font-list-limit
2396 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2397 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2398 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2401 *** Setting face attributes.
2403 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2404 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2405 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2408 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2409 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2411 The following attributes are recognized:
2415 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2416 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2417 and `?' are allowed.
2421 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2422 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2423 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2424 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2428 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
2433 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2434 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2435 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2439 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2440 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2443 `:foreground', `:background'
2445 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2449 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2450 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2451 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2456 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2457 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2458 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2463 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2464 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2465 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2466 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2470 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2471 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2472 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2473 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2474 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2475 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2476 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2477 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2478 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2479 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2480 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2481 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2482 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2483 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2484 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2485 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2490 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2491 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2495 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2496 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2497 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2498 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2499 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2500 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2502 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2503 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2507 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2508 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2509 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2512 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2513 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2514 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2516 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2519 *** Face attributes and X resources
2521 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2524 Face attribute X resource class
2525 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2526 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2527 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2528 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2529 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2530 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2531 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2532 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2533 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2534 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2535 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2536 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2537 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2538 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2539 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2540 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2541 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2542 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2543 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2544 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2547 *** Text property `face'.
2549 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2550 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2551 specification can be
2553 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2555 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2556 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2557 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2558 for face attribute names.
2560 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2561 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2562 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2565 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2567 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2568 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2569 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2570 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2571 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2572 used to clear the mapping table.
2574 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2576 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2577 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2578 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2579 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2580 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2581 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2582 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2583 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2584 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2585 modify their color-related behavior.
2587 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2590 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2592 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2593 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2594 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2595 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2596 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2597 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2598 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2599 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2600 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2603 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2605 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2607 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2608 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2609 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2611 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2613 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2614 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2617 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2618 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2619 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2620 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2621 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2622 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2623 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2626 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2627 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2628 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2630 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2632 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE
2634 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2635 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2636 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2637 constrained position if that is is different.
2639 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2640 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2641 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2642 constrained to the field that has the same `field' text-property
2643 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2644 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2647 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2648 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2649 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2650 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2651 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2653 - Function: erase-field &optional POS
2655 Erases the field surrounding POS.
2656 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2657 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2659 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2661 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
2662 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2663 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2664 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at beginning of an
2665 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2667 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2669 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2670 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2671 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2672 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at end of a field,
2673 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2675 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2677 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2678 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2679 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2681 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2683 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2684 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2685 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2690 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2691 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2692 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2693 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2695 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2696 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2697 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2698 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2701 IMAGE is an image specification.
2703 *** Image specifications
2705 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
2706 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
2707 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
2708 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
2709 described below are ignored.
2711 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
2715 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
2716 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
2717 to use for its ascent.
2719 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
2720 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
2722 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
2723 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
2724 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
2725 overlays that apply to the image.
2729 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2730 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2734 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2739 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2740 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2741 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2742 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2744 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2746 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2747 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2748 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2749 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2750 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2751 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2752 background of the image.
2756 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2757 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2758 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2759 may be present in the image specification.
2763 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2764 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2765 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2766 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2768 *** Supported image types
2770 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2772 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2773 properties supported are
2777 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2778 is the frame's foreground.
2782 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2783 the frame's background color.
2785 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2786 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2787 instead of a `:file' property.
2791 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2795 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2801 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2802 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2804 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2806 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2809 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
2810 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
2813 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2815 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2816 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2817 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2818 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2820 Additional image properties supported are:
2822 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2824 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2825 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2828 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2829 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2831 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2832 to display compressed images.
2834 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2836 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
2837 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
2840 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
2842 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
2843 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
2846 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
2848 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
2849 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2852 **** GIF, image type `gif'
2854 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
2855 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
2857 Additional image properties supported are:
2861 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
2862 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
2864 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
2865 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
2866 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
2869 (defun show-anim (file max)
2870 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
2871 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
2873 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
2876 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
2879 (goto-char (point-min))
2880 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
2881 (insert-image img "x"))
2882 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
2884 **** PNG, image type `png'
2886 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
2887 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2890 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
2892 Additional image properties supported are:
2896 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
2897 integer. This is a required property.
2901 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
2902 must be a integer. This is an required property.
2906 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
2907 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
2908 files. This is an required property.
2910 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
2915 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
2916 which are supported in the current configuration.
2918 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
2919 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
2920 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
2921 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
2922 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
2924 *** Simplified image API, image.el
2926 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
2927 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
2928 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
2929 define an image based on available image types. The functions
2930 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
2936 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
2939 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
2940 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
2941 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
2942 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
2943 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2944 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2945 of the display margins.
2947 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
2948 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
2949 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
2950 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
2956 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
2957 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
2958 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
2959 that have a `help-echo' property.
2961 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
2962 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
2963 the window in which the help was found.
2965 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
2966 `help-echo' text property was found.
2968 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
2969 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
2971 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
2972 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
2975 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
2976 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
2978 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
2979 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
2980 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
2981 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
2982 used as help string.
2984 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
2985 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
2986 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
2989 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
2991 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
2992 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
2994 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
2995 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
2996 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
2997 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3000 (global-set-key [A-down]
3003 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3004 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3005 (global-set-key [A-up]
3008 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3009 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3012 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3014 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3015 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3016 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3017 is called with one argument, POS.
3019 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3020 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3021 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3022 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3023 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3026 ** Tool bar support.
3028 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3029 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3030 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3031 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3032 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3033 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3035 *** Tool bar item definitions
3037 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3038 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3039 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3041 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3042 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3043 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3044 property (see below).
3046 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3047 binding are currently ignored.
3049 The following properties are recognized:
3053 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3058 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3062 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3063 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3064 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3066 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3068 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3069 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3073 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3074 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3075 meaning of each of the four elements:
3077 Index Use when item is
3078 ----------------------------------------
3079 0 enabled and selected
3080 1 enabled and deselected
3081 2 disabled and selected
3082 3 disabled and deselected
3084 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3085 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3087 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3089 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3090 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3092 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3094 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3095 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3096 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3098 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3099 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3101 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3102 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3103 pixels. Default is 1.
3105 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3106 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3108 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3110 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3113 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3114 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3115 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3117 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3119 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3121 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3124 ** Mode line changes.
3127 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3129 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3130 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3131 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3133 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3134 a `local-map' text property.
3136 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3137 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3139 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3140 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3141 `local-map' property.
3143 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3144 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3147 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3148 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3151 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3152 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3155 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3157 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3158 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3159 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3160 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3163 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3166 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3167 position in the header-line.
