1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
3 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 For older news, see the file ONEWS
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9 `view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
12 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
13 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
14 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
15 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
18 * Installation Changes in Emacs 22.1
21 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
22 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
26 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
29 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
30 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.4 or newer. This port
31 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
34 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with Lisp code.
37 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
38 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
39 place for game scores to be stored. You can control this with the
40 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
41 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
42 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
43 in each user's home directory.
46 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
47 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
51 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
53 The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual in Info format is built as part of the
54 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
55 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
56 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
59 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
62 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
63 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
64 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
65 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
68 ** New translations of the Emacs Tutorial are available in the
69 following languages: Brasilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese (both
70 with simplified and traditional characters), French, and Italian.
71 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose one of them in case your language setup
72 doesn't automatically select the right one.
75 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
78 ** Emacs now includes support for loading image libraries on demand.
79 (Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
80 the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
81 setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
84 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
87 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
90 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
93 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
94 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
97 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
100 ** Mac OS 9 port now uses the Carbon API by default. You can also
101 create non-Carbon build by specifying `NonCarbon' as a target. See
102 the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
105 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
106 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
109 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
110 much pure storage it will approximately need.
112 ** The script etc/emacs-buffer.gdb can be used with gdb to retrieve the
113 contents of buffers from a core dump and save them to files easily, should
117 ** The Emacs terminal emulation in term.el uses a different terminfo name.
118 The Emacs terminal emulation in term.el now uses "eterm-color" as its
119 terminfo name, since term.el now supports color.
122 ** Emacs Lisp source files are compressed by default if `gzip' is available.
125 * Startup Changes in Emacs 22.1
128 ** New command line option -Q or --quick.
129 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
130 the fancy startup screen.
133 ** New command line option -D or --basic-display.
134 Disables the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, and
138 ** New command line option -nbc or --no-blinking-cursor disables
139 the blinking cursor on graphical terminals.
142 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
143 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
144 can start with this line:
146 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
149 ** The option --directory DIR now modifies `load-path' immediately.
150 Directories are added to the front of `load-path' in the order they
151 appear on the command line. For example, with this command line:
153 emacs -batch -L .. -L /tmp --eval "(require 'foo)"
155 Emacs looks for library `foo' in the parent directory, then in /tmp, then
156 in the other directories in `load-path'. (-L is short for --directory.)
159 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
160 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
163 ** If the environment variable DISPLAY specifies an unreachable X display,
164 Emacs will now startup as if invoked with the --no-window-system option.
167 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
168 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
169 an interactively callable function.
172 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
173 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
174 affects the initial frame.
177 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
178 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
179 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
180 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
181 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
184 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
185 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
186 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
187 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
188 `inhibit-splash-screen').
191 ** The default is now to use a bitmap as the icon, so the command-line options
192 --icon-type, -i has been replaced with options --no-bitmap-icon, -nbi to turn
196 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
197 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
198 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
202 If the init file ~/.emacs does not exist, Emacs will try
203 ~/.emacs.d/init.el or ~/.emacs.d/init.elc. You can also put the shell
204 init file .emacs_SHELL under ~/.emacs.d.
207 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
208 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
209 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
210 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
211 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
213 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
216 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
217 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
218 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
219 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
222 ** C-u M-g M-g switches to the most recent previous buffer,
223 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
225 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
226 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
229 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
230 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
231 the operating system or your X server.
234 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
237 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
238 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
242 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
243 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
246 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
247 previous mark if you set `set-mark-command-repeat-pop' to t. I.e. C-u
248 C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC
249 to set the mark immediately after a jump.
252 ** The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
253 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
256 ** In incremental search, C-w is changed. M-%, C-M-w and C-M-y are special.
258 See below under "incremental search changes".
261 ** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
263 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
264 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
265 directory with Dired.
267 You can get the old behavior by typing C-x C-f M-n RET, which fetches
268 the actual file name into the minibuffer.
271 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
272 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
273 it remains unchanged.
276 ** When Emacs prompts for file names, SPC no longer completes the file name.
277 This is so filenames with embedded spaces could be input without the
278 need to quote the space with a C-q. The underlying changes in the
279 keymaps that are active in the minibuffer are described below under
280 "New keymaps for typing file names".
283 ** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
284 M-o M-o requests refontification.
287 ** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
289 See below for more details.
292 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
293 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
294 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
295 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
296 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
297 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
299 * Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
302 ** !MEM FULL! at the start of the mode line indicates that Emacs
303 cannot get any more memory for Lisp data. This often means it could
304 crash soon if you do things that use more memory. On most systems,
305 killing buffers will get out of this state. If killing buffers does
306 not make !MEM FULL! disappear, you should save your work and start
310 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
311 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
314 ** You can now switch buffers in a cyclic order with C-x C-left
315 (previous-buffer) and C-x C-right (next-buffer). C-x left and
316 C-x right can be used as well. The functions keep a different buffer
317 cycle for each frame, using the frame-local buffer list.
320 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
323 ** M-SPC (just-one-space) when given a numeric argument N
324 converts whitespace around point to N spaces.
327 ** C-x 5 C-o displays a specified buffer in another frame
328 but does not switch to that frame. It's the multi-frame
329 analogue of C-x 4 C-o.
332 ** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
333 `insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
336 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
337 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
340 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
341 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
342 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
343 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
346 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
347 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
348 in Indented-Text mode.
351 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variable references.
353 Substrings of the form `$foo' and `${foo}' in the specified new value
354 now refer to the value of environment variable foo. To include a `$'
355 in the value, use `$$'.
358 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
359 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
363 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
366 ** The command `list-faces-display' now accepts a prefix arg.
367 When passed, the function prompts for a regular expression and lists
368 only faces matching this regexp.
370 ** Mark command changes:
373 *** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
374 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
375 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
378 *** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times.
380 If you type C-M-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h
381 (mark-paragraph), or C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region
382 extends each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC
383 M-C-SPC, for example. This feature also works for
384 mark-end-of-sentence, if you bind that to a key. It also extends the
385 region when the mark is active in Transient Mark mode, regardless of
386 the last command. To start a new region with one of marking commands
387 in Transient Mark mode, you can deactivate the active region with C-g,
388 or set the new mark with C-SPC.
391 *** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
393 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
394 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
398 *** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
399 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
400 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
401 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
402 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
405 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
406 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
407 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
410 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
411 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
412 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
416 *** Movement commands `beginning-of-buffer', `end-of-buffer',
417 `beginning-of-defun', `end-of-defun' do not set the mark if the mark
418 is already active in Transient Mark mode.
420 ** Help command changes:
423 *** Changes in C-h bindings:
425 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
427 C-h d runs apropos-documentation.
429 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
432 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
433 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
435 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
436 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
438 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
439 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
440 run by the key sequence.
441 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
442 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
445 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
446 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
447 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
448 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
449 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
450 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
451 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
452 new-kill-line is on C-k
455 *** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
456 arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
457 default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
458 `help-default-arg-highlight'.
461 *** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
462 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
465 *** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
466 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
467 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
468 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
469 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
470 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
471 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node'). In
472 addition, it now makes hyperlinks to URLs as well if the URL is
473 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `URL'.
476 *** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
477 description various information about a character, including its
478 encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
479 widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
480 clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
483 *** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
484 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
487 *** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
488 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
489 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
490 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
491 keyboard oriented alternative.
494 *** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
495 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
496 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
497 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
498 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
501 *** The apropos commands now accept a list of words to match.
502 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
503 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
507 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
508 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
509 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
510 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
511 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
514 ** Incremental Search changes:
517 *** Vertical scrolling is now possible within incremental search.
518 To enable this feature, customize the new user option
519 `isearch-allow-scroll'. User written commands which satisfy stringent
520 constraints can be marked as "scrolling commands". See the Emacs manual
524 *** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
525 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
526 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
527 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
530 *** C-y in incremental search now grabs the next line if point is already
531 at the end of a line.
534 *** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
535 Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
536 and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
539 *** M-% typed in isearch mode invokes `query-replace' or
540 `query-replace-regexp' (depending on search mode) with the current
541 search string used as the string to replace.
544 *** Isearch no longer adds `isearch-resume' commands to the command
545 history by default. To enable this feature, customize the new
546 user option `isearch-resume-in-command-history'.
548 ** Replace command changes:
551 *** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
552 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
553 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
556 *** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
557 `replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
558 where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
559 time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
560 `query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
561 to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
562 All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
563 replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
564 can be edited for each replacement.
567 *** query-replace uses isearch lazy highlighting when the new user option
568 `query-replace-lazy-highlight' is non-nil.
571 *** The current match in query-replace is highlighted in new face
572 `query-replace' which by default inherits from isearch face.
574 ** File operation changes:
577 *** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
578 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
579 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
580 is only rarely needed.
583 *** In processing a local variables list, Emacs strips the prefix and
584 suffix from every line before processing all the lines.
587 *** If the local variables list contains any variable-value pairs that
588 are not known to be safe, Emacs shows a prompt asking whether to apply
589 the local variables list as a whole. In earlier versions, a prompt
590 was only issued for variables explicitly marked as risky (for the
591 definition of risky variables, see `risky-local-variable-p').
593 At the prompt, the user can choose to save the contents of this local
594 variables list to `safe-local-variable-values'. This new customizable
595 option is a list of variable-value pairs that are known to be safe.
596 Variables can also be marked as safe with the existing
597 `safe-local-variable' property (see `safe-local-variable-p').
598 However, risky variables will not be added to
599 `safe-local-variable-values' in this way.
602 *** find-file-read-only visits multiple files in read-only mode,
603 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
606 *** find-alternate-file replaces the current file with multiple files,
607 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
610 *** Auto Compression mode is now enabled by default.
613 *** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
615 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
616 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
617 directory with Dired.
620 *** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
621 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
622 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you can in fact alter the
626 *** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
627 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
630 *** The commands copy-file, rename-file, make-symbolic-link and
631 add-name-to-file, when given a directory as the "new name" argument,
632 convert it to a file name by merging in the within-directory part of
633 the existing file's name. (This is the same convention that shell
634 commands cp, mv, and ln follow.) Thus, M-x copy-file RET ~/foo RET
635 /tmp RET copies ~/foo to /tmp/foo.
638 *** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
639 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
640 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
643 *** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
644 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
645 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
648 *** The new option `write-region-inhibit-fsync' disables calls to fsync
649 in `write-region'. This can be useful on laptops to avoid spinning up
650 the hard drive upon each file save. Enabling this variable may result
651 in data loss, use with care.
654 *** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
655 Emacs asks for confirmation.
658 *** require-final-newline now has two new possible values:
660 `visit' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's needed
661 when visiting the file.
663 `visit-save' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's
664 needed when visiting the file, and also add a newline if it's needed
665 when saving the file.
668 *** The new option mode-require-final-newline controls how certain
669 major modes enable require-final-newline. Any major mode that's
670 designed for a kind of file that should normally end in a newline
671 sets require-final-newline based on mode-require-final-newline.
672 So you can customize mode-require-final-newline to control what these
675 ** Minibuffer changes:
678 *** The new file-name-shadow-mode is turned ON by default, so that when
679 entering a file name, any prefix which Emacs will ignore is dimmed.
682 *** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
683 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
684 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
688 *** Enhanced visual feedback in `*Completions*' buffer.
690 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
691 have in common and where they begin to differ.
693 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
694 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
695 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
696 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
697 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
698 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
699 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
700 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
702 Above fontification is always done when listing completions is
703 triggered at minibuffer. If you want to fontify completions whose
704 listing is triggered at the other normal buffer, you have to pass
705 the common prefix of completions to `display-completion-list' as
709 *** File-name completion can now ignore specified directories.
710 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
711 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
712 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
713 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
714 candidate is a directory.
717 *** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
718 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
719 it remains unchanged.
722 *** New user option `history-delete-duplicates'.
723 If set to t when adding a new history element, all previous identical
724 elements are deleted.
726 ** Redisplay changes:
729 *** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
730 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
731 appears between the position information and the major mode.
734 *** New face `escape-glyph' highlights control characters and escape glyphs.
737 *** Non-breaking space and hyphens are now displayed with a special
738 face, either nobreak-space or escape-glyph. You can turn this off or
739 specify a different mode by setting the variable `nobreak-char-display'.
742 *** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
743 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
744 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
745 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
747 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
748 hscrolling scrolls the window when point gets too close to the
749 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
750 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
751 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
752 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
754 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
755 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
758 *** Moving or scrolling through images (and other lines) taller than
759 the window now works sensibly, by automatically adjusting the window's
763 *** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
764 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
765 the mode line of the currently selected window.
767 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
768 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
771 *** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
772 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
773 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
774 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
778 *** Angle icons in the fringes can indicate the buffer boundaries. In
779 addition, up and down arrow bitmaps in the fringe indicate which ways
780 the window can be scrolled.
782 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
783 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
784 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
786 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
787 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp.
789 The value can also be an alist which specifies the presence and
790 position of each bitmap individually.
792 For example, ((top . left) (t . right)) places the top angle bitmap
793 in left fringe, the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both
794 arrow bitmaps in right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the
795 left fringe, but no arrow bitmaps, use ((top . left) (bottom . left)).
798 *** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
799 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
800 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
801 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
802 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
804 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' can be set to nil to
805 revert to the old behavior of continuing such lines.
808 *** When a window has display margin areas, the fringes are now
809 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
810 outside those margins.
813 *** A window can now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
814 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
816 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
817 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
818 or when the frame is resized.
820 ** Cursor display changes:
823 *** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
824 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
827 *** The X resource cursorBlink can be used to turn off cursor blinking.
830 *** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
831 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
832 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
836 *** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
837 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
841 *** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
842 of the recognized cursor types.
845 *** On text terminals, the variable `visible-cursor' controls whether Emacs
846 uses the "very visible" cursor (the default) or the normal cursor.
851 *** `mode-line-highlight' is the standard face indicating mouse sensitive
852 elements on mode-line (and header-line) like `highlight' face on text
855 *** `mode-line-buffer-id' is the standard face for buffer identification
856 parts of the mode line.
859 *** `shadow' face defines the appearance of the "shadowed" text, i.e.
860 the text which should be less noticeable than the surrounding text.
861 This can be achieved by using shades of grey in contrast with either
862 black or white default foreground color. This generic shadow face
863 allows customization of the appearance of shadowed text in one place,
864 so package-specific faces can inherit from it.
867 *** `vertical-border' face is used for the vertical divider between windows.
869 ** Font-Lock changes:
872 *** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
873 M-o M-o requests refontification.
876 *** All modes now support using M-x font-lock-mode to toggle
877 fontification, even those such as Occur, Info, and comint-derived
878 modes that do their own fontification in a special way.
880 The variable `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable
881 fontification in Info, remove `turn-on-font-lock' from
885 *** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
886 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
887 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
888 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
889 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
892 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
895 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-comment-delimiter-face'.
898 *** Easy to overlook single character negation can now be font-locked.
899 You can use the new variable `font-lock-negation-char-face' and the face of
900 the same name to customize this. Currently the cc-modes, sh-script-mode,
901 cperl-mode and make-mode support this.
904 *** The default settings for JIT stealth lock parameters are changed.
905 The default value for the user option jit-lock-stealth-time is now 16
906 instead of 3, and the default value of jit-lock-stealth-nice is now
907 0.5 instead of 0.125. The new defaults should lower the CPU usage
908 when Emacs is fontifying in the background.
911 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
913 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
914 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
915 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
916 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
919 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
921 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
922 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
923 refontification takes place.
928 *** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
929 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
930 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
931 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
932 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
933 current date and time, current line and column number in the mode-line.
936 *** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
939 *** You can exit dialog windows and menus by typing C-g.
