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