3170 ** Text property `display'
3172 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3173 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3174 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3175 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3177 *** Variable width and height spaces
3179 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3180 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3181 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3182 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3183 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3184 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3185 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3187 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3188 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3189 properties described below.
3191 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3192 characters having the `display' property.
3196 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3197 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3199 - :relative-width FACTOR
3201 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3202 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3203 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3204 width of that character by FACTOR.
3208 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3209 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3211 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3215 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3218 - :relative-height FACTOR
3220 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3221 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3225 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3226 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3227 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3230 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3234 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3235 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3236 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3237 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3238 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3239 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3240 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3241 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3242 as display specification.
3244 *** Other display properties
3246 - :space-width FACTOR
3248 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3249 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3254 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3256 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3257 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3258 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3259 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3260 a font is available counts as a step.
3262 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3263 as tall as the frame's default font.
3265 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3266 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3268 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3269 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3273 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3274 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3275 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3276 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3277 `:height' subproperty.
3279 *** Conditional display properties
3281 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3282 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3283 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3284 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3285 the text having the `display' property.
3287 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3291 ** New menu separator types.
3293 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3294 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3295 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3296 to specify other menu separator types.
3298 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3300 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3303 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3305 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3307 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3309 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3311 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3313 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3315 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3317 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3319 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3321 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3322 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3324 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3326 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3328 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3330 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3332 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3334 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3336 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3338 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3340 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3342 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3344 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3346 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3348 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3350 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3352 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3353 the corresponding single-line separators.
3356 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3358 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3359 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3360 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3361 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3362 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3363 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3364 default foreground is black.
3366 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3367 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3368 `ScrollBarBackground').
3370 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3371 settings for scroll bar colors.
3374 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3375 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3378 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3379 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3380 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3381 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3382 the original window start.
3385 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3386 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3387 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3390 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3392 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3393 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3394 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3395 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3397 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3398 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3400 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3402 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3403 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3404 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3405 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3406 temporarily to nil, for example
3408 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3409 (enlarge-window 10))
3411 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3412 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3414 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3415 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3416 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3417 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3418 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3419 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3421 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3423 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3426 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3428 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3430 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3431 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3432 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3433 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3434 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3436 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3440 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3442 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3445 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3447 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3448 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3450 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3452 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3454 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3455 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3456 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3458 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3459 is the one that is used.
3461 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3462 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3463 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3464 separate from the command's regular output.
3465 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3466 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3467 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3470 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3471 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3472 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3473 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3475 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3476 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3477 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3478 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3480 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3481 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3482 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3483 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3485 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3486 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3487 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3488 they never ignore case.
3490 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3491 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3492 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3493 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3494 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3495 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3496 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3498 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3499 the same format that was used in the file before.
3501 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3502 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3504 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3505 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3506 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3508 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3509 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3510 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3511 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3512 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3513 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3514 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3516 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3517 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3518 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3519 format. You can now customize these variables.
3521 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3522 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3523 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3524 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3526 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3527 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3528 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3530 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3531 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3532 doesn't have any effect.
3534 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3537 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3538 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3539 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3541 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3542 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3543 `auto-show-mode' command.
3545 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3546 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3547 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3548 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3549 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3551 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3552 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3554 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3555 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3556 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3558 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3559 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3560 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3561 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3563 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3565 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3566 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3567 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3568 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3569 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3571 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3572 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3574 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3575 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3576 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3577 `?' on other systems.
3579 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3580 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3583 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3584 current codepage when it starts.
3588 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3589 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3590 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3591 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3592 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3593 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3597 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3598 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3600 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3601 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3602 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3603 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3604 buffer-file-coding-system.
3606 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3607 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3610 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3611 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3612 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3613 list of possible coding systems.
3617 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3618 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3619 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3620 docstring for details.
3622 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3623 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3624 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3625 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3626 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3628 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3629 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3631 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3632 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3634 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3635 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3636 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3637 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3640 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3641 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3643 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3644 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3645 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3646 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3648 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3649 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3650 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3651 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3652 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3654 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3656 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
3658 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
3659 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
3661 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
3663 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
3664 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
3665 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
3666 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
3667 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
3671 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
3672 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
3673 Gnus manual for the full story.
3675 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
3676 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
3677 group, which is created automatically.
3679 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
3682 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
3684 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
3685 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
3687 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
3690 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
3692 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
3693 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
3695 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
3697 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
3698 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
3700 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
3701 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
3703 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
3704 control over simplification.
3706 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
3708 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
3711 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
3713 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
3715 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
3716 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
3717 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
3719 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
3720 `a' forces normal posting method.
3722 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
3725 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
3728 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
3729 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
3731 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
3734 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
3736 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
3738 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
3739 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
3741 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
3742 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
3744 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
3746 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
3749 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
3750 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
3752 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
3753 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
3755 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
3757 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
3759 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
3761 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
3763 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
3764 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
3765 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
3767 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
3768 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
3769 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
3770 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
3771 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3773 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3774 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3775 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3776 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3778 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3779 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3780 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3783 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3785 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3786 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3788 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3789 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3790 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3791 removed from the label.
3793 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3794 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3796 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3797 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3799 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3800 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3803 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3805 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3807 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3808 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3810 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3811 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3812 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3814 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3815 changes with a special face.
3817 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3818 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3819 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3821 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3823 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3824 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3825 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3826 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3827 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3829 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3830 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3831 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3833 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3834 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
3835 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
3836 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
3837 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
3838 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
3839 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
3840 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
3841 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
3843 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
3844 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
3845 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
3846 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
3847 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
3850 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
3851 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
3852 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
3853 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
3854 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
3855 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
3857 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
3858 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
3859 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
3860 was not documented clearly before.
3862 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
3863 This includes Tetris and Snake.
3865 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
3867 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
3868 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
3869 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
3870 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
3872 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
3873 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
3874 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
3876 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
3878 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
3879 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
3881 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
3882 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
3885 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
3886 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
3887 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
3888 file names and attributes are returned.
3890 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
3891 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
3892 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
3893 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
3896 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
3897 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
3899 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
3901 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
3902 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
3903 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
3906 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
3907 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
3910 The new function process-running-child-p
3911 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
3912 terminal to its own child process.
3914 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
3915 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
3916 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
3917 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
3919 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
3920 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
3922 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
3923 :included is an alias for :visible.
3925 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
3926 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
3927 to move or copy menu entries.