942 *** The menu item "Open File..." has been split into two items, "New File..."
943 and "Open File...". "Open File..." now opens only existing files. This is
944 to support existing GUI file selection dialogs better.
947 *** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, Mac, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
948 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
951 *** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
952 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+, Mac and W32).
955 *** The Lucid menus can display multilingual text in your locale. You have
956 to explicitly specify a fontSet resource for this to work, for example
957 `-xrm "Emacs*fontSet: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*,*"'.
960 *** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif now pops down when pressing
961 ESC, like they do for Gtk+, Mac and W32.
964 *** For the Gtk+ version, you can make Emacs use the old file dialog
965 by setting the variable `x-use-old-gtk-file-dialog' to t. Default is to use
971 *** If you set the new variable `mouse-autoselect-window' to a non-nil
972 value, windows are automatically selected as you move the mouse from
973 one Emacs window to another, even within a frame. A minibuffer window
974 can be selected only when it is active.
977 *** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
978 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
979 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
980 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
981 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
985 *** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
987 Traditionally, Emacs uses a Mouse-1 click to set point and a Mouse-2
988 click to follow a link, whereas most other applications use a Mouse-1
989 click for both purposes, depending on whether you click outside or
990 inside a link. Now the behavior of a Mouse-1 click has been changed
991 to match this context-sentitive dual behavior. (If you prefer the old
992 behavior, set the user option `mouse-1-click-follows-link' to nil.)
994 Depending on the current mode, a Mouse-2 click in Emacs can do much
995 more than just follow a link, so the new Mouse-1 behavior is only
996 activated for modes which explicitly mark a clickable text as a "link"
997 (see the new function `mouse-on-link-p' for details). The Lisp
998 packages that are included in release 22.1 have been adapted to do
999 this, but external packages may not yet support this. However, there
1000 is no risk in using such packages, as the worst thing that could
1001 happen is that you get the original Mouse-1 behavior when you click
1002 on a link, which typically means that you set point where you click.
1004 If you want to get the original Mouse-1 action also inside a link, you
1005 just need to press the Mouse-1 button a little longer than a normal
1006 click (i.e. press and hold the Mouse-1 button for half a second before
1009 Dragging the Mouse-1 inside a link still performs the original
1010 drag-mouse-1 action, typically copy the text.
1012 You can customize the new Mouse-1 behavior via the new user options
1013 `mouse-1-click-follows-link' and `mouse-1-click-in-non-selected-windows'.
1016 *** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
1017 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
1018 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
1019 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
1020 also disable mouse highlighting.
1023 *** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
1024 shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
1025 variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
1028 *** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
1029 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
1032 *** Emacs ignores mouse-2 clicks while the mouse wheel is being moved.
1034 People tend to push the mouse wheel (which counts as a mouse-2 click)
1035 unintentionally while turning the wheel, so these clicks are now
1036 ignored. You can customize this with the mouse-wheel-click-event and
1037 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
1040 *** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
1042 ** Multilingual Environment (Mule) changes:
1045 *** Language environment and various default coding systems are setup
1046 more correctly according to the current locale name. If the locale
1047 name doesn't specify a charset, the default is what glibc defines.
1048 This change can result in using the different coding systems as
1049 default in some locale (e.g. vi_VN).
1052 *** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1053 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1054 can mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1055 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1056 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1057 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1058 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1059 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1062 *** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
1063 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
1066 *** New command `recode-region' decodes the region again by a specified
1070 *** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
1074 *** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
1078 *** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
1079 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
1080 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
1084 *** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
1085 in the current input method to input a character at point.
1088 *** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
1089 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
1090 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
1091 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
1092 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
1093 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
1094 mule-unicode-... ones.
1096 By default this translation happens automatically on encoding.
1097 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
1098 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
1101 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
1102 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
1103 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
1104 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
1105 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
1108 *** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
1109 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
1110 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
1111 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
1114 *** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
1115 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
1116 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
1117 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
1118 automatically according to the locale.)
1121 *** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
1122 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
1123 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
1124 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
1125 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
1129 *** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
1133 *** Improved Thai support. A new minor mode `thai-word-mode' (which is
1134 automatically activated if you select Thai as a language
1135 environment) changes key bindings of most word-oriented commands to
1136 versions which recognize Thai words. Affected commands are
1140 M-DEL (backward-kill-word)
1141 M-t (transpose-words)
1142 M-q (fill-paragraph)
1145 *** Indian support has been updated.
1146 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
1147 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
1148 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
1152 *** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
1155 *** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
1156 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
1157 single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
1158 turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
1159 sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
1160 system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
1161 interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
1162 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
1163 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
1164 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
1165 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
1166 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
1169 *** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
1170 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
1171 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
1174 *** Many new coding systems are available in the `code-pages' library.
1175 These include complete versions of most of those in codepage.el, based
1176 on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now obsolete and is used
1177 only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. All coding systems defined in
1178 `code-pages' are auto-loaded.
1181 *** New variable `utf-translate-cjk-unicode-range' controls which
1182 Unicode characters to translate in `utf-translate-cjk-mode'.
1185 *** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
1186 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
1187 fontset appropriately.
1189 ** Customize changes:
1192 *** Custom themes are collections of customize options. Create a
1193 custom theme with M-x customize-create-theme. Use M-x load-theme to
1194 load and enable a theme, and M-x disable-theme to disable it. Use M-x
1195 enable-theme to enable a disabled theme.
1198 *** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
1199 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
1200 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
1204 *** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
1205 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
1206 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
1207 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
1208 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
1209 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
1210 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
1213 *** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
1214 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
1215 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
1216 under the "[State]" button.
1218 ** Buffer Menu changes:
1221 *** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
1222 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to T in Buffer Menu
1226 *** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1227 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1228 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1231 *** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
1232 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
1233 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
1235 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
1236 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
1237 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories are
1238 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
1239 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
1241 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
1242 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
1243 t, and the status is shown.
1245 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
1246 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
1251 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
1252 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
1253 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
1256 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
1257 with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
1260 *** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
1261 of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
1264 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
1265 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
1266 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
1267 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
1268 double quotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
1269 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
1272 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
1273 into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
1276 *** In Dired-x, Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode.
1278 The mode toggling command is bound to M-o. A new command
1279 dired-mark-omitted, bound to * O, marks omitted files. The variable
1280 dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the mode toggling function
1284 *** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1285 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1286 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1287 directory listing into a buffer.
1292 *** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
1293 option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
1294 except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
1295 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
1296 overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
1298 The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
1299 support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
1301 `comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
1302 read-only and field properties. Hence, it always kill entire
1303 lines, including any prompts.
1305 `comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
1306 read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
1307 part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
1308 and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
1309 not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
1310 `kill-region' if read-only properties are involved: it copies the text
1311 to the kill-ring, but does not delete it.
1314 *** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
1315 modes (shell-mode, etc.) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
1316 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
1317 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
1320 *** `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' has been renamed
1321 `comint-use-prompt-regexp'. The old name has been kept as an alias,
1322 but declared obsolete.
1324 ** M-x Compile changes:
1327 *** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
1329 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
1330 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
1331 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
1332 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
1334 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
1335 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
1336 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
1338 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
1339 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
1340 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
1341 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
1342 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
1344 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
1347 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1348 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1349 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1350 subprocesses inherit.
1353 *** New user option `compilation-disable-input'.
1354 If this is non-nil, send end-of-file as compilation process input.
1357 *** New options `next-error-highlight' and `next-error-highlight-no-select'
1358 specify the method of highlighting of the corresponding source line
1359 in new face `next-error'.
1362 *** A new minor mode `next-error-follow-minor-mode' can be used in
1363 compilation-mode, grep-mode, occur-mode, and diff-mode (i.e. all the
1364 modes that can use `next-error'). In this mode, cursor motion in the
1365 buffer causes automatic display in another window of the corresponding
1366 matches, compilation errors, etc. This minor mode can be toggled with
1370 *** When the left fringe is displayed, an arrow points to current message in
1371 the compilation buffer.
1374 *** The new variable `compilation-context-lines' controls lines of leading
1375 context before the current message. If nil and the left fringe is displayed,
1376 it doesn't scroll the compilation output window. If there is no left fringe,
1377 no arrow is displayed and a value of nil means display the message at the top
1380 ** Occur mode changes:
1383 *** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1384 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1388 *** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
1389 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
1392 *** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
1393 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
1394 `multi-occur-in-matching-buffers' which allows you to specify the
1395 buffers to search by their filenames or buffer names. Internally,
1396 Occur mode has been rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other
1402 *** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1404 There's a new separate package grep.el, with its own submenu and
1405 customization group.
1408 *** M-x grep provides highlighting support.
1410 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
1411 can be saved and automatically revisited.
1414 *** `grep-find' is now also available under the name `find-grep' where
1415 people knowing `find-grep-dired' would probably expect it.
1418 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1419 `grep-scroll-output' override the corresponding compilation mode
1420 settings, for grep commands only.
1423 *** New option `grep-highlight-matches' highlights matches in *grep*
1424 buffer. It uses a special feature of some grep programs which accept
1425 --color option to output markers around matches. When going to the next
1426 match with `next-error' the exact match is highlighted in the source
1427 buffer. Otherwise, if `grep-highlight-matches' is nil, the whole
1428 source line is highlighted.
1431 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1432 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1433 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1434 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1435 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1436 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1440 *** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
1441 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep automatically
1442 detects whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
1443 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
1444 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
1445 command lines to be used than was possible before.
1447 ** X Windows Support:
1450 *** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
1451 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
1452 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
1455 *** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1456 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1457 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1458 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1460 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1461 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1464 *** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which can
1465 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
1467 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
1468 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
1471 *** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
1472 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
1473 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
1474 and use the more appropriately result.
1477 *** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
1478 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
1479 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
1484 *** If you enable Xterm Mouse mode, Emacs will respond to mouse clicks
1485 on the mode line, header line and display margin, when run in an xterm.
1488 *** Improved key bindings support when running in an xterm.
1489 When emacs is running in an xterm more key bindings are available. The
1490 following should work:
1491 {C,S,C-S,A}-{right,left,up,down,prior,next,delete,insert,F1-12}.
1492 These key bindings work on xterm from X.org 6.8, they might not work on
1493 some older versions of xterm, or on some proprietary versions.
1495 ** Character terminal color support changes:
1498 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
1499 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
1500 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
1501 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
1502 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
1503 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
1504 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
1505 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
1506 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
1509 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
1510 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
1511 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
1512 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
1513 all of these colors.
1516 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
1517 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
1518 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
1519 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
1523 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
1525 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1
1527 ** ERC is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1529 ERC is a powerful, modular, and extensible IRC client for Emacs.
1531 To see what modules are available, type
1532 M-x customize-option erc-modules RET.
1534 To start an IRC session, type M-x erc-select, and follow the prompts
1535 for server, port, and nick.
1538 ** Rcirc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1540 Rcirc is an Internet relay chat (IRC) client. It supports
1541 simultaneous connections to multiple IRC servers. Each discussion
1542 takes place in its own buffer. For each connection you can join
1543 several channels (many-to-many) and participate in private
1544 (one-to-one) chats. Both channel and private chats are contained in
1547 To start an IRC session, type M-x irc, and follow the prompts for
1548 server, port, nick and initial channels.
1551 ** Newsticker is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1553 Newsticker asynchronously retrieves headlines (RSS) from a list of news
1554 sites, prepares these headlines for reading, and allows for loading the
1555 corresponding articles in a web browser. Its documentation is in a
1559 ** savehist saves minibuffer histories between sessions.
1560 To use this feature, turn on savehist-mode in your `.emacs' file.
1563 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
1564 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
1565 program files that include other program files.
1567 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
1568 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
1572 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1574 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1575 Emacs Lisp. The prefix for Calc has been changed to `C-x *' and Calc
1576 can be started with `C-x * *'. The Calc manual is separate from the
1577 Emacs manual; within Emacs, type "C-h i m calc RET" to read the
1578 manual. A reference card is available in `etc/calccard.tex' and
1582 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1583 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1586 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1588 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1589 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1590 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1591 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1594 ** Image files are normally visited in Image mode, which lets you toggle
1595 between viewing the image and viewing the text using C-c C-c.
1598 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1600 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1601 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1602 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1603 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1604 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1605 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1607 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1608 rectangle highlighting: Use C-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1609 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1610 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1612 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1613 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1614 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1615 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1616 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1617 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1618 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1620 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1621 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1622 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1624 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1625 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1627 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1628 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1629 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1630 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1632 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1633 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1634 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you can customize the
1635 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1637 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1638 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1639 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1640 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1643 ** Org mode is now part of the Emacs distribution
1645 Org mode is a mode for keeping notes, maintaining ToDo lists, and
1646 doing project planning with a fast and effective plain-text system.
1647 It also contains a plain-text table editor with spreadsheet-like
1650 The Org mode table editor can be integrated into any major mode by
1651 activating the minor Orgtbl-mode.
1653 The documentation for org-mode is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1654 type "C-h i m org RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1655 available in `etc/orgcard.tex' and `etc/orgcard.ps'.
1658 ** The new package dns-mode.el add syntax highlight of DNS master files.
1659 The key binding C-c C-s (`dns-mode-soa-increment-serial') can be used
1660 to increment the SOA serial.
1663 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1664 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1665 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1666 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1667 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticeable. The display method can
1668 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1671 ** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
1672 source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
1675 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1676 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1677 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1678 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1679 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1681 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1682 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1683 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1684 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1685 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1686 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1688 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1689 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1690 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1691 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1692 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1693 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1694 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1695 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1696 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1700 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1701 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1703 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1704 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1705 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1706 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1708 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1711 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1712 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1713 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1714 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1715 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1718 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1719 the keyboard macro ring.
1721 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1722 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1724 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1725 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1726 this behavior via the variables kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1727 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1729 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1730 C-x C-k SPC steps through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1731 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1734 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
1735 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
1736 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
1739 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on Dired
1740 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
1743 ** The new package longlines.el provides a minor mode for editing text
1744 files composed of long lines, based on the `use-hard-newlines'
1745 mechanism. The long lines are broken up by inserting soft newlines,
1746 which are automatically removed when saving the file to disk or
1747 copying into the kill ring, clipboard, etc. By default, Longlines
1748 mode inserts soft newlines automatically during editing, a behavior
1749 referred to as "soft word wrap" in other text editors. This is
1750 similar to Refill mode, but more reliable. To turn the word wrap
1751 feature off, set `longlines-auto-wrap' to nil.
1754 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1756 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1757 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1758 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1759 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1760 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1761 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1764 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1765 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1766 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1767 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1769 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1772 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1773 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1774 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1778 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1779 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1780 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1781 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1784 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1785 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1788 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1789 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1790 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1791 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1792 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1793 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1795 ** The tumme.el package allows you to easily view, tag and in other ways
1796 manipulate image files and their thumbnails, using dired as the main interface.
1797 Tumme provides functionality to generate simple image galleries.
1800 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1802 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1803 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1804 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1805 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1806 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1807 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1808 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1809 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1810 `rsync' to do the copying).
1812 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1813 `su' and `sudo'. Ange-FTP is still supported via the `ftp' method.
1815 If you want to disable Tramp you should set
1817 (setq tramp-default-method "ftp")
1819 Removing Tramp, and re-enabling Ange-FTP, can be achieved by M-x
1823 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
1826 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1827 configuration files.
