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