3929 ** Multibyte editing changes
3931 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
3932 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
3933 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
3934 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
3935 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
3936 (setq char (sref str idx)
3937 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
3938 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
3940 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
3941 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
3942 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
3944 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
3945 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
3946 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
3948 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
3950 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
3951 across the boundary.
3953 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
3954 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
3955 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
3956 contains 8-bit characters.
3957 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
3958 contains invalid characters.
3960 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
3961 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
3962 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
3963 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
3966 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
3967 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
3968 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
3969 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
3971 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
3972 compose Thai characters in a string.
3974 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
3975 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
3976 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
3977 menus should always use the third argument.
3979 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
3980 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
3981 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
3982 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
3984 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
3985 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
3986 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
3987 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
3989 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
3990 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
3991 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
3994 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
3996 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
3997 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
3998 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4000 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4001 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4002 means to clear out that attribute.
4004 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4005 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4007 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4008 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4009 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4010 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4012 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4013 the gap of the current buffer.
4015 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4016 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4019 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4020 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4021 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4022 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4024 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4026 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4027 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4028 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4029 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4030 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4032 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4033 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4034 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4035 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4036 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4038 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4039 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4040 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4042 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4043 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4044 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4045 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4046 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4049 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4050 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4051 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4052 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4054 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4056 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4057 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4058 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4059 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4061 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4062 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4063 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4064 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4065 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4066 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4067 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4070 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4073 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4074 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4075 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4076 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4077 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4079 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4080 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4081 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4082 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4084 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4085 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4086 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4087 something that most users not do.
4089 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4090 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4091 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4094 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4097 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4098 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4099 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4100 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4103 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4104 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4105 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4106 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4107 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4110 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4111 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4112 to be confused by TeX commands.
4114 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4115 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4116 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4117 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4119 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4120 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4121 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4122 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4123 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4125 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4126 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4128 ** Changes in input method usage.
4130 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4131 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4134 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4136 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4137 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4139 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4140 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4142 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4144 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4146 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4147 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4149 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4150 given in the following case:
4151 o When you are using a complex input method.
4152 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4154 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4155 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4156 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4157 setting it to t is helpful.
4159 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4161 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4163 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4164 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4165 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4166 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4169 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4170 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4171 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4174 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4176 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4178 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4179 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4181 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4182 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4183 its owner and group.
4185 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4186 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4188 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4189 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4191 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4192 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4193 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4194 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4196 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4197 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4198 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4199 for writing keyboard macros.
4201 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4202 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4203 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4204 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4205 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4208 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4210 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4211 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4214 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4215 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4216 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4217 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4219 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4220 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4221 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4223 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4224 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4225 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4226 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4228 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4229 failure if the command produces no output.
4231 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4232 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4235 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4236 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4237 function and variable names.
4239 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4240 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4241 file-coding-system-alist.
4243 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4244 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4245 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4246 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4247 according to the current fontset.
4249 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4251 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4252 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4253 nonascii-insert-offset.
4255 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4256 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4257 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4258 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4260 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4261 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4263 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4264 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4266 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4267 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4270 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4271 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4273 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4274 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4275 all variables that have documentation.
4277 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4278 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4279 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4280 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4281 it should show; the default is 20.
4283 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4284 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4287 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4288 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4289 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4290 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4291 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4292 Newly added options are included as well.
4294 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4295 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4296 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4298 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4301 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4302 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4304 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4305 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4308 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4309 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4312 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4313 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4314 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4315 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4318 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4320 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4321 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4322 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4324 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4325 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4326 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4331 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4332 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4334 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4335 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4337 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4338 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4340 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4341 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4342 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4343 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4344 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4345 made invisible again.
4347 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4349 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4350 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4351 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4354 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4355 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4356 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4357 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4358 rmail-default-body-file.
4360 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4361 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4362 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4364 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4365 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4366 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4368 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4369 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4370 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4371 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4372 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4373 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4375 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4376 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4377 provided by feedmail are:
4379 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4380 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4381 there is also a queue for draft messages
4383 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4384 be prompted for confirmation
4386 **** does smart filling of address headers
4388 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4389 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4390 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4392 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4393 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4394 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4395 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4399 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4400 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4402 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4403 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4405 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4406 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4407 for a specified regexp.
4411 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4414 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4415 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4418 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4419 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4420 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4421 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4423 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4424 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4425 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4426 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4427 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4429 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4430 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4431 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4432 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4433 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4435 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4436 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4437 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4438 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4440 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4441 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4442 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4444 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4445 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4446 session to resolve them.
4448 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4449 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4450 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4453 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4454 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4455 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4456 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4457 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4458 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4461 ** Changes in Font Lock
4463 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4464 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4465 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4466 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4467 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4469 ** Frame name display changes
4471 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4472 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4473 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4474 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4476 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4477 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4480 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4482 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4483 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4484 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4486 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4488 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4489 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4490 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4492 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4493 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4496 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4497 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4498 previously sent input.
4500 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4501 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4502 as the search string.
4504 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4505 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4509 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4510 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4511 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4514 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4515 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4516 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4517 style is still the default however.
4519 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4521 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4522 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4523 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4525 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4526 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4528 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4529 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4531 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4532 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4534 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4535 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4537 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4538 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4539 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4540 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4542 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4544 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4545 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4546 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4548 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4549 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4550 expanding dynamically.
4552 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4553 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4555 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4556 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4557 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4558 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4560 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4562 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4564 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4565 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4566 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4567 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4568 against the first word in the title.
4570 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4571 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4572 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4573 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4574 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4575 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4577 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4578 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4579 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4580 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4582 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4584 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4585 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4586 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4587 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4588 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4589 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4591 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4592 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4594 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4595 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4596 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4598 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4599 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4603 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4604 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4605 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4607 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4608 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4609 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4610 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4613 o URLs are automatically skipped
4614 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4616 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4618 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4620 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4621 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4622 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4623 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4625 *** New recursive parser.
4627 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4628 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4629 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4631 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4633 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4634 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4635 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4637 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4639 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4641 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4643 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4645 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4647 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4648 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4650 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4652 *** References to external documents.
4654 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4655 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4656 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
4657 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
4658 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
4659 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
4660 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
4662 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
4664 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
4665 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
4667 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
4668 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
4670 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
4672 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
4673 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
4675 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
4677 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
4678 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
4679 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
4680 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
4681 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
4682 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
4685 *** Support for the varioref package
4687 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
4691 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
4692 and citations are created. These hooks are
4693 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
4694 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
4696 *** Citations outside LaTeX
4698 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
4699 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
4701 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
4703 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
4704 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
4707 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
4709 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
4710 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
4711 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
4712 directories that contain the same file name.