1830 ** The new package conf-mode.el handles thousands of configuration files, with
1831 varying syntaxes for comments (;, #, //, /* */ or !), assignment (var = value,
1832 var : value, var value or keyword var value) and sections ([section] or
1833 section { }). Many files under /etc/, or with suffixes like .cf through
1834 .config, .properties (Java), .desktop (KDE/Gnome), .ini and many others are
1838 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1841 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
1844 ** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
1845 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
1847 ** The new package scroll-lock.el provides the Scroll Lock minor mode
1848 for pager-like scrolling. Keys which normally move point by line or
1849 paragraph will scroll the buffer by the respective amount of lines
1850 instead and point will be kept vertically fixed relative to window
1851 boundaries during scrolling.
1853 ** The file t-mouse.el is now part of Emacs and provides access to mouse
1854 events from the console. It still requires gpm to work but has been updated
1855 for Emacs 22. In particular, the mode-line is now position sensitive.
1857 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1:
1862 *** Bindings for Tumme added
1863 Several new keybindings, all starting with the C-t prefix, have been
1864 added to Dired. They are all bound to commands in Tumme. As a starting
1865 point, mark some image files in a dired buffer and do C-t d to display
1866 thumbnails of them in a separate buffer.
1868 ** Changes in Hi Lock
1871 *** hi-lock-mode now only affects a single buffer, and a new function
1872 `global-hi-lock-mode' enables Hi Lock in all buffers. By default, if
1873 hi-lock-mode is used in what appears to be the initialization file, a
1874 warning message suggests to use global-hi-lock-mode instead. However,
1875 if the new variable `hi-lock-archaic-interface-deduce' is non-nil,
1876 using hi-lock-mode in an initialization file will turn on Hi Lock in all
1877 buffers and no warning will be issued (for compatibility with the
1878 behavior in older versions of Emacs).
1880 ** Changes in Allout
1882 *** Topic cryptography added, enabling easy gpg topic encryption and
1883 decryption. Per-topic basis enables interspersing encrypted-text and
1884 clear-text within a single file to your heart's content, using symmetric
1885 and/or public key modes. Time-limited key caching, user-provided
1886 symmetric key hinting and consistency verification, auto-encryption of
1887 pending topics on save, and more, make it easy to use encryption in
1890 *** Default command prefix changed to "\C-c " (control-c space), to avoid
1891 intruding on user's keybinding space. Customize the
1892 `allout-command-prefix' variable to your preference.
1894 *** Allout now uses text overlay's `invisible' property (and others) for
1895 concealed text, instead of selective-display. This simplifies the code, in
1896 particularly avoiding the need for kludges for isearch dynamic-display,
1897 discretionary handling of edits of concealed text, undo concerns, etc.
1899 *** Many substantial fixes and refinements, including:
1901 - repaired inhibition of inadvertent edits to concealed text
1902 - repaired retention of topic body hanging indent upon topic depth shifts
1903 - refuse to create "containment discontinuities", where a
1904 topic is shifted deeper than the offspring-depth of its' container
1905 - bulleting variation is simpler and more accommodating, both in the
1906 default behavior and in ability to vary when creating new topics
1907 - many internal fixes and refinements
1908 - many module and function docstring clarifications
1909 - version number incremented to 2.2
1911 ** The variable `woman-topic-at-point' was renamed
1912 to `woman-use-topic-at-point' and behaves differently: if this
1913 variable is non-nil, the `woman' command uses the word at point
1914 automatically, without asking for a confirmation. Otherwise, the word
1915 at point is suggested as default, but not inserted at the prompt.
1918 ** Changes to cmuscheme
1920 *** Emacs now offers to start Scheme if the user tries to
1921 evaluate a Scheme expression but no Scheme subprocess is running.
1923 *** If a file `.emacs_NAME' (where NAME is the name of the Scheme interpreter)
1924 exists in the user's home directory or in ~/.emacs.d, its
1925 contents are sent to the Scheme subprocess upon startup.
1927 *** There are new commands to instruct the Scheme interpreter to trace
1928 procedure calls (`scheme-trace-procedure') and to expand syntactic forms
1929 (`scheme-expand-current-form'). The commands actually sent to the Scheme
1930 subprocess are controlled by the user options `scheme-trace-command',
1931 `scheme-untrace-command' and `scheme-expand-current-form'.
1934 ** Makefile mode has submodes for automake, gmake, makepp, BSD make and imake.
1936 The former two couldn't be differentiated before, and the latter three
1937 are new. Font-locking is robust now and offers new customizable
1941 ** In Outline mode, `hide-body' no longer hides lines at the top
1942 of the file that precede the first header line.
1945 ** Telnet now prompts you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
1948 ** The terminal emulation code in term.el has been improved; it can
1949 run most curses applications now.
1952 ** M-x diff uses Diff mode instead of Compilation mode.
1955 ** You can now customize `fill-nobreak-predicate' to control where
1956 filling can break lines. The value is now normally a list of
1957 functions, but it can also be a single function, for compatibility.
1959 Emacs provide two predicates, `fill-single-word-nobreak-p' and
1960 `fill-french-nobreak-p', for use as the value of
1961 `fill-nobreak-predicate'.
1964 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
1965 with special modes such as Tar mode.
1968 ** Commands `winner-redo' and `winner-undo', from winner.el, are now
1969 bound to C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an
1970 incompatible change.
1973 ** `global-whitespace-mode' is a new alias for `whitespace-global-mode'.
1976 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
1977 resync points in both windows.
1980 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1982 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry always
1983 starts a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1986 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
1987 when Emacs visits them.
1989 ** Info mode changes:
1992 *** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
1993 with the number appended to the `*info*' buffer name (e.g. "*info*<2>").
1996 *** isearch in Info uses Info-search and searches through multiple nodes.
1998 Before leaving the initial Info node isearch fails once with the error
1999 message [initial node], and with subsequent C-s/C-r continues through
2000 other nodes. When isearch fails for the rest of the manual, it wraps
2001 around the whole manual to the top/final node. The user option
2002 `Info-isearch-search' controls whether to use Info-search for isearch,
2003 or the default isearch search function that wraps around the current
2007 *** New search commands: `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S),
2008 `Info-search-backward', and `Info-search-next' which repeats the last
2009 search without prompting for a new search string.
2012 *** New command `Info-history-forward' (bound to r and new toolbar icon)
2013 moves forward in history to the node you returned from after using
2014 `Info-history-back' (renamed from `Info-last').
2017 *** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
2020 *** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
2021 from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
2024 *** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
2025 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
2029 *** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
2030 the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
2031 arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
2034 *** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
2035 and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
2038 *** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
2039 references and following them calls `browse-url'.
2042 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
2044 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
2045 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
2048 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
2050 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
2051 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
2052 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
2055 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
2058 *** `Info-index' offers completion.
2060 ** Lisp mode changes:
2063 *** Lisp mode now uses `font-lock-doc-face' for doc strings.
2066 *** C-u C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-prints the list after point.
2068 *** New features in evaluation commands
2071 **** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
2072 the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
2075 **** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
2076 in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
2077 by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
2078 function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
2079 `eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
2084 *** The CC Mode manual has been extensively revised.
2085 The information about using CC Mode has been separated from the larger
2086 and more difficult chapters about configuration.
2088 *** Changes in Key Sequences
2089 **** c-toggle-auto-hungry-state is no longer bound to C-c C-t.
2091 **** c-toggle-hungry-state is no longer bound to C-c C-d.
2092 This binding has been taken over by c-hungry-delete-forwards.
2094 **** c-toggle-auto-state (C-c C-t) has been renamed to c-toggle-auto-newline.
2095 c-toggle-auto-state remains as an alias.
2097 **** The new commands c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forwards
2098 have key bindings C-c C-DEL (or C-c DEL, for the benefit of TTYs) and
2099 C-c C-d (or C-c C-<delete> or C-c <delete>) respectively. These
2100 commands delete entire blocks of whitespace with a single
2101 key-sequence. [N.B. "DEL" is the <backspace> key.]
2103 **** The new command c-toggle-electric-mode is bound to C-c C-l.
2105 **** The new command c-subword-mode is bound to C-c C-w.
2107 *** C-c C-s (`c-show-syntactic-information') now highlights the anchor
2111 **** Electric Minor Mode toggles the electric action of non-alphabetic keys.
2112 The new command c-toggle-electric-mode is bound to C-c C-l. Turning the
2113 mode off can be helpful for editing chaotically indented code and for
2114 users new to CC Mode, who sometimes find electric indentation
2115 disconcerting. Its current state is displayed in the mode line with an
2118 **** Subword Minor Mode makes Emacs recognize word boundaries at upper case
2119 letters in StudlyCapsIdentifiers. You enable this feature by C-c C-w. It can
2120 also be used in non-CC Mode buffers. :-) Contributed by Masatake YAMATO.
2124 **** `comment-close-slash'.
2125 With this clean-up, a block (i.e. c-style) comment can be terminated by
2126 typing a slash at the start of a line.
2128 **** `c-one-liner-defun'
2129 This clean-up compresses a short enough defun (for example, an AWK
2130 pattern/action pair) onto a single line. "Short enough" is configurable.
2132 *** Font lock support.
2133 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
2134 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
2135 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
2136 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
2137 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
2138 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
2140 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
2141 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
2142 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
2143 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
2144 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
2145 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
2146 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
2147 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
2148 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
2150 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
2151 fontification in mind; Just-In-Time-Lock mode should be enabled for
2152 the highest font lock level (by default, it is). Fontifying a file
2153 with several thousand lines in one go can take the better part of a
2156 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
2157 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
2158 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
2159 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
2160 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
2161 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
2163 **** Support for documentation comments.
2164 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
2165 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
2166 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
2167 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
2169 Currently three kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Sun's
2170 Javadoc, Autodoc (which is used in Pike) and GtkDoc (used in C). (The
2171 last was contributed by Masatake YAMATO). This is by no means a
2172 complete list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor
2173 of choice is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2175 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
2176 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
2177 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
2178 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
2181 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
2182 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
2183 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
2184 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
2185 not as configurable as it ought to be.
2187 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
2188 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
2189 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
2190 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
2191 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
2193 *** Support for the AWK language.
2194 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
2195 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
2196 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
2199 **** Indentation Engine
2200 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
2202 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
2203 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
2204 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
2205 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
2206 definition, or structured statement.
2208 The predefined line-up functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
2209 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't
2210 be any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
2213 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
2214 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
2215 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
2216 the AWK language itself.
2218 **** Comment and Movement Commands
2219 These commands all work for AWK buffers. The notion of "defun" has
2220 been augmented to include AWK pattern-action pairs - the standard
2221 "defun" commands on key sequences C-M-a, C-M-e, and C-M-h use this
2222 extended definition.
2224 **** "awk" style, Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
2225 A new style, "awk" has been introduced, and this is now the default
2226 style for AWK code. With auto-newline enabled, the clean-up
2227 c-one-liner-defun (see above) is useful.
2229 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
2230 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
2231 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
2232 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
2233 composition-close, and incomposition.
2235 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
2236 The new functions `c-hungry-backspace' and `c-hungry-delete-forward'
2237 provide hungry deletion without having to toggle a mode. They are
2238 bound to C-c C-DEL and C-c C-d (and several variants, for the benefit
2239 of different keyboard setups. See "Changes in key sequences" above).
2241 *** Better control over `require-final-newline'.
2243 The variable `c-require-final-newline' specifies which of the modes
2244 implemented by CC mode should insert final newlines. Its value is a
2245 list of modes, and only those modes should do it. By default the list
2246 includes C, C++ and Objective-C modes.
2248 Whichever modes are in this list will set `require-final-newline'
2249 based on `mode-require-final-newline'.
2251 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
2253 The elements in the syntactic context returned by `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2254 and stored in `c-syntactic-context' has been changed somewhat to allow
2255 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
2256 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
2258 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
2262 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
2264 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
2267 This change might affect code that calls `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2268 directly, and custom lineup functions if they use
2269 `c-syntactic-context'. However, the argument given to lineup
2270 functions is still a single cons cell with nil or an integer in the
2273 *** API changes for derived modes.
2275 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
2276 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
2277 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
2278 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
2279 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
2281 **** New language variable system.
2282 These are variables whose values vary between CC Mode's different
2283 languages. See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
2285 **** New initialization functions.
2286 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
2287 give better control: `c-basic-common-init', `c-font-lock-init', and
2288 `c-init-language-vars'.
2290 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
2291 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
2292 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
2293 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
2295 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
2296 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
2297 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
2298 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
2299 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2301 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
2302 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
2303 its substatement. E.g:
2309 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
2311 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
2312 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
2313 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
2314 variable `c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros'. A new syntactic symbol
2315 `cpp-define-intro' has been added to control the initial indentation
2318 **** New lineup function `c-lineup-cpp-define'.
2320 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
2321 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
2322 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
2323 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
2324 much line `c-lineup-dont-change', which was used earlier, but handles
2325 empty lines within the macro better.
2327 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
2328 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
2329 `c-context-line-break' and `c-context-open-line'.
2331 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2332 `c-backslash-region' tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
2333 variable `c-backslash-max-column' puts a limit on how far out
2334 backslashes can be moved.
2336 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2337 This is controlled by the new variable `c-auto-align-backslashes'. It
2338 affects `c-context-line-break', `c-context-open-line' and newlines
2339 inserted in Auto-Newline mode.
2341 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
2342 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
2343 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
2344 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
2345 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
2346 backslash) in the macro.
2348 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
2349 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
2350 the variable `c-indent-comment-alist'. The indentation behavior is
2351 based on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after
2352 #else and #endif but indentation to `comment-column' in most other
2353 cases (something which was hardcoded earlier).
2355 *** New function `c-context-open-line'.
2356 It's the open-line equivalent of `c-context-line-break'.
2358 *** New lineup functions
2360 **** `c-lineup-string-cont'
2361 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
2364 result = prefix + "A message "
2365 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
2367 **** `c-lineup-cascaded-calls'
2368 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
2370 **** `c-lineup-knr-region-comment'
2371 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
2372 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
2374 **** `c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg'
2375 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks.
2377 **** `c-lineup-argcont'
2378 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
2380 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
2381 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
2382 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
2383 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
2384 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
2385 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
2387 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
2388 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
2389 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
2390 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
2393 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
2394 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
2395 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
2396 happen when macros are involved.
2398 *** Improved the way `c-indent-exp' chooses the block to indent.
2399 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
2400 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
2401 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
2402 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
2403 line is left untouched.
2405 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
2406 The function `c-toggle-syntactic-indentation' can be used to toggle
2407 syntactic indentation.
2409 ** In sh-script, a continuation line is only indented if the backslash was
2410 preceded by a SPC or a TAB.
2413 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
2416 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
2417 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
2418 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
2419 C-c C-i b, and so on.
2421 ** Fortran mode changes:
2424 *** Fortran mode does more font-locking by default. Use level 3
2425 highlighting for the old default.
2428 *** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
2429 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
2430 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
2433 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have new navigation commands
2434 `f90-end-of-block', `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block',
2435 `f90-previous-block', `fortran-end-of-block',
2436 `fortran-beginning-of-block'.
2439 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have support for `hs-minor-mode' (hideshow).
2440 It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
2444 *** The new function `f90-backslash-not-special' can be used to change
2445 the syntax of backslashes in F90 buffers.
2448 ** Reftex mode changes
2451 *** Changes to RefTeX's table of contents
2453 The new command keys "<" and ">" in the TOC buffer promote/demote the
2454 section at point or all sections in the current region, with full
2455 support for multifile documents.
2457 The new command `reftex-toc-recenter' (`C-c -') shows the current
2458 section in the TOC buffer without selecting the TOC window.