4714 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
4715 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
4716 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
4717 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
4718 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
4719 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
4720 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
4723 ** New modes and packages
4725 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
4726 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
4727 it, but some do not.
4729 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
4732 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
4733 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
4736 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
4738 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
4739 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
4740 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
4741 established system of notation similar to Chess.
4743 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
4744 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
4745 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
4747 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
4748 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
4749 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
4750 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
4751 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
4754 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
4755 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
4757 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
4758 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
4759 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
4760 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
4762 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
4764 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
4765 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
4766 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
4767 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
4768 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
4769 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
4770 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
4771 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
4772 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
4773 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
4774 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
4776 Platform-specific modes:
4778 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4779 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4780 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4781 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4782 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4783 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4784 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4785 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4786 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4788 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4790 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4791 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4792 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4793 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4795 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4796 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4797 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4799 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4800 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4801 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4802 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4804 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4805 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4806 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4809 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4810 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4811 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4812 current input method for reading this one event.
4814 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4815 now control whether to output certain characters as
4816 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4817 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4818 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4819 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4821 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4823 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4824 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4826 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4827 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4828 always increases point by 1.
4830 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4831 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4833 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4835 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
4836 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
4837 default value changed. For example,
4839 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
4844 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
4847 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
4848 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
4849 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
4850 `:version' in the top level group.
4852 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
4854 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
4855 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
4857 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
4858 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
4859 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
4862 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
4863 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
4866 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
4867 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
4868 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
4870 ** Frame-local variables.
4872 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
4873 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
4874 local bindings for that variable.
4876 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
4877 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
4878 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
4881 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
4882 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
4883 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
4884 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
4886 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
4887 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
4888 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
4889 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
4891 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
4892 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
4893 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
4894 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
4895 See the documentation in sregex.el.
4897 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
4898 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
4899 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
4900 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
4902 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
4903 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
4905 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
4906 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
4907 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
4909 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
4910 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
4911 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
4912 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
4914 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
4915 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
4918 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
4919 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
4920 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
4921 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
4922 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
4924 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
4925 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
4926 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
4927 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
4929 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
4930 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
4931 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
4932 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
4933 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
4935 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
4936 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
4937 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
4938 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
4940 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
4941 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
4942 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
4944 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
4945 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
4946 was directed to display this buffer.
4948 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
4949 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
4950 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
4951 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
4952 set-window-configuration.
4954 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
4955 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
4956 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
4957 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
4959 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
4960 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
4961 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
4963 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
4964 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
4965 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
4967 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
4968 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
4970 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
4971 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
4973 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
4974 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
4975 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
4977 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
4978 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
4979 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
4980 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
4984 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
4985 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
4988 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
4989 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
4990 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
4991 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
4992 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
4994 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
4996 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
4997 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
4998 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
4999 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5002 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5003 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5004 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5005 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5006 The supported properties include
5008 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5010 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5011 item should appear in the menu.
5013 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5014 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5015 It should return a binding to use instead.
5017 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5018 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5019 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5020 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5021 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5024 This means that the command normally has no
5025 keyboard equivalent.
5026 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5027 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5028 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5029 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5030 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5032 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5033 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5035 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5039 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5040 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5041 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5042 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5044 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5046 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5047 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5048 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5049 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5050 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5051 forward, away from the user.
5053 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5055 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5056 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5057 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5058 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5059 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5061 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5063 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5064 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5065 that were dragged and dropped.
5067 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5069 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5071 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5072 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5073 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5075 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5076 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5077 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5079 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5080 in Emacs 19 and before.
5082 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5083 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5085 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5086 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5087 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5088 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5090 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5091 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5092 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5093 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5094 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5096 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5097 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5098 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5099 consistent with the new representation.
5101 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5102 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5103 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5104 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5106 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5107 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5108 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5110 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5111 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5112 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5114 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5115 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5116 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5118 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5119 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5121 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5122 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5124 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5125 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5126 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5127 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5129 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5130 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5132 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5133 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5134 buffer or string being searched.
5136 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5137 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5138 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5139 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5140 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5141 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5142 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5144 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5146 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5147 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5148 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5149 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5150 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5151 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5152 define-coding-system-alias.
5154 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5155 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5156 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5157 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5158 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5159 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5160 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5163 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5164 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5165 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5166 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5168 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5169 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5170 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5171 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5173 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5174 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5175 This function requires a user interaction.
5177 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5178 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5179 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5180 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5181 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5182 select-safe-coding-system.
5184 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5185 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5186 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5189 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5190 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5191 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5193 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5194 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5195 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5196 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5198 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5199 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5200 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5203 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5204 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5206 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5207 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5208 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5209 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5210 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5211 range of characters.
5213 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5214 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5216 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5217 in the current buffer at position POS.
5219 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5220 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5221 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5222 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5223 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5224 binding input-method-function to nil.
5226 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5227 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5228 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5229 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5230 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5232 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5233 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5235 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5236 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5238 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5239 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5240 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5241 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5242 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5244 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5246 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5247 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5248 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5251 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5252 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5254 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5255 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5256 in your .emacs file.)
5258 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5259 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5261 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5262 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5264 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5265 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5268 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5269 delete the character before point, as usual.
5271 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5272 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5273 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5275 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5276 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5277 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5278 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5279 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5282 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5283 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5284 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5285 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5286 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5288 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5289 and is an alias for it.
5291 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5292 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5294 ** Scrolling changes
5296 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5297 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5299 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5300 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5303 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5304 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5305 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5306 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5308 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5309 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5310 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5311 recenters the window.
5313 ** International character set support (MULE)
5315 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5316 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5317 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5318 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5319 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5320 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5322 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5323 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5324 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5325 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5326 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5328 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5329 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5330 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5331 language, to make it possible to type them.
5333 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5334 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5336 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5337 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5339 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5341 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5343 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5344 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5345 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5346 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5347 characters for their work until they want to change.
5351 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5352 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5353 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5354 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5355 support several input methods.
5357 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5358 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5361 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5362 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5363 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5364 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5365 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5368 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5369 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5370 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5371 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5372 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5374 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5375 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5376 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5377 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5379 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5380 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5381 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5382 the first guess is wrong.
5384 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5385 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5387 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5388 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5389 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5390 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5392 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5393 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5394 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5395 translate automatically to and from either one.
5397 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5399 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5400 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5401 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5404 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5405 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5406 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5407 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5409 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5410 character conversion as well.
5412 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5414 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5415 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5416 requires using many fonts.
5418 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5419 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5421 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5422 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5423 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5424 you would use a font.
5426 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5427 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5428 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5430 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5431 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5432 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5433 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5434 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5436 *** Defining fontsets.
5438 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5439 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5440 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5442 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5443 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5444 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5445 standard fontset are created automatically.
5447 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5448 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5449 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5450 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5451 name is `fontset-startup'.
5453 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5454 The resource value should have this form:
5455 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5456 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5457 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5458 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5459 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5460 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5461 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5462 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5463 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5465 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5466 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5467 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5469 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5470 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5472 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5473 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5474 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5475 Here is the substitution rule:
5476 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5477 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5478 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5479 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5480 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5482 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5483 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5484 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5486 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5487 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5488 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5489 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5492 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5493 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5495 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5496 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5497 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5498 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5499 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5500 system for new files that you create.
5502 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5503 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5504 whole Emacs session.
5506 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5507 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5508 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5510 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5511 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5512 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5513 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5514 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5516 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5517 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5518 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5519 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5520 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5522 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5523 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5525 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5526 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5528 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5529 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5531 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5532 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5533 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5534 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5537 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5538 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5539 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5540 translated into that character code.
5542 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5543 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5545 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5547 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5548 the coding system for keyboard input.
5550 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5551 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5552 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5554 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5556 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5557 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5558 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5559 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5560 designed to work with terminals.
5562 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5563 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5564 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5565 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5566 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5567 in the corresponding buffer.
5569 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5571 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5572 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5573 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5575 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5576 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5577 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5580 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5581 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5583 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5584 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5585 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5586 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5588 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5589 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5590 related information.
5592 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5593 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5596 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5597 information about the support for a particular language.
5598 You specify the language as an argument.
5600 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5601 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5604 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5605 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5606 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5607 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5609 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5611 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5612 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5613 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5614 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5615 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5616 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5617 K euc-korea (Korean)
5620 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5623 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5624 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5625 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5629 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5630 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5631 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5632 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5634 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5635 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5637 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5638 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5639 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5640 Rmail files themselves.
5642 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5643 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5645 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5648 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5649 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5650 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5651 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5652 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5654 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5655 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5656 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
5659 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
5660 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
5661 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
5662 without any conversion.
5664 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
5665 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
5666 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
5667 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
5669 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
5670 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
5672 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
5673 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
5675 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
5676 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
5678 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
5679 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
5680 in the buffer before point.
5682 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
5683 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
5686 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
5687 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
5689 ** File locking works with NFS now.
5691 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
5692 in the same directory as FILENAME.
5694 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
5695 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
5696 can become a bottleneck.
5698 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
5699 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
5700 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
5701 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
5702 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
5703 so useful that the change is worth while.
5705 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
5706 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
5707 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
5708 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
5710 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
5711 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
5714 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
5715 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
5716 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
5718 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
5719 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
5720 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
5722 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
5723 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
5724 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
5726 ** Changes in View mode.
5728 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
5729 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
5731 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
5732 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
5734 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
5737 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
5738 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
5740 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
5741 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
5742 not just the selected window.
5744 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
5745 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
5746 turns View mode on or off.
5748 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
5749 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
5750 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
5752 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
5753 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
5755 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
5756 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
5757 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
5758 which version to compare with.
5760 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
5761 blocks if a match is inside the block.
5763 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
5764 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
5765 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
5766 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
5768 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
5769 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
5770 blocks, all of them or none.
5772 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
5773 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
5776 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5777 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5778 However, the mode will not be changed if
5779 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5780 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5781 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5782 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5784 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5786 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5787 these commands do not change the major mode.
5789 ** M-x occur changes.
5791 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5792 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5794 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5795 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5796 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5798 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5799 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5800 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5801 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5802 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5804 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5805 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5806 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5807 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5809 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5810 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5811 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5813 ** Outline mode changes.
5815 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5817 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5819 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5820 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5821 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5824 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5825 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5828 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5829 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5831 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5833 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5834 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
5835 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
5836 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
5838 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
5839 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
5840 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
5842 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
5843 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
5846 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
5847 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
5848 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
5849 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
5851 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
5852 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
5853 can be. The default value is 30.
5855 ** Changes in Mail mode.
5857 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
5858 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
5859 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
5860 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
5861 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
5864 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
5865 compose-mail-other-frame.
5867 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
5868 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
5869 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
5870 buffer that shows the original message.
5872 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
5873 with separator lines around the contents.
5875 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
5876 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
5877 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
5878 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
5880 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
5882 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
5883 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
5884 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
5885 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
5887 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
5888 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
5891 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
5892 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
5895 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
5896 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
5897 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
5898 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
5900 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
5901 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
5902 be taken to be magic.
5904 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
5905 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
5906 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
5908 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
5909 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
5911 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
5912 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
5914 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
5916 new key dired.el binding old key
5917 ------- ---------------- -------
5918 * c dired-change-marks c
5920 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
5921 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
5922 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
5924 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
5925 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
5926 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
5927 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
5928 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
5929 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
5933 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
5934 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
5935 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
5936 each time you run it.
5938 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
5939 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
5941 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
5942 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
5943 means to move in the opposite direction.
5945 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
5946 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
5948 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
5949 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
5950 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
5951 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
5956 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
5958 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
5961 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
5962 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
5964 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
5967 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
5969 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
5971 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
5973 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
5974 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
5975 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
5977 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
5979 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
5981 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
5982 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
5984 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
5985 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
5986 used to pick articles.
5988 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
5989 another have been added.
5991 `M-x gnus-change-server'
5993 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
5994 generating lines in buffers.
5996 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
5999 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6001 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6003 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6005 *** Scores can be decayed.
6007 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6009 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6010 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6012 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6015 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6017 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6018 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6020 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6022 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6023 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6025 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6026 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6028 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6031 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6032 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6034 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6036 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6038 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6040 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6042 Use the `Y c' command.
6044 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6046 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6048 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6050 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6051 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6053 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6055 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6057 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6058 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6060 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6062 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6063 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6064 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6065 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6068 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6069 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6070 particular news group. This can be done by:
6072 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6074 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6075 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6076 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6077 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6078 for reading and posting).
6080 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6081 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6082 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6083 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6086 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6087 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6089 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6090 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6091 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6092 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6093 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6095 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6096 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6100 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6101 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6102 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6103 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6104 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6107 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6108 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6109 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6110 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6111 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6112 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6114 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6115 of the current buffer.