2459 Recentering can happen automatically in idle time when the option
2460 `reftex-auto-recenter-toc' is turned on. The highlight in the TOC
2461 buffer stays when the focus moves to a different window. A dedicated
2462 frame can show the TOC with the current section always automatically
2463 highlighted. The frame is created and deleted from the toc buffer
2466 The toc window can be split off horizontally instead of vertically.
2467 See new option `reftex-toc-split-windows-horizontally'.
2469 Labels can be renamed globally from the table of contents using the
2472 The new command `reftex-goto-label' jumps directly to a label
2476 *** Changes related to citations and BibTeX database files
2478 Commands that insert a citation now prompt for optional arguments when
2479 called with a prefix argument. Related new options are
2480 `reftex-cite-prompt-optional-args' and `reftex-cite-cleanup-optional-args'.
2482 The new command `reftex-create-bibtex-file' creates a BibTeX database
2483 with all entries referenced in the current document. The keys "e" and
2484 "E" allow to produce a BibTeX database file from entries marked in a
2485 citation selection buffer.
2487 The command `reftex-citation' uses the word in the buffer before the
2488 cursor as a default search string.
2490 The support for chapterbib has been improved. Different chapters can
2491 now use BibTeX or an explicit `thebibliography' environment.
2493 The macros which specify the bibliography file (like \bibliography)
2494 can be configured with the new option `reftex-bibliography-commands'.
2496 Support for jurabib has been added.
2499 *** Global index matched may be verified with a user function
2501 During global indexing, a user function can verify an index match.
2502 See new option `reftex-index-verify-function'.
2505 *** Parsing documents with many labels can be sped up.
2507 Operating in a document with thousands of labels can be sped up
2508 considerably by allowing RefTeX to derive the type of a label directly
2509 from the label prefix like `eq:' or `fig:'. The option
2510 `reftex-trust-label-prefix' needs to be configured in order to enable
2511 this feature. While the speed-up is significant, this may reduce the
2512 quality of the context offered by RefTeX to describe a label.
2515 *** Miscellaneous changes
2517 The macros which input a file in LaTeX (like \input, \include) can be
2518 configured in the new option `reftex-include-file-commands'.
2520 RefTeX supports global incremental search.
2523 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
2524 to support use of font-lock.
2526 ** HTML/SGML changes:
2529 *** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
2533 *** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
2534 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
2535 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
2536 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
2537 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
2538 from the file name or buffer contents.
2541 *** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
2546 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
2549 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
2550 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
2551 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
2552 TeX commands to use at startup.
2555 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
2556 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
2559 *** New major mode Doctex mode, for *.dtx files.
2563 *** The new command `bibtex-url' browses a URL for the BibTeX entry at
2564 point (bound to C-c C-l and mouse-2, RET on clickable fields).
2566 *** The new command `bibtex-entry-update' (bound to C-c C-u) updates
2567 an existing BibTeX entry by inserting fields that may occur but are not
2570 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
2572 *** `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' can take values `plain',
2573 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
2574 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
2575 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
2576 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
2577 `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' is non-nil.
2579 *** If the new variable `bibtex-parse-keys-fast' is non-nil,
2580 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
2582 *** If the new variable `bibtex-autoadd-commas' is non-nil,
2583 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
2585 *** The new variable `bibtex-autofill-types' contains a list of entry
2586 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
2588 *** The new command `bibtex-complete' completes word fragment before
2589 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
2591 *** The new commands `bibtex-find-entry' and `bibtex-find-crossref'
2592 locate entries and crossref'd entries (bound to C-c C-s and C-c C-x).
2593 Crossref fields are clickable (bound to mouse-2, RET).
2595 *** In BibTeX mode the command `fill-paragraph' (M-q) fills
2596 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
2598 *** The new variables `bibtex-files' and `bibtex-file-path' define a set
2599 of BibTeX files that are searched for entry keys.
2601 *** The new command `bibtex-validate-globally' checks for duplicate keys
2602 in multiple BibTeX files.
2604 *** The new command `bibtex-copy-summary-as-kill' pushes summary
2605 of BibTeX entry to kill ring (bound to C-c C-t).
2607 *** The new variables bibtex-expand-strings and
2608 bibtex-autokey-expand-strings control the expansion of strings when
2609 extracting the content of a BibTeX field.
2611 *** The variables `bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert' and
2612 `bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert' have been renamed to
2613 `bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert-function' and
2614 `bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert-function'. The old names are
2615 still available as aliases.
2618 ** In Enriched mode, `set-left-margin' and `set-right-margin' are now
2619 by default bound to `C-c [' and `C-c ]' instead of the former `C-c C-l'
2625 *** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
2626 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
2629 *** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
2630 and other common debugger commands.
2633 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
2634 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
2635 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
2636 state of your program. It can separate the input/output of your program from
2637 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
2638 Emacs 21/22 such as the toolbar, and bitmaps in the fringe to indicate
2641 To use this package just type M-x gdb. See the Emacs manual if you want the
2644 *** The variable tooltip-gud-tips-p has been removed. GUD tooltips can now be
2645 toggled independently of normal tooltips with the minor mode
2649 *** In graphical mode, with a C program, GUD Tooltips have been extended to
2650 display the #define directive associated with an identifier when program is
2654 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
2656 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class information.
2657 Fast startup since there is no need to scan all source files up front.
2658 There is also no need to create and maintain lists of source
2659 directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath' and
2660 `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
2662 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
2663 set/clear operations from Java source files under the classpath, stack
2664 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
2667 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
2670 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
2671 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
2672 Set `gud-jdb-use-classpath' to nil.
2674 *** Added Customization Variables
2676 **** `gud-jdb-command-name'. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
2678 **** `gud-jdb-use-classpath'. Allows selection of java source file searching
2679 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan `gud-jdb-directories' for
2680 java sources (previous method).
2682 **** `gud-jdb-directories'. List of directories to scan and search for Java
2683 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
2686 *** Minor Improvements
2688 **** The STARTTLS wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
2689 instead of the OpenSSL based `starttls' tool. For backwards
2690 compatibility, it prefers `starttls', but you can toggle
2691 `starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
2694 **** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
2696 ** Auto-Revert changes:
2699 *** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
2701 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
2702 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
2703 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it stays at
2704 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
2705 just put point at the end of the buffer and it stays there. This
2706 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior can
2709 If you are sure that the file will only change by growing at the end,
2710 then you can tail the file more efficiently by using the new minor
2711 mode Auto Revert Tail mode. The function `auto-revert-tail-mode'
2715 *** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
2716 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
2717 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
2718 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
2719 mode only reverts a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
2720 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
2721 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
2722 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
2723 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
2726 *** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
2727 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
2728 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
2729 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
2730 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
2735 The recent file list is now automatically cleaned up when recentf mode is
2736 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
2739 The ten most recent files can be quickly opened by using the shortcut
2740 keys 1 to 9, and 0, when the recent list is displayed in a buffer via
2741 the `recentf-open-files', or `recentf-open-more-files' commands.
2743 The `recentf-keep' option replaces `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p'
2744 and provides a more general mechanism to customize which file names to
2745 keep in the recent list.
2747 With the more advanced option `recentf-filename-handlers', you can
2748 specify functions that successively transform recent file names. For
2749 example, if set to `file-truename' plus `abbreviate-file-name', the
2750 same file will not be in the recent list with different symbolic
2751 links, and the file name will be abbreviated.
2753 To follow naming convention, `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag'
2754 replaces the misnamed option `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The
2755 old name remains available as alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2761 *** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, `desktop-save-mode'.
2764 *** The variable `desktop-enable' is obsolete.
2766 Customize `desktop-save-mode' to enable desktop saving.
2769 *** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
2773 *** The desktop package can be customized to restore only some buffers
2774 immediately, remaining buffers are restored lazily (when Emacs is
2779 - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
2780 - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
2781 - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
2783 - desktop-lazy-complete runs the desktop load to completion.
2784 - desktop-lazy-abort aborts lazy loading of the desktop.
2787 *** New customizable variables:
2788 - desktop-save. Determines whether the desktop should be saved when it is
2790 - desktop-file-name-format. Format in which desktop file names should be saved.
2791 - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
2792 - desktop-locals-to-save. List of local variables to save.
2793 - desktop-globals-to-clear. List of global variables that `desktop-clear' will clear.
2794 - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp. Regexp identifying buffers that `desktop-clear'
2796 - desktop-restore-eager. Number of buffers to restore immediately. Remaining buffers are
2797 restored lazily (when Emacs is idle).
2798 - desktop-lazy-verbose. Verbose reporting of lazily created buffers.
2799 - desktop-lazy-idle-delay. Idle delay before starting to create buffers.
2802 *** New command line option --no-desktop
2806 - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
2807 - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
2810 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
2812 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
2813 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
2814 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
2815 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
2816 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
2822 *** When comparing directories.
2823 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
2824 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
2825 from one directory to another.
2828 *** When comparing files or buffers.
2829 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
2830 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
2831 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
2835 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
2836 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
2837 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
2842 *** New regular expressions features
2844 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
2846 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
2847 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
2848 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
2849 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
2850 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
2851 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
2852 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
2853 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
2854 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
2855 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
2857 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in GCC.
2859 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
2860 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
2863 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
2865 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
2866 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
2867 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
2869 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
2871 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
2872 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
2874 *** New language parsing features
2876 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
2878 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
2880 **** The GCC __attribute__ keyword is now recognized and ignored.
2882 **** New language HTML.
2884 Tags are generated for `title' as well as `h1', `h2', and `h3'. Also,
2885 when `name=' is used inside an anchor and whenever `id=' is used.
2887 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
2889 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
2890 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
2892 **** New language Lua.
2894 All functions are tagged.
2896 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
2898 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
2899 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
2902 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
2904 **** New language PHP.
2906 Functions, classes and defines are tags. If the --members option is
2907 specified to etags, variables are tags also.
2909 **** New default keywords for TeX.
2911 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
2914 *** Honor #line directives.
2916 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
2917 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
2918 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
2919 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
2920 writes tags pointing to the source file.
2922 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
2924 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
2925 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
2926 reads from standard input and marks the produced tags as belonging to
2932 *** The key C-x C-q only changes the read-only state of the buffer
2933 (toggle-read-only). It no longer checks files in or out.
2935 We made this change because we held a poll and found that many users
2936 were unhappy with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this
2937 behavior, you can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your
2940 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
2942 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
2945 *** The new variable `vc-cvs-global-switches' specifies switches that
2946 are passed to any CVS command invoked by VC.
2948 These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which means they
2949 are inserted before the command name. For example, this allows you to
2950 specify a compression level using the `-z#' option for CVS.
2953 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
2956 *** VC-Annotate mode enhancements
2958 In VC-Annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
2959 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
2960 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
2962 P: annotates the previous revision
2963 N: annotates the next revision
2964 J: annotates the revision at line
2965 A: annotates the revision previous to line
2966 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
2967 L: shows the log of the revision at line
2968 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
2973 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
2974 between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
2978 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
2979 anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
2980 `checkout', `update' or `commit'. That means using cvs diff options
2984 ** The new variable `mail-default-directory' specifies
2985 `default-directory' for mail buffers. This directory is used for
2986 auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to "~/".
2989 ** The mode line can indicate new mail in a directory or file.
2991 See the documentation of the user option
2992 `display-time-mail-directory'.
2997 *** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
2999 *** The new commands rmail-end-of-message and rmail-summary end-of-message,
3000 by default bound to `/', go to the end of the current mail message in
3001 Rmail and Rmail summary buffers.
3004 *** Support for `movemail' from GNU mailutils was added to Rmail.
3006 This version of `movemail' allows to read mail from a wide range of
3007 mailbox formats, including remote POP3 and IMAP4 mailboxes with or
3008 without TLS encryption. If GNU mailutils is installed on the system
3009 and its version of `movemail' can be found in exec-path, it will be
3010 used instead of the native one.
3015 *** Gnus now includes Sieve and PGG
3017 Sieve is a library for managing Sieve scripts. PGG is a library to handle
3021 *** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
3023 See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "Oort Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
3028 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.94. There have been major changes since
3029 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
3031 ** Calendar changes:
3034 *** You can now use < and >, instead of C-x < and C-x >, to scroll
3035 the calendar left or right. (The old key bindings still work too.)
3038 *** There is a new calendar package, icalendar.el, that can be used to
3039 convert Emacs diary entries to/from the iCalendar format.
3042 *** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
3043 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
3044 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
3045 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
3046 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
3047 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
3048 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
3049 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
3050 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
3053 *** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
3054 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
3055 count backward from the end of the year.
3058 *** The new Calendar function `calendar-goto-iso-week' (g w)
3059 prompts for a year and a week number, and moves to the first
3060 day of that ISO week.
3063 *** The new variable `calendar-minimum-window-height' affects the
3064 window generated by the function `generate-calendar-window'.
3067 *** The functions `holiday-easter-etc' and `holiday-advent' now take
3068 optional arguments, in order to only report on the specified holiday
3069 rather than all. This makes customization of variables such as
3070 `christian-holidays' simpler.
3073 *** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
3074 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
3075 and `diary-header-line-format'.
3078 *** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed:
3079 use the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
3080 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
3081 `appt-issue-message', `appt-visible', and `appt-msg-window'.
3084 *** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
3085 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
3086 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
3087 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
3091 ** Speedbar changes:
3093 *** Speedbar items can now be selected by clicking mouse-1, based on
3094 the `mouse-1-click-follows-link' mechanism.
3096 *** SPC and DEL are no longer bound to scroll up/down in the speedbar
3099 *** The new command `speedbar-toggle-line-expansion', bound to SPC,
3100 contracts or expands the line under the cursor.
3102 *** New command `speedbar-create-directory', bound to `M'.
3104 *** The new commands `speedbar-expand-line-descendants' and
3105 `speedbar-contract-line-descendants', bound to `[' and `]'
3106 respectively, expand and contract the line under cursor with all of
3109 *** The new user option `speedbar-query-confirmation-method' controls
3110 how querying is performed for file operations. A value of 'always
3111 means to always query before file operations; 'none-but-delete means
3112 to not query before any file operations, except before a file
3115 *** The new user option `speedbar-select-frame-method' specifies how
3116 to select a frame for displaying a file opened with the speedbar. A
3117 value of 'attached means to use the attached frame (the frame that
3118 speedbar was started from.) A number such as 1 or -1 means to pass
3119 that number to `other-frame'.
3121 *** The new user option `speedbar-use-tool-tips-flag', if non-nil,
3122 means to display tool-tips for speedbar items.
3124 *** The frame management code in speedbar.el has been split into a new
3125 `dframe' library. Emacs Lisp code that makes use of the speedbar
3126 should use `dframe-attached-frame' instead of
3127 `speedbar-attached-frame', `dframe-timer' instead of `speedbar-timer',
3128 `dframe-close-frame' instead of `speedbar-close-frame', and
3129 `dframe-activity-change-focus-flag' instead of
3130 `speedbar-activity-change-focus-flag'. The variables
3131 `speedbar-update-speed' and `speedbar-navigating-speed' are also
3132 obsolete; use `dframe-update-speed' instead.
3137 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlighting of different
3138 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
3139 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
3140 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
3141 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
3143 The following values are supported:
3145 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
3159 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
3162 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
3163 your `.emacs' will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
3164 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
3166 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
3168 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
3169 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
3170 all identifiers ending in `_t' under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
3171 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
3173 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
3174 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
3176 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i.
3178 Most SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
3179 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
3181 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
3183 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
3184 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
3185 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
3186 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
3189 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
3190 called with the `-E' command line argument to use the operating system
3191 credentials to authenticate the user.
3193 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
3194 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
3195 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
3197 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
3198 Keyword highlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
3200 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
3201 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
3204 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
3205 appropriate `sql-interactive-mode' wrapper for the current setting of
3209 *** sql.el supports the SQLite interpreter--call 'sql-sqlite'.