6117 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6118 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6119 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6121 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6122 style that the Python developers like.
6124 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6125 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6126 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6130 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6131 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6132 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6134 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6135 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6138 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6139 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6141 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6142 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6143 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6144 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6146 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6147 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6149 ** Calendar changes.
6151 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6152 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6153 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6157 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6159 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6161 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6162 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6163 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6164 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6165 It defaults to `letter'.
6166 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6168 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6169 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6170 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6172 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6173 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6176 *** Horizontal layout
6178 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6179 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6180 All are measured in points.
6184 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6185 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6186 All are measured in points.
6190 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6191 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6192 margin above the text.
6194 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6195 framing box is printed around the header.
6197 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6198 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6200 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6201 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6202 `ps-header-font-size'.
6206 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6207 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6208 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6209 elements to this alist.
6211 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6212 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6214 ** hideshow changes.
6216 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6219 *** Support for java-mode added.
6221 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6222 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6224 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6225 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6226 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6228 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6229 robust and a lot faster.
6231 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6233 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6234 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6235 documentation for more details.
6237 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6239 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6240 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6241 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6242 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6243 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6245 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6246 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6247 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6248 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6254 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6255 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6256 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6257 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6258 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6259 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6261 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6263 *** Maximum decoration
6265 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6266 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6267 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6268 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6269 to get the old behavior.
6273 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6275 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6276 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6278 *** Configurable support
6280 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6281 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6282 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6283 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6284 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6285 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6286 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6288 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6289 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6290 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6292 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6294 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6295 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6298 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6300 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6306 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6307 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6308 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6309 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6311 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6313 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6314 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6315 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6317 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6319 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6320 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6321 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6322 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6323 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6324 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6325 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6327 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6328 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6329 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6330 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6331 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6332 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6334 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6336 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6337 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6338 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6339 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6341 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6344 ** Ada mode changes.
6346 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6347 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6348 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6349 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6352 *** There are two new commands:
6353 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6354 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6356 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6357 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6358 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6360 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6361 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6362 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6364 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6365 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6366 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6367 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6369 ** Scheme mode changes.
6371 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6372 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6373 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6374 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6377 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6378 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6379 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6380 variables as buffer-local variables.
6382 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6385 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6387 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6388 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6389 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6390 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6392 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6393 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6396 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6397 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6398 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6399 option takes precedence.
6401 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6402 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6403 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6405 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6406 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6409 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6410 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6412 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6413 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6416 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6417 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6418 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6419 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6420 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6421 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6423 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6424 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6425 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6426 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6428 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6429 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6430 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6431 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6432 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6434 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6435 since it applies only to the current frame.
6437 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6438 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6439 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6441 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6442 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6443 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6444 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6445 instead of just the file you are editing.
6449 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6450 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6451 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6452 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6453 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6456 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6457 knows which kind of label is needed.
6459 C-c ) reftex-reference
6460 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6461 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6463 C-c [ reftex-citation
6464 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6465 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6467 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6468 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6471 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6472 can quickly jump to every section.
6474 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6475 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6476 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6477 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6478 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6480 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6482 *** Info documentation is now available.
6484 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6485 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6487 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6488 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6490 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6491 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6493 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6494 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6495 appropriate functions.
6497 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6498 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6500 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6503 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6504 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6506 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6509 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6510 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6511 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6513 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6514 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6515 prefixed with `ALT'.
6517 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6518 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6519 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6522 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6523 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6524 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6526 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6527 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6529 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6530 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6531 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6533 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6535 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6537 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6540 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6541 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6544 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6547 *** Added support for imenu.
6549 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6550 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6551 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6552 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6554 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6555 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6557 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6559 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6561 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6562 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6563 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6566 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6567 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6569 ** browse-url changes
6571 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6572 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6573 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6574 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6575 customization variables.
6577 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6579 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6580 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6581 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6585 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6586 pops up the Info file for this command.
6588 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6589 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6590 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6593 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6594 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6595 files in the same directory.
6597 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6598 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6599 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6603 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6604 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6606 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6607 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6608 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6609 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6610 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6611 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6612 color when Viper is in insert state.
6613 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6614 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6615 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6619 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6620 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6621 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6622 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6623 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6625 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6627 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6628 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6630 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6631 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6632 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6634 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6635 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6636 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6637 methods and protocols.
6639 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6640 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6641 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6644 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6645 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6646 at least M times and as many as N times.
6648 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6649 in files has changed slightly.
6651 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6652 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6653 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6654 with old time-stamp-format values.
6656 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
6657 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
6658 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
6661 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
6662 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
6663 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
6664 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
6665 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
6666 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
6668 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
6669 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
6670 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
6672 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
6673 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
6674 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
6675 recommended now will continue to work then.
6677 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
6680 ** There are some additional major modes:
6682 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
6683 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
6684 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
6686 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
6687 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
6690 ** New Lisp packages include:
6692 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
6694 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
6695 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
6697 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
6699 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
6702 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
6703 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
6706 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
6707 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
6708 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
6709 strings or comments.
6711 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
6712 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
6713 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
6714 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
6717 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
6718 can visit them by short forms of their names.
6720 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
6721 Emacs Lisp function at point.
6723 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
6725 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
6726 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
6728 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
6730 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
6732 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
6734 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
6735 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
6737 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
6738 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
6739 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
6740 original place after inserting the copy.
6742 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
6745 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
6746 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
6747 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
6749 Enable mouse-drag with:
6750 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
6752 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
6754 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
6755 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
6757 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
6758 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
6762 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
6763 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
6764 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
6765 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
6766 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
6767 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
6768 instance) and vice versa.
6770 To use this package load it using
6771 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
6772 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
6773 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
6774 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
6775 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
6776 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6778 *** Interface to ph.
6780 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6782 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6783 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6786 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6788 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6789 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6790 while the real cursor does not move.
6792 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6793 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6795 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6796 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6800 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6801 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6802 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6803 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6805 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6807 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6809 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6811 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6812 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6813 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6814 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6815 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6817 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6818 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6819 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6820 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6821 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6822 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6824 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6826 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6827 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6828 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6829 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6831 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6832 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6834 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
6835 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
6838 ** Basic Lisp changes
6840 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
6841 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
6843 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
6844 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
6847 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
6849 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
6851 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
6852 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
6854 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
6855 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
6858 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
6860 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
6862 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
6864 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
6865 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
6866 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
6869 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
6870 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
6871 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
6873 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
6874 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
6875 adding one of these suffixes.
6877 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
6878 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
6879 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
6881 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
6882 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
6884 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
6886 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
6887 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
6889 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
6890 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
6892 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
6894 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
6895 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
6897 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
6898 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
6899 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
6900 works using `save-current-buffer'.
6902 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
6903 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
6906 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
6907 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
6908 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
6911 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
6912 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
6915 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
6917 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
6918 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
6919 Then it returns that string.
6921 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
6923 (with-output-to-string
6924 (princ "The buffer is ")
6925 (princ (buffer-name)))
6927 returns "The buffer is foo".
6929 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
6932 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
6933 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
6934 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
6936 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
6937 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
6939 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
6940 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
6941 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
6942 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
6943 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
6944 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
6946 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
6947 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
6948 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
6951 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
6952 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
6953 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
6954 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
6955 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
6957 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
6958 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
6959 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
6960 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
6962 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
6963 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
6965 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
6967 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
6968 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
6969 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
6970 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
6973 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
6974 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
6977 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
6979 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
6980 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
6981 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
6982 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
6983 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
6985 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
6987 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
6988 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
6989 more than the number of characters.
6991 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
6992 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
6993 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
6994 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
6995 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
6996 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
6998 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
6999 and returns a string containing those characters.
7001 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7002 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7003 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7004 character, sref signals an error.
7006 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7007 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7008 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7010 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7011 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7012 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7014 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7015 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7016 to a vector of the characters in it.
7018 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7019 of a string. You call it as follows:
7021 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7023 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7024 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7025 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7026 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7027 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7029 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7030 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7032 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7033 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7035 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7036 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7037 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7038 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7040 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7042 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7044 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7045 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7046 are not included in the resulting value.
7048 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7049 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7050 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7051 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7053 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7054 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7055 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7056 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7057 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7058 column START-COLUMN.
7060 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7061 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7062 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7063 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7064 changed text, before the change.
7066 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7067 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7068 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7070 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7072 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7074 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7075 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7077 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7078 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7079 which identify the character within that character set.
7081 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7082 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7083 opposite of split-char.
7085 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7086 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7088 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7089 of all the characters in a string.
7091 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7092 and specifying coding systems.
7094 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7095 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7096 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7097 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7098 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7099 as what to do about code conversion.)
7101 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7102 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7104 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7105 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7106 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7108 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7109 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7110 to match against a file name.
7112 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7113 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7114 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7115 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7116 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7117 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7119 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7120 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7122 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7123 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7125 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7126 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7127 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7130 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7131 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7132 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7133 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7134 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7135 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7137 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7138 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7140 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7141 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7142 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7143 start the subprocess.
7145 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7146 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7147 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7148 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7149 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7151 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7152 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7155 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7156 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7157 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7158 connection permanently or until overridden.
7160 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7161 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7162 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7163 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7164 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7165 system for one operation at a time.
7167 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7168 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7170 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7171 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7172 The value is a cons cell,
7173 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7174 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7175 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7176 input to the subprocess.
7178 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7179 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7181 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7182 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7183 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7185 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7186 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7187 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7188 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7191 Thus, instead of writing
7193 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7194 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7196 you would now write this:
7198 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7199 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7203 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7204 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7205 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7206 for a description of them.
7208 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7209 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7211 (defgroup ispell nil
7212 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7215 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7216 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7217 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7218 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7219 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7221 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7222 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7223 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7224 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7225 first-level subgroups.
7227 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7229 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7230 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7234 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7235 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7236 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7237 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7238 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7239 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7241 ** Text property changes
7243 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7246 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7247 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7248 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7249 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7250 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7252 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7253 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7254 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7255 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7257 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7258 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7259 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7261 ** Changes in invisibility features
7263 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7264 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7265 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7266 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7267 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7268 make the overlay visible.
7270 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7271 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7272 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7273 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7274 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7275 t when it should hide it.
7277 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7279 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7280 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7281 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7282 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7283 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7284 Here is an example of how to do this:
7286 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7287 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7288 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7289 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7292 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7295 ;; When done with the overlays:
7296 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7298 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7300 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7302 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7303 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7304 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7305 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7307 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7308 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7309 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7311 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7312 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7314 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7315 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7317 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7318 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7319 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7321 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7322 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7323 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7324 determine the syntax type of the character.
7326 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7327 of the current buffer.
7329 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7330 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7331 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7333 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7334 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7335 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7336 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7337 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7339 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7342 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7343 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7344 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7346 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7347 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7348 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7349 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7350 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7352 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7353 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7354 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7356 ** Changes in face features
7358 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7359 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7361 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7362 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7364 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7365 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7367 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7368 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7370 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7371 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7372 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7373 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7376 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7377 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7379 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7381 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7382 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7383 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7384 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7386 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7389 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7390 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7392 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7393 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7395 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7396 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7398 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7399 character code conversion as well as other things.
7401 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7402 (formerly it did not).
7404 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7405 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7407 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7408 instead of constant strings.
7410 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7411 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7412 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7414 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7415 in the same way as before.
7417 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7418 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7419 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7421 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7422 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7423 else, and returns nil.
7425 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7426 directory cannot be listed.
7428 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7430 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7431 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7432 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7433 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7436 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7437 It is available through the history command M-n.
7439 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7440 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7441 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7442 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7443 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7445 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7446 argument in this way.
7448 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7449 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7450 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7452 ** Echo area features
7454 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7455 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7456 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7457 after the echo area is cleared.
7459 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7460 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7462 ** Keyboard input features
7464 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7465 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7467 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7468 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7471 ** Frame-related changes
7473 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7474 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7475 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7477 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7478 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7479 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7481 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7482 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7483 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7484 in the selected frame.
7486 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7487 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7488 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7490 ** X Windows features
7492 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7493 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7494 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7496 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7497 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7499 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7500 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7501 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7503 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7504 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7506 ** Subprocess features
7508 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7509 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7512 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7513 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7515 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7516 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7518 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7519 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7521 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7522 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7523 goes after the other menu items.
7525 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7526 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7527 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7530 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7531 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7533 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7534 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7537 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7538 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7539 but its hook is still run.
7541 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7542 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7544 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7545 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7546 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7548 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7549 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7550 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7553 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7554 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7556 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7557 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7558 functions like display-time.
7560 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7561 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7563 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7564 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7565 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7567 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7568 if there is an error in compilation.
7570 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7571 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7572 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7573 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7575 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7576 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7577 the *scratch* buffer.