3214 *** New ffap commands and keybindings:
3216 C-x C-r (`ffap-read-only'),
3217 C-x C-v (`ffap-alternate-file'), C-x C-d (`ffap-list-directory'),
3218 C-x 4 r (`ffap-read-only-other-window'), C-x 4 d (`ffap-dired-other-window'),
3219 C-x 5 r (`ffap-read-only-other-frame'), C-x 5 d (`ffap-dired-other-frame').
3222 *** FFAP accepts wildcards in a file name by default.
3224 C-x C-f passes the file name to `find-file' with non-nil WILDCARDS
3225 argument, which visits multiple files, and C-x d passes it to `dired'.
3228 ** In skeleton.el, `-' marks the `skeleton-point' without interregion interaction.
3230 `@' has reverted to only setting `skeleton-positions' and no longer
3231 sets `skeleton-point'. Skeletons which used @ to mark
3232 `skeleton-point' independent of `_' should now use `-' instead. The
3233 updated `skeleton-insert' docstring explains these new features along
3234 with other details of skeleton construction.
3237 ** Hideshow mode changes
3239 *** New variable `hs-set-up-overlay' allows customization of the overlay
3240 used to effect hiding for hideshow minor mode. Integration with isearch
3241 handles the overlay property `display' specially, preserving it during
3242 temporary overlay showing in the course of an isearch operation.
3244 *** New variable `hs-allow-nesting' non-nil means that hiding a block does
3245 not discard the hidden state of any "internal" blocks; when the parent
3246 block is later shown, the internal blocks remain hidden. Default is nil.
3249 ** `hide-ifdef-mode' now uses overlays rather than selective-display
3250 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
3251 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
3254 ** `partial-completion-mode' now handles partial completion on directory names.
3257 ** The type-break package now allows `type-break-file-name' to be nil
3258 and if so, doesn't store any data across sessions. This is handy if
3259 you don't want the `.type-break' file in your home directory or are
3260 annoyed by the need for interaction when you kill Emacs.
3263 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
3265 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
3266 `ps-print', provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF
3267 fonts. See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
3270 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
3271 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
3272 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
3273 using strokes as an input method.
3275 ** Emacs server changes:
3278 *** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
3280 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
3281 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
3282 % emacsclient -s foo file1
3283 % emacsclient -s bar file2
3286 *** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
3287 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given Lisp
3288 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
3291 *** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
3294 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
3297 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
3299 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
3300 argument it toggles the mode. Turning off PC-Selection mode restores
3301 the global key bindings that were replaced by turning on the mode.
3304 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
3305 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
3308 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
3310 Emacs still works on terminals that require magic cookies in order to
3311 use standout mode, but they can no longer display mode-lines in
3315 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
3317 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
3318 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
3319 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
3321 ** battery.el changes:
3324 *** display-battery-mode replaces display-battery.
3327 *** battery.el now works on recent versions of OS X.
3330 ** calculator.el now has radix grouping mode.
3332 To enable this, set `calculator-output-radix' non-nil. In this mode a
3333 separator character is used every few digits, making it easier to see
3334 byte boundaries etc. For more info, see the documentation of the
3335 variable `calculator-radix-grouping-mode'.
3338 ** fast-lock.el and lazy-lock.el are obsolete. Use jit-lock.el instead.
3341 ** iso-acc.el is now obsolete. Use one of the latin input methods instead.
3344 ** cplus-md.el has been deleted.
3346 * Changes in Emacs 22.1 on non-free operating systems
3349 ** The HOME directory defaults to Application Data under the user profile.
3351 If you used a previous version of Emacs without setting the HOME
3352 environment variable and a `.emacs' was saved, then Emacs will continue
3353 using C:/ as the default HOME. But if you are installing Emacs afresh,
3354 the default location will be the "Application Data" (or similar
3355 localized name) subdirectory of your user profile. A typical location
3356 of this directory is "C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data",
3357 where USERNAME is your user name.
3359 This change means that users can now have their own `.emacs' files on
3360 shared computers, and the default HOME directory is less likely to be
3361 read-only on computers that are administered by someone else.
3364 ** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
3366 You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
3367 existing values. For example:
3369 emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
3371 will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
3372 irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
3375 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
3377 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
3378 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
3381 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
3383 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
3386 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
3388 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
3389 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
3390 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
3391 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
3392 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
3393 against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
3396 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
3398 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
3399 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
3400 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
3401 sound support for those formats.
3404 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
3406 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
3409 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
3411 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
3412 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
3413 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
3416 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
3418 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in much
3419 the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now adds these
3420 colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu for the
3421 default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground), and uses
3422 some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
3423 `list-colors-display' shows the list of System color names, in case
3424 you wish to use them in other faces.
3427 ** On MS Windows NT/W2K/XP, Emacs uses Unicode for clipboard operations.
3429 Those systems use Unicode internally, so this allows Emacs to share
3430 multilingual text with other applications. On other versions of
3431 MS Windows, Emacs now uses the appropriate locale coding-system, so
3432 the clipboard should work correctly for your local language without
3436 ** Running in a console window in Windows now uses the console size.
3438 Previous versions of Emacs erred on the side of having a usable Emacs
3439 through telnet, even though that was inconvenient if you use Emacs in
3440 a local console window with a scrollback buffer. The default value of
3441 w32-use-full-screen-buffer is now nil, which favors local console
3442 windows. Recent versions of Windows telnet also work well with this
3443 setting. If you are using an older telnet server then Emacs detects
3444 that the console window dimensions that are reported are not sane, and
3445 defaults to 80x25. If you use such a telnet server regularly at a size
3446 other than 80x25, you can still manually set
3447 w32-use-full-screen-buffer to t.
3450 ** On Mac OS, `keyboard-coding-system' changes based on the keyboard script.
3453 ** The variable `mac-keyboard-text-encoding' and the constants
3454 `kTextEncodingMacRoman', `kTextEncodingISOLatin1', and
3455 `kTextEncodingISOLatin2' are obsolete.
3457 ** The variable `mac-command-key-is-meta' is obsolete. Use
3458 `mac-command-modifier' and `mac-option-modifier' instead.
3460 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3463 ** The variables post-command-idle-hook and post-command-idle-delay have
3464 been removed. Use run-with-idle-timer instead.
3467 ** `suppress-keymap' now works by remapping `self-insert-command' to
3468 the command `undefined'. (In earlier Emacs versions, it used
3469 `substitute-key-definition' to rebind self inserting characters to
3473 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
3474 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
3475 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
3478 The function `comint-send-input' now accepts 3 optional arguments:
3480 (comint-send-input &optional no-newline artificial)
3482 Callers sending input not from the user should use bind the 3rd
3483 argument `artificial' to a non-nil value, to prevent Emacs from
3484 deleting the part of subprocess output that matches the input.
3487 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
3490 ** The variable `memory-full' now remains t until
3491 there is no longer a shortage of memory.
3493 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3495 ** General Lisp changes:
3497 *** The function `expt' handles negative exponents differently.
3498 The value for `(expt A B)', if both A and B are integers and B is
3499 negative, is now a float. For example: (expt 2 -2) => 0.25.
3502 *** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
3505 *** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
3508 *** `add-to-list' takes an optional third argument, APPEND.
3510 If APPEND is non-nil, the new element gets added at the end of the
3511 list instead of at the beginning. This change actually occurred in
3512 Emacs 21.1, but was not documented then.
3515 *** New function `add-to-ordered-list' is like `add-to-list' but
3516 associates a numeric ordering of each element added to the list.
3519 *** New function `copy-tree' makes a copy of a tree.
3521 It recursively copies through both CARs and CDRs.
3524 *** New function `delete-dups' deletes `equal' duplicate elements from a list.
3526 It modifies the list destructively, like `delete'. Of several `equal'
3527 occurrences of an element in the list, the one that's kept is the
3531 *** New function `rassq-delete-all'.
3533 (rassq-delete-all VALUE ALIST) deletes, from ALIST, each element whose
3534 CDR is `eq' to the specified value.
3537 *** The function `number-sequence' makes a list of equally-separated numbers.
3539 For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9). By
3540 default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different
3541 separation as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns
3545 *** New variables `most-positive-fixnum' and `most-negative-fixnum'.
3547 They hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3550 *** Minor change in the function `format'.
3552 Some flags that were accepted but not implemented (such as "*") are no
3556 *** Functions `get' and `plist-get' no longer give errors for bad plists.
3558 They return nil for a malformed property list or if the list is
3562 *** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
3564 They are like `plist-get' and `plist-put', except that they compare
3565 the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
3568 *** New variable `print-continuous-numbering'.
3570 When this is non-nil, successive calls to print functions use a single
3571 numbering scheme for circular structure references. This is only
3572 relevant when `print-circle' is non-nil.
3574 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
3575 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
3578 *** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
3580 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
3581 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
3582 if no expansion is done, which can be tested using `eq'.
3585 *** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
3587 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
3588 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
3589 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
3592 *** A function or macro's doc string can now specify the calling pattern.
3594 You put this info in the doc string's last line. It should be
3595 formatted so as to match the regexp "\n\n(fn .*)\\'". If you don't
3596 specify this explicitly, Emacs determines it from the actual argument
3597 names. Usually that default is right, but not always.
3600 *** New macro `with-local-quit' temporarily allows quitting.
3602 A quit inside the body of `with-local-quit' is caught by the
3603 `with-local-quit' form itself, but another quit will happen later once
3604 the code that has inhibited quitting exits.
3606 This is for use around potentially blocking or long-running code
3607 inside timer functions and `post-command-hook' functions.
3610 *** New macro `define-obsolete-function-alias'.
3612 This combines `defalias' and `make-obsolete'.
3615 *** New function `unsafep' determines whether a Lisp form is safe.
3617 It returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly do anything
3618 dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be unsafe
3619 (calls unknown function, alters global variable, etc.).
3622 *** New macro `eval-at-startup' specifies expressions to
3623 evaluate when Emacs starts up. If this is done after startup,
3624 it evaluates those expressions immediately.
3626 This is useful in packages that can be preloaded.
3628 *** `list-faces-display' takes an optional argument, REGEXP.
3630 If it is non-nil, the function lists only faces matching this regexp.
3633 *** New function `string-or-null-p'.
3635 Return t if OBJECT is a string or nil. Otherwise, return nil.
3637 ** Lisp code indentation features:
3640 *** The `defmacro' form can contain indentation and edebug declarations.
3642 These declarations specify how to indent the macro calls in Lisp mode
3643 and how to debug them with Edebug. You write them like this:
3645 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
3647 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
3648 possible declaration specifiers are:
3651 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
3654 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
3655 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro,
3656 but this is cleaner.)
3659 *** cl-indent now allows customization of Indentation of backquoted forms.
3661 See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
3664 *** cl-indent now handles indentation of simple and extended `loop' forms.
3666 The new user options `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation',
3667 `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can
3668 be used to customize the indentation of keywords and forms in loop
3672 ** Variable aliases:
3674 *** New function: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3676 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3677 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3678 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3679 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3681 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3682 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3684 *** New function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
3686 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3687 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3688 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3690 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3691 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3694 *** The macro `define-obsolete-variable-alias' combines `defvaralias' and
3695 `make-obsolete-variable'.
3697 ** defcustom changes:
3700 *** The package-version keyword has been added to provide
3701 `customize-changed-options' functionality to packages in the future.
3702 Developers who make use of this keyword must also update the new
3703 variable `customize-package-emacs-version-alist'.
3706 *** The new customization type `float' requires a floating point number.
3711 *** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character.
3713 Exception: In a character constant, if it is followed by a `-' in a
3714 character constant (e.g. ?\s-A), it is still interpreted as the super
3715 modifier. In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
3718 *** A hex escape in a string constant forces the string to be multibyte.
3721 *** An octal escape in a string constant forces the string to be unibyte.
3724 *** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
3725 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
3726 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
3727 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
3728 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
3731 *** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
3732 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
3735 *** New function `substring-no-properties' returns a substring without
3739 *** The new function `assoc-string' replaces `assoc-ignore-case' and
3740 `assoc-ignore-representation', which are still available, but have
3741 been declared obsolete.
3744 ** Displaying warnings to the user.
3746 See the functions `warn' and `display-warning', or the Lisp Manual.
3747 If you want to be sure the warning will not be overlooked, this
3748 facility is much better than using `message', since it displays
3749 warnings in a separate window.
3752 ** Progress reporters.
3754 These provide a simple and uniform way for commands to present
3755 progress messages for the user.
3757 See the new functions `make-progress-reporter',
3758 `progress-reporter-update', `progress-reporter-force-update',
3759 `progress-reporter-done', and `dotimes-with-progress-reporter'.
3761 ** Buffer positions:
3764 *** Function `compute-motion' now calculates the usable window
3765 width if the WIDTH argument is nil. If the TOPOS argument is nil,
3766 the usable window height and width is used.
3769 *** The `line-move', `scroll-up', and `scroll-down' functions will now
3770 modify the window vscroll to scroll through display rows that are
3771 taller that the height of the window, for example in the presence of
3772 large images. To disable this feature, bind the new variable
3773 `auto-window-vscroll' to nil.
3776 *** The argument to `forward-word', `backward-word' is optional.
3781 *** Argument to `forward-to-indentation' and `backward-to-indentation' is optional.
3786 *** New function `mouse-on-link-p' tests if a position is in a clickable link.
3788 This is the function used by the new `mouse-1-click-follows-link'
3792 *** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns the line number of a position.
3794 It an optional buffer position argument that defaults to point.
3797 *** `field-beginning' and `field-end' take new optional argument, LIMIT.
3799 This argument tells them not to search beyond LIMIT. Instead they
3800 give up and return LIMIT.
3803 *** Function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now returns the pixel coordinates
3804 and partial visibility state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
3808 *** New functions `posn-at-point' and `posn-at-x-y' return
3809 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
3810 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
3812 ** Text modification:
3815 *** The new function `insert-for-yank' normally works like `insert', but
3816 removes the text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list
3817 and handles the `yank-handler' text property.
3820 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-as-yank' is like
3821 `insert-for-yank' except that it gets the text from another buffer as
3822 in `insert-buffer-substring'.
3825 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-no-properties' is like
3826 `insert-buffer-substring', but removes all text properties from the
3830 *** The new function `filter-buffer-substring' extracts a buffer
3831 substring, passes it through a set of filter functions, and returns
3832 the filtered substring. Use it instead of `buffer-substring' or
3833 `delete-and-extract-region' when copying text into a user-accessible
3834 data structure, such as the kill-ring, X clipboard, or a register.
3836 The list of filter function is specified by the new variable
3837 `buffer-substring-filters'. For example, Longlines mode adds to
3838 `buffer-substring-filters' to remove soft newlines from the copied
3842 *** Function `translate-region' accepts also a char-table as TABLE
3846 *** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
3847 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
3848 be inserted is translated through it.
3853 The new function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
3854 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
3858 *** The function `insert-string' is now obsolete.
3863 *** In determining an adaptive fill prefix, Emacs now tries the function in
3864 `adaptive-fill-function' _before_ matching the buffer line against
3865 `adaptive-fill-regexp' rather than _after_ it.
3868 ** Atomic change groups.
3870 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
3871 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
3872 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
3874 (atomic-change-group
3876 (delete-region x y))
3878 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
3879 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
3880 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
3881 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
3883 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
3884 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
3886 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
3887 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
3888 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
3889 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
3891 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
3892 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
3895 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
3896 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
3897 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
3898 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
3900 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
3901 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
3902 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
3903 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
3904 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
3905 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
3908 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
3909 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
3910 returned values, like this:
3912 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
3913 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
3915 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
3916 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
3917 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
3919 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
3920 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
3921 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
3922 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
3925 ** Buffer-related changes:
3928 *** `list-buffers-noselect' now takes an additional argument, BUFFER-LIST.