7579 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7580 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7581 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7582 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7584 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7585 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7586 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7588 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7589 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7590 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7591 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7593 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7594 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7595 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7597 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7598 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7599 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7600 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7601 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7604 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7605 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7606 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7607 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7609 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7610 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7611 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7612 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7614 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7616 ** imenu.el changes.
7618 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7619 item from menu created by imenu.
7621 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7622 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7623 select one of those items.
7625 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7627 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7629 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7630 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7632 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7633 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7634 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7636 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7638 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7639 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7641 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7642 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7643 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7644 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7645 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7648 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7649 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7651 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7652 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7653 as in previous Emacs versions.
7655 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7656 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
7657 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
7660 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
7661 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
7662 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
7663 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
7666 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
7667 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
7668 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
7669 line and then executing the macro.
7671 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
7673 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
7674 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
7675 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
7680 *** Font Lock support modes
7682 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
7683 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
7684 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
7685 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
7686 Font Lock mode is enabled.
7688 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
7690 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
7696 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
7697 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
7698 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
7699 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
7700 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
7701 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
7702 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
7704 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
7706 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
7708 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
7710 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7712 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
7715 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
7720 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
7721 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
7722 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
7723 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
7725 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
7726 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
7728 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
7729 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
7732 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
7733 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
7735 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
7737 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
7739 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
7741 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
7744 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
7746 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
7748 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
7750 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
7752 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
7755 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
7757 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
7759 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
7761 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
7763 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
7765 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
7767 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
7769 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
7772 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
7774 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
7777 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7779 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7780 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7782 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7784 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7786 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7788 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7790 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7793 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7795 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7796 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7798 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7799 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7800 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7802 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7803 articles with the `*' command.
7805 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7807 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7809 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7811 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7813 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7814 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7816 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7819 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7821 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7823 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7825 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7827 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7829 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7831 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7833 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7835 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
7837 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
7838 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
7840 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
7843 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
7845 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
7846 buffer to allow easier treatment.
7848 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
7850 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
7852 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
7854 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
7857 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
7859 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
7861 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
7862 cited text to hide is now customizable.
7864 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
7866 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
7868 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
7870 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
7872 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
7874 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
7877 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
7879 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
7880 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
7881 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
7884 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
7887 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
7890 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
7891 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
7894 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
7895 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
7896 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
7897 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
7898 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
7901 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
7903 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
7905 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
7906 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
7907 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
7908 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
7909 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
7911 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
7912 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
7913 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
7915 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
7917 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
7918 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
7919 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
7920 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
7921 chapter of the manual for details.
7923 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
7924 customization variables take effect.
7926 ** Marking with the mouse.
7928 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
7929 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
7930 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
7932 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
7934 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
7936 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
7937 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
7939 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
7940 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
7941 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
7942 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
7943 applications, these problems are significant.
7945 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
7946 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
7947 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
7948 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
7949 other DOS application as a subprocess.
7951 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
7952 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
7954 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
7955 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
7956 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
7957 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
7958 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
7959 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
7961 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
7963 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
7964 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
7965 minibuffer contains.
7967 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
7969 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
7970 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
7971 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
7972 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
7974 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
7975 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
7976 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
7977 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
7979 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
7980 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
7982 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
7983 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
7984 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
7986 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
7987 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
7988 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
7989 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
7991 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
7993 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
7994 to replace the characters it "deletes".
7996 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
7998 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
7999 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8000 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8001 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8002 immediately after the selected one.
8004 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8005 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8007 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8009 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8010 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8011 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8012 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8015 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8016 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8019 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8020 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8021 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8022 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8023 now that the bug is fixed.
8025 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8027 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8028 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8029 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8030 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8032 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8033 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8034 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8035 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8037 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8038 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8039 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8041 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8042 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8043 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8044 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8047 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8048 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8050 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8051 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8052 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8053 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8055 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8056 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8057 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8058 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8059 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8060 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8062 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8063 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8064 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8065 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8067 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8068 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8069 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8071 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8072 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8073 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8074 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8075 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8076 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8077 to a limitation in font-lock).
8079 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8081 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8082 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8083 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8086 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8087 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8089 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8091 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8093 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8095 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8097 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8098 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8099 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8100 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8101 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8102 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8104 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8107 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8108 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8110 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8115 *** Global Font Lock mode
8117 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8118 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8119 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8120 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8121 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8123 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8125 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8129 *** Local Refontification
8131 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8132 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8133 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8134 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8136 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8137 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8138 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8139 above and below point.
8141 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8145 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8146 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8147 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8148 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8149 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8152 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8154 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8155 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8157 ** hide-show changes.
8159 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8160 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8163 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8164 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8166 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8167 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8168 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8172 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8173 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8175 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8176 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8178 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8180 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8181 pressing both mouse buttons.
8183 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8184 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8187 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8190 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8192 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8193 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8195 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8197 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8199 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8201 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8203 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8205 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8207 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8208 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8209 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8210 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8211 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8213 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8215 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8216 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8217 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8220 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8223 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8225 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8226 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8228 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8229 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8231 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8232 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8233 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8235 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8236 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8239 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8241 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8242 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8243 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8245 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8246 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8247 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8249 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8250 up if too much time passes.
8252 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8254 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8255 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8256 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8259 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8260 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8261 call looks like this:
8263 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8265 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8266 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8267 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8270 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8271 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8274 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8275 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8276 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8277 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8279 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8280 idle for SECS seconds.
8282 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8283 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8284 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8287 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8288 there is no answer within a certain time.
8290 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8292 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8293 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8294 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8296 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8297 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8298 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8299 arguments in between are ignored.
8301 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8302 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8304 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8305 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8306 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8307 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8310 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8311 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8312 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8313 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8314 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8315 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8317 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8318 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8319 systems with limited file name syntax.
8321 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8322 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8323 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8326 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8327 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8328 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8330 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8331 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8332 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8333 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8334 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8336 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8337 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8338 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8340 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8341 marker from its buffer position.
8343 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8344 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8345 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8347 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8348 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8349 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8350 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8351 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8352 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8354 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8355 errors that happen often during editing.
8357 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8358 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8359 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8361 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8362 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8364 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8365 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8366 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8367 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8368 and not get-buffer-window.
8370 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8371 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8372 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8374 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8375 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8376 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8377 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8378 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8379 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8380 over and over for the same text.
8382 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8384 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8385 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8387 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8390 in addition to the normal
8394 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8395 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8396 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8398 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
8400 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8401 Copyright information:
8403 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8405 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8406 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8407 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8408 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8410 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8411 of this document, or of portions of it,
8412 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8413 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8417 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"