3930 If it is non-nil, it specifies which buffers to list.
3933 *** `kill-buffer-hook' is now a permanent local.
3936 *** The new function `buffer-local-value' returns the buffer-local
3937 binding of VARIABLE (a symbol) in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not
3938 have a buffer-local binding in buffer BUFFER, it returns the default
3939 value of VARIABLE instead.
3941 *** The function `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' now lets you maintain
3942 various status records in parallel.
3944 It takes a variable (a symbol) as argument. If the variable is non-nil,
3945 then its value should be a vector installed previously by
3946 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p'. If the frame names, buffer names, buffer
3947 order, or their read-only or modified flags have changed, since the
3948 time the vector's contents were recorded by a previous call to
3949 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', then the function returns t. Otherwise
3952 On the first call to `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', the variable's
3953 value should be nil. `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' stores a suitable
3954 vector into the variable and returns t.
3956 If the variable is itself nil, then `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' uses,
3957 for compatibility, an internal variable which exists only for this
3961 *** The function `read-buffer' follows the convention for reading from
3962 the minibuffer with a default value: if DEF is non-nil, the minibuffer
3963 prompt provided in PROMPT is edited to show the default value provided
3964 in DEF before the terminal colon and space.
3966 ** Local variables lists:
3969 *** Text properties in local variables.
3971 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
3972 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
3975 *** The variable `enable-local-variables' controls how local variable
3976 lists are handled. t, the default, specifies the standard querying
3977 behavior. :safe means use only safe values, and ignore the rest.
3978 nil means ignore them all. Anything else means always query.
3981 *** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
3982 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
3983 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
3984 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
3988 *** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
3989 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
3990 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
3991 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
3992 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
3993 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
3995 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
3996 confirmation as before.
3998 ** Searching and matching changes:
4001 *** New function `looking-back' checks whether a regular expression matches
4002 the text before point. Specifying the LIMIT argument bounds how far
4003 back the match can start; this is a way to keep it from taking too long.
4006 *** The new variable `search-spaces-regexp' controls how to search
4007 for spaces in a regular expression. If it is non-nil, it should be a
4008 regular expression, and any series of spaces stands for that regular
4009 expression. If it is nil, spaces stand for themselves.
4011 Spaces inside of constructs such as `[..]' and inside loops such as
4012 `*', `+', and `?' are never replaced with `search-spaces-regexp'.
4015 *** New regular expression operators, `\_<' and `\_>'.
4017 These match the beginning and end of a symbol. A symbol is a
4018 non-empty sequence of either word or symbol constituent characters, as
4019 specified by the syntax table.
4022 *** rx.el has new corresponding `symbol-end' and `symbol-start' elements.
4025 *** `skip-chars-forward' and `skip-chars-backward' now handle
4026 character classes such as `[:alpha:]', along with individual
4027 characters and ranges.
4030 *** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
4031 properties from surrounding text.
4034 *** The list returned by `(match-data t)' now has the buffer as a final
4035 element, if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data'
4036 accepts such a list for restoring the match state.
4039 *** Functions `match-data' and `set-match-data' now have an optional
4040 argument `reseat'. When non-nil, all markers in the match data list
4041 passed to these functions will be reseated to point to nowhere.
4044 *** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
4045 variable `sentence-end-without-space', which contains such characters
4046 that end a sentence without following spaces.
4048 The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of the
4049 variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil, then
4050 this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
4051 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
4052 `sentence-end-without-space'.
4057 *** `buffer-undo-list' can allows programmable elements.
4059 These elements have the form (apply FUNNAME . ARGS), where FUNNAME is
4060 a symbol other than t or nil. That stands for a high-level change
4061 that should be undone by evaluating (apply FUNNAME ARGS).
4063 These entries can also have the form (apply DELTA BEG END FUNNAME . ARGS)
4064 which indicates that the change which took place was limited to the
4065 range BEG...END and increased the buffer size by DELTA.
4068 *** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
4069 `undo-outer-limit', garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
4070 it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
4073 ** New `yank-handler' text property can be used to control how
4074 previously killed text on the kill ring is reinserted.
4076 The value of the `yank-handler' property must be a list with one to four
4077 elements with the following format:
4078 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
4080 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
4081 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
4082 element on the kill-ring). If a `yank-handler' property is found,
4083 the normal behavior of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
4085 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
4086 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
4087 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
4088 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
4089 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
4091 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
4092 `yank-excluded-properties' is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
4093 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
4094 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
4095 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
4096 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
4097 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
4098 FUNCTION can set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
4100 *** The functions `kill-new', `kill-append', and `kill-region' now have an
4101 optional argument to specify the `yank-handler' text property to put on
4104 *** The function `yank-pop' will now use a non-nil value of the variable
4105 `yank-undo-function' (instead of `delete-region') to undo the previous
4106 `yank' or `yank-pop' command (or a call to `insert-for-yank'). The function
4107 `insert-for-yank' automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
4108 element of the string argument's `yank-handler' text property if present.
4110 *** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
4111 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
4112 string. The old behavior is available if you call
4113 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
4115 ** Syntax table changes:
4118 *** The macro `with-syntax-table' no longer copies the syntax table.
4121 *** The new function `syntax-after' returns the syntax code
4122 of the character after a specified buffer position, taking account
4123 of text properties as well as the character code.
4126 *** `syntax-class' extracts the class of a syntax code (as returned
4130 *** The new function `syntax-ppss' provides an efficient way to find the
4131 current syntactic context at point.
4133 ** File operation changes:
4136 *** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
4137 searching for an executable or an Emacs Lisp file.
4140 *** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
4141 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
4145 *** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
4146 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
4147 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
4148 The value in that case is an identifier for the remote file system.
4151 *** `buffer-auto-save-file-format' is the new name for what was
4152 formerly called `auto-save-file-format'. It is now a permanent local.
4155 *** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
4156 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
4157 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
4160 *** `copy-file' now takes an additional option arg MUSTBENEW.
4162 This argument works like the MUSTBENEW argument of write-file.
4165 *** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
4166 a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
4169 *** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
4170 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
4171 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
4172 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
4175 *** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
4176 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
4177 tasks. For example, it can be used by the copyright package to make
4178 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
4181 *** If `buffer-save-without-query' is non-nil in some buffer,
4182 `save-some-buffers' will always save that buffer without asking (if
4186 *** New function `locate-file' searches for a file in a list of directories.
4187 `locate-file' accepts a name of a file to search (a string), and two
4188 lists: a list of directories to search in and a list of suffixes to
4189 try; typical usage might use `exec-path' and `load-path' for the list
4190 of directories, and `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' for the list
4191 of suffixes. The function also accepts a predicate argument to
4192 further filter candidate files.
4194 One advantage of using this function is that the list of suffixes in
4195 `exec-suffixes' is OS-dependant, so this function will find
4196 executables without polluting Lisp code with OS dependencies.
4199 *** The precedence of file name handlers has been changed.
4201 Instead of choosing the first handler that matches,
4202 `find-file-name-handler' now gives precedence to a file name handler
4203 that matches nearest the end of the file name. More precisely, the
4204 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen. In case
4205 of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
4208 *** A file name handler can declare which operations it handles.
4210 You do this by putting an `operation' property on the handler name
4211 symbol. The property value should be a list of the operations that
4212 the handler really handles. It won't be called for any other
4215 This is useful for autoloaded handlers, to prevent them from being
4216 autoloaded when not really necessary.
4219 *** The function `make-auto-save-file-name' is now handled by file
4220 name handlers. This will be exploited for remote files mainly.
4225 *** An interactive specification can now use the code letter 'U' to get
4226 the up-event that was discarded in case the last key sequence read for a
4227 previous `k' or `K' argument was a down-event; otherwise nil is used.
4230 *** The new interactive-specification `G' reads a file name
4231 much like `F', but if the input is a directory name (even defaulted),
4232 it returns just the directory name.
4235 *** Functions `y-or-n-p', `read-char', `read-key-sequence' and the like, that
4236 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
4237 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
4240 *** (while-no-input BODY...) runs BODY, but only so long as no input
4241 arrives. If the user types or clicks anything, BODY stops as if a
4242 quit had occurred. `while-no-input' returns the value of BODY, if BODY
4243 finishes. It returns nil if BODY was aborted by a quit, and t if
4244 BODY was aborted by arrival of input.
4246 ** Minibuffer changes:
4249 *** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional
4250 buffer argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted, it
4251 defaults to the current buffer.
4254 *** New function `minibuffer-selected-window' returns the window which
4255 was selected when entering the minibuffer.
4258 *** `read-from-minibuffer' now accepts an additional argument KEEP-ALL
4259 saying to put all inputs in the history list, even empty ones.
4262 *** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
4263 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satisfy. The
4264 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
4265 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
4266 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
4269 *** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by Lisp code
4270 to override the built-in `read-file-name' function.
4273 *** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
4274 whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
4275 `read-file-name' function.
4278 *** The new function `read-directory-name' is for reading a directory name.
4280 It is like `read-file-name' except that the defaulting works better
4281 for directories, and completion inside it shows only directories.
4283 ** Completion changes:
4286 *** The new function `minibuffer-completion-contents' returns the contents
4287 of the minibuffer just before point. That is what completion commands
4291 *** The functions `all-completions' and `try-completion' now accept lists
4292 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
4293 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
4294 exported to Lisp. The keys in alists and hash tables can be either
4295 strings or symbols, which are automatically converted with to strings.
4298 *** The new macro `dynamic-completion-table' supports using functions
4299 as a dynamic completion table.
4301 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
4303 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
4304 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
4305 completions. This alist can be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
4306 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
4307 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
4308 entered. `dynamic-completion-table' then computes the completion.
4311 *** The new macro `lazy-completion-table' initializes a variable
4312 as a lazy completion table.
4314 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN)
4316 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
4317 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with no
4318 arguments. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR.
4319 If completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
4320 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
4321 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
4324 ** Enhancements to keymaps.
4326 *** New keymaps for typing file names
4328 Two new keymaps, `minibuffer-local-filename-completion-map' and
4329 `minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map', apply whenever
4330 Emacs reads a file name in the minibuffer. These key maps override
4331 the usual binding of SPC to `minibuffer-complete-word' (so that file
4332 names with embedded spaces could be typed without the need to quote
4335 *** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
4337 You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
4338 same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
4341 (kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
4343 *** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
4345 This is an alternative to using `defadvice' or `substitute-key-definition'
4346 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
4347 binding and lookup functionality.
4349 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
4350 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
4354 Suppose that minor mode `my-mode' has defined the commands
4355 `my-kill-line' and `my-kill-word', and it wants C-k (and any other key
4356 bound to `kill-line') to run the command `my-kill-line' instead of
4357 `kill-line', and likewise it wants to run `my-kill-word' instead of
4360 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
4361 command remapping allows you to directly map `kill-line' into
4362 `my-kill-line' and `kill-word' into `my-kill-word' using `define-key':
4364 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
4365 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
4367 When `my-mode' is enabled, its minor mode keymap is enabled too. So
4368 when the user types C-k, that runs the command `my-kill-line'.
4370 Only one level of remapping is supported. In the above example, this
4371 means that if `my-kill-line' is remapped to `other-kill', then C-k still
4372 runs `my-kill-line'.
4374 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
4376 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4377 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
4378 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
4379 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
4381 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
4382 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
4384 - `key-binding' now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
4385 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
4387 - `where-is-internal' now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
4388 `kill-line', when `my-mode' is enabled), and the actual key binding for
4389 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
4390 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
4391 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns "C-k" for `kill-line', and
4392 "<kill-line>" for `my-kill-line').
4394 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
4395 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
4396 command was not remapped.
4398 *** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
4399 over minor mode keymaps.
4401 *** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
4402 text properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
4403 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
4405 *** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
4407 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
4408 bindings of the parent keymap.
4410 *** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
4412 *** New function `current-active-maps' returns a list of currently
4415 *** New function `describe-buffer-bindings' inserts the list of all
4416 defined keys and their definitions.
4418 *** New function `keymap-prompt' returns the prompt string of a keymap.
4420 *** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
4423 *** New variable `emulation-mode-map-alists'.
4425 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
4426 keymap alist separate from `minor-mode-map-alist' by adding their
4427 keymap alist to this list.
4432 *** The new function `copy-abbrev-table' copies an abbrev table.
4434 It returns a new abbrev table that is a copy of a given abbrev table.
4437 *** `define-abbrev' now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG.
4439 If non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means
4440 that it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the
4441 abbrevs. Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always
4445 ** Enhancements to process support
4447 *** Function `list-processes' now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
4448 it lists only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set.
4450 *** New fns `set-process-query-on-exit-flag' and `process-query-on-exit-flag'.
4452 These replace the old function `process-kill-without-query'. That
4453 function is still supported, but new code should use the new
4456 *** Function `signal-process' now accepts a process object or process
4457 name in addition to a process id to identify the signaled process.
4459 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
4460 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
4462 Use the new functions `process-get' and `process-put' to access, add,
4463 and modify elements on this property list. Use the new functions
4464 `process-plist' and `set-process-plist' to access and replace the
4465 entire property list of a process.
4467 *** Function `accept-process-output' has a new optional fourth arg
4468 JUST-THIS-ONE. If non-nil, only output from the specified process
4469 is handled, suspending output from other processes. If value is an
4470 integer, also inhibit running timers. This feature is generally not
4471 recommended, but may be necessary for specific applications, such as
4474 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
4476 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
4477 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
4478 very poor performance. This behavior can be remedied to some extent
4479 by setting the new variable `process-adaptive-read-buffering' to a
4480 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
4481 from such processes, allowing them to produce more output before
4482 emacs tries to read it.
4484 *** The new function `call-process-shell-command'.
4486 This executes a shell command synchronously in a separate process.
4488 *** The new function `process-file' is similar to `call-process', but
4489 obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
4490 `default-directory'.
4492 *** A process filter function gets the output as multibyte string
4493 if the process specifies t for its filter's multibyteness.
4495 That multibyteness is decided by the value of
4496 `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is created, and
4497 you can change it later with `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
4499 *** The new function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the
4500 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4502 *** The new function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns the
4503 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4505 *** If a process's coding system is `raw-text' or `no-conversion' and its
4506 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
4507 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
4508 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
4509 which was not compatible with the behavior of file reading.
4512 ** Enhanced networking support.
4514 *** The new `make-network-process' function makes network connections.
4515 It allows opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
4516 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
4518 - A server is started using :server t arg.
4519 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
4520 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
4521 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
4522 - IPv6 is supported (when available). You may explicitly select IPv6
4523 using :family 'ipv6 arg.
4524 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
4525 - The process' property list can be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
4526 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
4527 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
4529 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
4530 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
4531 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:family ipv6))
4533 *** The old `open-network-stream' now uses `make-network-process'.
4535 *** New functions `process-datagram-address', `set-process-datagram-address'.
4537 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
4538 and set the current address of the remote partner.
4540 *** New function `format-network-address'.
4542 This function reformats the Lisp representation of a network address
4543 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
4544 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
4545 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
4546 string for other formatting options.
4548 *** `process-contact' has an optional KEY argument.
4550 Depending on this argument, you can get the complete list of network
4551 process properties or a specific property. Using :local or :remote as
4552 the KEY, you get the address of the local or remote end-point.
4554 An Inet address is represented as a 5 element vector, where the first
4555 4 elements contain the IP address and the fifth is the port number.
4557 *** New functions `stop-process' and `continue-process'.
4559 These functions stop and restart communication through a network
4560 connection. For a server process, no connections are accepted in the
4561 stopped state. For a client process, no input is received in the
4564 *** New function `network-interface-list'.
4566 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
4567 current network addresses.
4569 *** New function `network-interface-info'.
4571 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
4572 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
4574 *** Deleting a network process with `delete-process' calls the sentinel.
4576 The status message passed to the sentinel for a deleted network
4577 process is "deleted". The message passed to the sentinel when the
4578 connection is closed by the remote peer has been changed to
4579 "connection broken by remote peer".
4581 ** Using window objects:
4584 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4586 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line or the
4590 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4592 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line
4596 *** You can now make a window as short as one line.
4598 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
4599 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
4600 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
4601 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
4602 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
4605 *** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
4606 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
4607 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
4611 *** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
4612 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
4615 *** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
4616 selected window without impacting the order of `buffer-list'.
4617 It saves and restores the current buffer, too.
4620 *** `select-window' takes an optional second argument NORECORD.
4622 This is like `switch-to-buffer'.
4625 *** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
4626 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
4627 by calling `select-window'. It also saves and restores the current
4631 *** `set-window-buffer' has an optional argument KEEP-MARGINS.
4633 If non-nil, that says to preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
4634 and scroll-bar settings.
4637 *** The new function `window-tree' returns a frame's window tree.
4640 *** The functions `get-lru-window' and `get-largest-window' take an optional
4641 argument `dedicated'. If non-nil, those functions do not ignore
4645 *** The new function `adjust-window-trailing-edge' moves the right
4646 or bottom edge of a window. It does not move other window edges.
4649 ** Customizable fringe bitmaps
4651 *** New buffer-local variables `fringe-indicator-alist' and
4652 `fringe-cursor-alist' maps between logical (internal) fringe indicator
4653 and cursor symbols and the actual fringe bitmaps to be displayed.
4654 This decouples the logical meaning of the fringe indicators from the
4655 physical appearance, as well as allowing different fringe bitmaps to
4656 be used in different windows showing different buffers.
4658 *** New function `define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to create new
4659 fringe bitmaps, as well as change the built-in fringe bitmaps.
4661 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and use the symbol
4662 identifying the bitmap such as `left-truncation' or `continued-line'.
4664 *** New function `destroy-fringe-bitmap' deletes a fringe bitmap
4665 or restores a built-in one to its default value.
4667 *** New function `set-fringe-bitmap-face' specifies the face to be
4668 used for a specific fringe bitmap. The face is automatically merged
4669 with the `fringe' face, so normally, the face should only specify the
4670 foreground color of the bitmap.
4672 *** There are new display properties, `left-fringe' and `right-fringe',
4673 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
4674 bitmap of the display line.
4676 Format is `display (left-fringe BITMAP [FACE])', where BITMAP is a
4677 symbol identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or defined with
4678 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
4679 for displaying the bitmap instead of the default `fringe' face.
4680 When specified, FACE is automatically merged with the `fringe' face.
4682 *** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns the current fringe
4683 bitmaps in the display line at a given buffer position.
4685 ** Other window fringe features:
4688 *** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
4690 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
4691 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
4692 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
4693 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
4695 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
4696 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
4697 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
4698 between the left and right fringe. To force a specific fringe width,
4699 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
4700 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
4702 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
4703 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
4704 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
4705 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
4708 *** Per-window fringe and scrollbar settings
4710 **** Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and
4713 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
4714 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
4715 `set-window-fringes'.
4717 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
4718 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
4719 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
4720 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
4722 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
4723 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
4724 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
4725 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
4726 an update of the display margins.
4728 **** Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
4729 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
4731 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
4732 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
4733 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
4734 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
4735 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4736 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4737 of the display margins.
4739 ** Redisplay features:
4742 *** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
4745 *** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
4746 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
4747 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
4748 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
4749 forcing an explicit window update.
4752 *** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
4753 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
4754 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
4756 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
4757 does that, this value cannot be accurate.
4760 *** You can define multiple overlay arrows via the new
4761 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'.
4763 It contains a list of variables which contain overlay arrow position
4764 markers, including the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
4766 Each variable on this list can have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
4767 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
4768 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
4769 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
4770 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
4771 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
4774 *** New `line-height' and `line-spacing' properties for newline characters
4776 A newline can now have `line-height' and `line-spacing' text or overlay
4777 properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
4779 If the `line-height' property value is t, the newline does not
4780 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
4781 newline glyph is reduced. Also, a `line-spacing' property on this
4782 newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
4783 slices without adding blank areas between the images.
4785 If the `line-height' property value is a positive integer, the value
4786 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
4787 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
4789 If the `line-height' property value is a float, the minimum line
4790 height is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by
4793 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (FACE . RATIO), the
4794 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
4795 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
4797 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (nil . RATIO), the line
4798 height is calculated as RATIO * actual height of the line's contents.
4800 If the `line-height' value is a cons (HEIGHT . TOTAL), HEIGHT specifies
4801 the line height as described above, while TOTAL is any of the forms
4802 described above and specifies the total height of the line, causing a
4803 varying number of pixels to be inserted after the line to make it line
4804 exactly that many pixels high.
4806 If the `line-spacing' property value is an positive integer, the value
4807 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
4808 overrides the default frame `line-spacing' and any buffer local value of
4809 the `line-spacing' variable.
4811 If the `line-spacing' property is a float or cons, the line spacing
4812 is calculated as specified above for the `line-height' property.
4815 *** The buffer local `line-spacing' variable can now have a float value,
4816 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
4819 *** Enhancements to stretch display properties
4821 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
4822 PROPS is a property list, now allows pixel based width and height
4823 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
4825 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
4826 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
4829 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
4830 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
4831 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
4832 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
4834 POS ::= left | center | right
4835 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
4838 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
4839 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
4840 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
4841 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
4842 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
4843 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
4844 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
4847 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
4848 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
4849 corresponding area of the window.
4851 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
4852 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
4853 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
4854 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
4855 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
4856 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
4857 these symbols), further occurrences of these symbols are interpreted as
4858 the width of the area.
4860 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
4861 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
4863 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
4864 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
4865 header line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
4867 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
4868 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
4869 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
4870 height) of the specified image.
4872 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
4873 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
4876 *** Normally, the cursor is displayed at the end of any overlay and
4877 text property string that may be present at the current window
4878 position. The cursor can now be placed on any character of such
4879 strings by giving that character a non-nil `cursor' text property.
4882 *** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
4883 supported on text terminals.
4886 *** Support for displaying image slices
4888 **** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) can be used with
4889 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
4891 **** Function `insert-image' has new optional fourth arg to
4892 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
4894 **** New function `insert-sliced-image' inserts a given image as a
4895 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
4898 *** Images can now have an associated image map via the :map property.
4900 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
4901 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
4902 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((X0 . Y0) . (X1 . Y1))) specifying the
4903 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
4904 A circle is a cons (circle . ((X0 . Y0) . R)) specifying the center
4905 and the radius of the circle; R can be a float or integer.
4906 A polygon is a cons (poly . [X0 Y0 X1 Y1 ...]) where each pair in the
4907 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
4909 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
4910 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
4911 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
4912 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
4913 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable `void-area-text-pointer'
4914 for possible pointer shapes.
4916 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
4917 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
4918 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
4921 *** The function `find-image' now searches in etc/images/ and etc/.
4922 The new variable `image-load-path' is a list of locations in which to
4923 search for image files. The default is to search in etc/images, then
4924 in etc/, and finally in the directories specified by `load-path'.
4925 Subdirectories of etc/ and etc/images are not recursively searched; if
4926 you put an image file in a subdirectory, you have to specify it
4927 explicitly; for example, if an image is put in etc/images/foo/bar.xpm:
4929 (defimage foo-image '((:type xpm :file "foo/bar.xpm")))
4931 Note that all images formerly located in the lisp directory have been
4932 moved to etc/images.
4935 *** New function `image-load-path-for-library' returns a suitable
4936 search path for images relative to library. This function is useful in
4937 external packages to save users from having to update
4941 *** The new variable `max-image-size' defines the maximum size of
4942 images that Emacs will load and display.
4944 ** Mouse pointer features:
4948 *** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
4949 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
4950 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
4951 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
4952 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
4955 *** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
4956 :pointer image property.
4959 *** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images can now be
4960 controlled/overridden via the `pointer' text property.
4962 ** Mouse event enhancements:
4965 *** Mouse events for clicks on window fringes now specify `left-fringe'
4966 or `right-fringe' as the area.
4969 *** All mouse events now include a buffer position regardless of where
4970 you clicked. For mouse clicks in window margins and fringes, this is
4971 a sensible buffer position corresponding to the surrounding text.
4974 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
4977 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
4980 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
4984 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types
4988 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns the actual glyph coordinates
4989 of the mouse event position.
4992 *** Mouse events can now indicate an image object clicked on.
4995 *** Mouse events include relative X and Y pixel coordinates relative to
4996 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
4999 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
5000 (image or character) clicked on.
5003 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', 'posn-object-width-height'.
5005 These return the image or string object of a mouse click, the X and Y
5006 pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner of that object, and
5007 the total width and height of that object.
5009 ** Text property and overlay changes:
5012 *** Arguments for `remove-overlays' are now optional, so that you can
5013 remove all overlays in the buffer with just (remove-overlays).
5016 *** New variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
5018 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
5019 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
5020 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
5021 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
5024 *** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
5025 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
5026 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
5027 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
5028 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
5031 *** The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties'.
5033 It is like `remove-text-properties' except that it takes a list of
5034 property names as argument rather than a property list.
5039 *** The new face attribute condition `min-colors' can be used to tailor
5040 the face color to the number of colors supported by a display, and
5041 define the foreground and background colors accordingly so that they
5042 look best on a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This
5043 is now the preferred method for defining default faces in a way that
5044 makes a good use of the capabilities of the display.
5047 *** New function `display-supports-face-attributes-p' can be used to test
5048 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
5050 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
5051 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
5052 defined with `defface'.
5055 *** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
5056 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
5057 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
5058 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
5059 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
5062 *** The first face specification element in a defface can specify
5063 `default' instead of frame classification. Then its attributes act as
5064 defaults that apply to all the subsequent cases (and can be overridden
5068 *** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
5069 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
5070 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
5071 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
5072 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
5075 *** The function `face-differs-from-default-p' now truly checks
5076 whether the given face displays differently from the default face or
5077 not (previously it did only a very cursory check).
5080 *** `face-attribute', `face-foreground', `face-background', `face-stipple'.
5082 These now accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how
5083 face inheritance is used when determining the value of a face
5087 *** New functions `face-attribute-relative-p' and `merge-face-attribute'
5088 help with handling relative face attributes.
5091 *** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face list is reversed.
5093 If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
5094 faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous
5095 releases of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made
5096 so that :inherit face lists operate identically to face lists in text
5100 *** On terminals, faces with the :inverse-video attribute are displayed
5101 with swapped foreground and background colors even when one of them is
5102 not specified. In previous releases of Emacs, if either foreground
5103 or background color was unspecified, colors were not swapped. This
5104 was inconsistent with the face behavior under X.
5107 *** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
5108 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
5110 ** Font-Lock changes:
5113 *** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
5115 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
5116 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
5117 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
5118 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
5121 *** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
5123 **** the FACENAME returned in `font-lock-keywords' can be a list of the
5124 form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set other
5125 properties than `face'.
5127 **** `font-lock-extra-managed-props' can be set to make sure those
5128 extra properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
5131 *** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
5133 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
5134 (see `jit-lock-defer-contextually'), then all of that text will
5135 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
5136 depends on text several lines further down (and when `font-lock-multiline'
5137 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
5145 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
5146 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a `jit-lock-defer-multiline'
5147 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
5148 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
5150 ** Major mode mechanism changes:
5153 *** `set-auto-mode' now gives the interpreter magic line (if present)
5154 precedence over the file name. Likewise an `<?xml' or `<!DOCTYPE'
5155 declaration will give the buffer XML or SGML mode, based on the new
5156 variable `magic-mode-alist'.
5159 *** Use the new function `run-mode-hooks' to run the major mode's mode hook.
5162 *** All major mode functions should now run the new normal hook
5163 `after-change-major-mode-hook', at their very end, after the mode
5164 hooks. `run-mode-hooks' does this automatically.
5167 *** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
5168 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
5172 *** Major modes can define `eldoc-documentation-function'
5173 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
5177 *** `define-derived-mode' by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
5178 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
5181 *** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
5182 are used by `define-derived-mode' to make sure the mode hook for the
5183 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
5185 ** Minor mode changes:
5188 *** `define-minor-mode' now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
5189 and simply passes them to `defcustom', if applicable.
5192 *** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
5195 *** `define-global-minor-mode'.
5197 This is a new name for what was formerly called
5198 `easy-mmode-define-global-mode'. The old name remains as an alias.
5200 ** Command loop changes:
5203 *** The new function `called-interactively-p' does what many people
5204 have mistakenly believed `interactive-p' to do: it returns t if the
5205 calling function was called through `call-interactively'.
5207 Only use this when you cannot solve the problem by adding a new
5208 INTERACTIVE argument to the command.
5211 *** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional argument.
5213 If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks for a function that could be
5214 called with `call-interactively', and does not return t for keyboard
5218 *** When a command returns, the command loop moves point out from
5219 within invisible text, in the same way it moves out from within text
5220 covered by an image or composition property.
5222 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
5223 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
5224 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
5225 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
5226 `post-command-hook' and thus does not care about intermediate states.
5229 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to `only', that
5230 enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
5231 During that following command, the value of `transient-mark-mode'
5232 is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
5233 the next return to the command loop changes to nil.
5236 *** Both the variable and the function `disabled-command-hook' have
5237 been renamed to `disabled-command-function'. The variable
5238 `disabled-command-hook' has been kept as an obsolete alias.
5241 *** `emacsserver' now runs `pre-command-hook' and `post-command-hook'
5242 when it receives a request from emacsclient.
5244 ** Lisp file loading changes:
5247 *** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
5248 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
5249 current file redefined it).
5252 *** `load-history' now records (defun . FUNNAME) when a function is
5253 defined. For a variable, it records just the variable name.
5256 *** The function `symbol-file' can now search specifically for function,
5257 variable or face definitions.
5260 *** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
5261 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
5262 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
5265 *** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
5266 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
5267 than 3 levels of nesting.
5270 ** Byte compiler changes:
5272 *** The byte compiler now displays the actual line and character
5273 position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form of its
5274 warning and error messages have been brought into line with GNU standards
5275 for these. As a result, you can use next-error and friends on the
5276 compilation output buffer.
5278 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
5279 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
5281 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
5282 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
5283 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
5284 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
5287 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
5288 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
5290 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
5291 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
5292 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
5293 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
5294 macro expansion), but such tests can be nested. Note that `when' and
5295 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
5297 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
5298 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
5299 Emacs and XEmacs and can sometimes make the result significantly more
5300 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
5301 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
5304 *** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in Lisp files is now obeyed.
5307 *** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
5308 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
5309 (require 'cl) when loaded.
5311 ** Frame operations:
5314 *** New functions `frame-current-scroll-bars' and `window-current-scroll-bars'.
5316 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
5317 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
5320 *** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
5321 for all (existing and future) frames.
5324 *** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
5325 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
5326 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
5327 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
5330 *** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
5331 the `scroll-bar-width' frame parameter value is nil.
5336 *** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
5338 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
5339 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
5340 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
5343 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
5345 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
5346 the time it takes to convert the format.
5348 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
5352 *** `set-buffer-file-coding-system' now takes an additional argument,
5353 NOMODIFY. If it is non-nil, it means don't mark the buffer modified.
5356 *** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
5357 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
5358 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
5359 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
5362 *** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
5363 of one coding system from another coding system.
5366 *** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
5367 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
5371 *** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
5372 it is read from a file without decoding.
5375 *** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
5376 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
5379 *** New function `quail-find-key' returns a list of keys to type in the
5380 current input method to input a character.
5382 ** Mode line changes:
5385 *** New function `format-mode-line'.
5387 This returns the mode line or header line of the selected (or a
5388 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
5391 *** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
5392 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
5395 *** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
5396 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
5400 *** Mouse-face on mode-line (and header-line) is now supported.
5402 ** Menu manipulation changes:
5405 *** To manipulate the File menu using easy-menu, you must specify the
5406 proper name "file". In previous Emacs versions, you had to specify
5407 "files", even though the menu item itself was changed to say "File"
5408 several versions ago.
5411 *** The dummy function keys made by easy-menu are now always lower case.
5412 If you specify the menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
5413 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
5415 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for the bindings that were
5416 made with easy-menu.
5419 *** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
5420 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
5421 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
5422 need to have a name.
5424 ** Operating system access:
5427 *** The new primitive `get-internal-run-time' returns the processor
5428 run time used by Emacs since start-up.
5431 *** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
5432 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
5433 accepts a float as UID parameter.
5436 *** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
5439 *** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
5440 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
5441 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
5444 *** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
5445 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
5450 *** A number of hooks have been renamed to better follow the conventions:
5452 `find-file-hooks' to `find-file-hook',
5453 `find-file-not-found-hooks' to `find-file-not-found-functions',
5454 `write-file-hooks' to `write-file-functions',
5455 `write-contents-hooks' to `write-contents-functions',
5456 `x-lost-selection-hooks' to `x-lost-selection-functions',
5457 `x-sent-selection-hooks' to `x-sent-selection-functions',
5458 `delete-frame-hook' to `delete-frame-functions'.
5460 In each case the old name remains as an alias for the moment.
5463 *** Variable `local-write-file-hooks' is marked obsolete.
5465 Use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook'.
5468 *** New function `x-send-client-message' sends a client message when
5474 *** New variable `gc-cons-percentage' automatically grows the GC cons threshold
5475 as the heap size increases.
5478 *** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
5479 on garbage collection.
5482 *** The normal hook `post-gc-hook' is run at the end of garbage collection.
5484 The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
5486 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 22.1
5489 ** The new library button.el implements simple and fast `clickable
5490 buttons' in emacs buffers. Buttons are much lighter-weight than the
5491 `widgets' implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that
5492 doesn't require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for
5493 such things as help and apropos buffers.
5496 ** The new library tree-widget.el provides a widget to display a set
5497 of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
5498 well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
5501 ** The new library bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
5502 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
5506 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
5507 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
5509 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
5510 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
5511 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
5514 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
5515 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
5518 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
5519 (function (lambda ()
5521 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5522 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
5523 (function (lambda ()
5524 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5527 ** The new library benchmark.el does timing measurements on Lisp code.
5529 This includes measuring garbage collection time.
5532 ** The new library testcover.el does test coverage checking.
5534 This is so you can tell whether you've tested all paths in your Lisp
5535 code. It works with edebug.
5537 The function `testcover-start' instruments all functions in a given
5538 file. Then test your code. The function `testcover-mark-all' adds
5539 overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to show where coverage
5540 is lacking. The command `testcover-next-mark' (bind it to a key!)
5541 will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
5543 Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely
5544 evaluated; a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same
5545 value. The red splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly
5546 complete their evaluation, such as `error'. The brown splotches are
5547 skipped for forms that are expected to always evaluate to the same
5548 value, such as (setq x 14).
5550 For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to
5551 help out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a
5552 red splotch. It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does
5553 return. The macro `1value' suppresses a brown splotch for its argument.
5554 This macro is a no-op except during test-coverage -- then it signals
5555 an error if the argument actually returns differing values.
5557 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
5559 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
5563 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
5565 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
5568 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
5571 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
5574 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
5575 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
5576 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
5577 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
5578 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
5579 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
5580 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
5581 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
5582 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
5583 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
5585 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
5586 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
5588 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
5589 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
5590 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
5591 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behavior is actually
5592 contrary to the compound text specification.
5595 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
5597 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
5599 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
5602 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
5604 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
5606 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
5607 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
5608 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
5609 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
5610 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
5612 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
5615 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
5616 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
5618 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
5619 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
5620 instead of using default-major-mode.
5622 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
5623 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
5624 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
5625 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
5626 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
5627 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
5628 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
5630 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
5634 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
5636 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
5637 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
5638 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
5640 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
5641 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
5644 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
5646 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
5647 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
5648 charsets in this release.
5650 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
5652 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
5654 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
5655 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
5658 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
5659 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
5660 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
5661 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
5662 necessary changes to unexec.
5664 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
5665 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
5667 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
5668 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
5670 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
5671 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
5673 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
5674 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
5675 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
5676 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
5677 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
5679 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
5680 new display features described below.
5683 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
5685 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
5687 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
5688 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
5689 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
5690 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
5693 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
5695 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
5696 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
5697 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
5698 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
5701 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
5702 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
5703 under Lisp changes, below.
5705 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
5707 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
5708 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
5709 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
5710 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
5711 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
5712 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
5715 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
5716 supported on character terminals.
5718 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
5719 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
5720 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
5721 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
5723 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
5727 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
5728 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
5729 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
5730 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
5733 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
5735 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
5736 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
5737 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
5738 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
5740 - User option: max-mini-window-height
5742 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
5743 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
5744 specifies a number of lines.
5748 - User option: resize-mini-windows
5750 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
5751 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
5752 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
5755 Default is `grow-only'.
5759 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
5760 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
5762 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
5764 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
5765 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
5768 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
5770 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
5771 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
5772 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
5774 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
5776 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
5777 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
5778 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
5779 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
5780 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
5783 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
5784 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
5785 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
5786 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
5787 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
5788 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
5790 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
5791 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
5792 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
5793 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
5794 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
5795 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
5797 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
5798 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
5799 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
5800 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
5801 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
5803 ** Tool bar support.
5805 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
5806 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
5807 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
5808 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
5809 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
5812 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
5813 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
5817 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
5818 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
5819 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
5821 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
5822 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
5823 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
5824 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
5826 ** Automatic Hscrolling
5828 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
5829 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
5832 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
5833 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
5834 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
5835 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
5836 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
5838 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
5839 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
5840 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
5841 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
5842 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
5843 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
5845 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
5846 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
5847 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
5848 customizing face `fringe'.
5850 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
5851 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
5852 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
5853 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
5854 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
5855 the window to be partially obscured.)
5857 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
5858 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
5859 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
5860 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
5862 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
5864 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
5865 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
5866 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
5867 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
5868 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
5871 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
5873 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
5875 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
5877 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
5878 `*') toggles the status.
5880 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
5882 ** Hourglass pointer
5884 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
5885 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
5889 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
5890 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
5891 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
5894 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
5896 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
5897 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
5898 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
5901 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
5902 have to do anything to activate it.
5904 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
5906 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
5907 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
5909 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
5910 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
5911 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
5912 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
5913 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
5914 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
5915 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
5916 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
5918 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
5919 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
5920 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
5921 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
5922 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
5923 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
5925 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
5926 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
5928 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
5929 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
5932 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
5933 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
5934 beginning and end of the buffer.
5936 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
5937 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
5940 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
5941 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
5943 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
5944 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
5947 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
5948 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
5951 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
5953 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
5954 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
5955 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
5957 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
5958 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
5959 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
5961 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
5964 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
5966 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
5967 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
5968 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
5969 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
5970 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
5973 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
5974 all frames except the selected one.
5976 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
5977 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
5979 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
5980 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
5981 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
5982 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
5983 `Info-use-header-line'.
5985 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
5986 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
5987 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
5989 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
5991 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
5992 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
5995 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
5996 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
5997 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
5998 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
6000 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
6002 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
6003 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
6004 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
6005 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
6007 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
6008 point in a pop-up window.
6010 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
6011 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
6012 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
6014 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
6015 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
6017 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
6018 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
6019 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
6020 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
6022 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
6024 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
6025 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
6027 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
6028 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
6029 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
6031 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
6032 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
6035 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
6036 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
6037 file that is already visited under a different name.
6039 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
6040 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
6042 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
6043 and displays information about that.
6045 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
6046 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
6048 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
6049 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
6050 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
6051 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
6052 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
6053 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
6055 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
6056 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
6058 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
6059 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
6060 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
6061 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
6062 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
6063 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
6064 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
6066 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
6067 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
6069 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
6070 system for keyboard input.
6072 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
6073 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
6074 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
6075 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
6076 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
6077 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
6078 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
6079 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
6080 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
6082 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
6083 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
6085 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
6086 displays all characters in that character set.
6088 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
6089 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
6091 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
6092 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
6093 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
6095 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
6096 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
6097 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
6098 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
6099 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
6100 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
6103 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
6104 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
6107 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
6108 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
6109 Lisp Coding Convention".
6111 new command old-binding
6112 --- ------- -----------
6113 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
6114 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
6115 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
6117 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
6118 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
6119 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
6121 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
6122 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
6123 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
6124 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
6125 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
6126 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
6128 ** There are new Leim input methods.
6129 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
6130 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
6133 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
6134 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
6135 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
6136 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
6137 "`", you must type "=q".
6139 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
6140 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
6141 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
6142 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
6143 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
6146 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
6147 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
6148 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
6149 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
6151 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
6152 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
6153 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
6154 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
6156 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
6157 on the display using several methods
6159 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
6160 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
6161 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
6163 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
6164 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
6166 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
6168 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
6169 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
6171 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
6172 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
6173 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
6174 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
6176 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
6177 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
6178 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
6180 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
6181 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
6183 ** New X resources recognized
6185 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
6186 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
6187 is useful for debugging X problems.
6191 emacs.synchronous: true
6193 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
6194 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
6195 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
6196 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
6197 visual class names are
6206 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
6207 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
6210 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
6211 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
6212 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
6217 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
6219 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
6220 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
6221 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
6222 resource values are `true' or `on'.
6226 emacs.privateColormap: true
6228 ** Faces and frame parameters.
6230 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
6231 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
6232 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
6233 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
6234 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
6235 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
6236 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
6238 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
6239 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
6240 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
6241 `default' face and vice versa.
6245 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
6247 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
6249 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
6250 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
6251 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
6252 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
6254 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
6255 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
6256 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
6258 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
6261 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
6263 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
6264 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
6265 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
6266 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
6268 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
6270 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
6272 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
6274 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
6277 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
6280 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
6282 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
6283 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
6284 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
6286 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
6287 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
6289 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
6290 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
6291 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
6293 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
6295 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
6296 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
6297 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6298 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
6300 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
6301 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
6302 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6303 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
6305 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
6306 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
6307 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
6310 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
6312 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
6313 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
6314 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
6316 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
6317 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
6318 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
6319 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
6320 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
6321 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
6323 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
6325 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
6326 notably at the end of lines.
6328 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
6329 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
6331 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
6333 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
6334 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
6336 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
6337 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
6338 after each match to get the replacement text.
6340 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
6341 you edit the replacement string.
6343 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
6344 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
6345 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
6347 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
6349 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
6350 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
6352 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
6353 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
6354 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
6355 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
6358 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
6359 read mail from the menu etc.
6361 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
6362 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
6363 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
6364 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
6366 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
6367 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6369 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
6370 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
6371 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
6372 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
6373 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
6376 ** Customize changes
6378 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
6379 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
6380 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
6381 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
6382 earlier versions of Emacs.
6384 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
6385 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
6388 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6389 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
6390 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
6391 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
6394 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6395 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
6396 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
6397 already in your init file.
6399 ** New features in evaluation commands
6401 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
6402 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
6403 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
6404 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
6405 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
6407 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
6408 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
6409 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
6410 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
6413 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
6414 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
6416 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
6417 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
6419 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
6420 code when called with a prefix argument.
6424 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
6425 current user setups (although it's believed that these
6426 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
6427 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
6428 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
6429 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
6432 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
6433 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
6434 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
6437 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
6438 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
6439 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
6440 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
6442 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
6443 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
6445 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
6446 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
6448 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
6449 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
6450 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
6451 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
6453 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
6454 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
6455 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
6456 earlier statement. An example:
6458 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
6460 res += a[i]->offset;
6463 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
6464 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
6465 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
6466 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
6469 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
6472 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
6473 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
6474 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
6475 documentation or other natural language text.
6477 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
6478 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
6479 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
6480 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
6481 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
6482 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
6483 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
6485 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
6486 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
6487 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
6488 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
6490 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
6491 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
6492 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
6493 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
6496 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
6497 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
6498 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
6499 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
6500 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
6501 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
6502 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
6503 is reported afterwards.
6505 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
6506 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
6507 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
6509 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
6510 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
6511 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
6512 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
6513 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
6514 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
6517 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
6518 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
6519 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
6520 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
6521 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
6524 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
6525 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
6526 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
6527 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
6528 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
6529 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
6531 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
6532 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
6533 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
6534 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
6535 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
6536 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
6537 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
6538 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
6540 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
6541 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
6542 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
6543 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
6546 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
6547 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
6548 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
6549 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
6550 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
6551 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
6552 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
6553 function documentation for more info.
6555 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
6556 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
6557 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
6558 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
6559 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
6560 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
6561 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
6562 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
6564 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
6566 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
6567 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
6569 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
6570 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
6571 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
6572 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
6573 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
6576 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
6577 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
6578 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
6581 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
6582 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
6583 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
6584 chapter about this in the manual.
6586 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
6587 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
6588 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
6589 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
6590 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
6592 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
6593 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
6594 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
6596 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
6597 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
6599 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
6600 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
6601 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
6604 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
6605 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
6606 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
6607 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
6610 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
6611 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
6612 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
6613 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
6614 they were before the filling.
6616 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
6617 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
6618 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
6621 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
6622 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
6623 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
6624 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
6627 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
6628 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
6629 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
6630 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
6631 Thanks to Eric Eide.
6633 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
6634 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
6635 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
6637 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
6639 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
6640 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
6641 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
6642 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
6644 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
6645 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
6646 the column specified by comment-column.
6648 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
6649 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
6650 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
6651 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
6652 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
6653 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
6655 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
6656 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
6659 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
6661 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
6662 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
6663 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
6664 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
6667 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
6671 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
6672 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
6673 is, delete only empty directories.
6675 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
6676 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
6677 copy directories recursively.
6679 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
6680 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
6681 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
6683 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
6684 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
6687 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
6688 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
6689 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
6690 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
6691 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
6693 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
6696 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
6697 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
6698 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
6699 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
6703 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
6704 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
6705 internationalization and mail-fetching.
6707 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
6708 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
6710 If you used procmail like in
6712 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
6713 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
6714 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
6715 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
6717 this now has changed to
6720 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
6723 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
6724 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
6726 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
6727 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
6728 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
6729 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
6731 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
6732 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
6733 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
6735 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
6736 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
6737 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
6738 now just a compatibility layer.
6740 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
6743 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
6744 called to position point.
6746 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
6747 summary buffers and NOV files.
6749 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
6750 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
6752 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
6753 subtly different manner.
6755 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
6756 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
6757 ever-changing layouts.
6759 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
6761 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
6763 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
6765 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
6769 -------------------------
6773 C-c C-c q @quotation
6775 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
6778 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
6780 ** Changes in Outline mode.
6782 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
6783 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
6784 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
6786 ** Changes to Emacs Server
6788 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
6789 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
6790 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
6791 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
6792 buffers to kill, as before.
6794 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
6795 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
6798 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
6799 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
6801 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
6803 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
6804 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
6805 use. Default is 1000.
6807 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
6808 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
6810 ** Changes to hideshow.el
6812 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
6814 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
6815 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
6816 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
6817 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
6819 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
6820 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
6821 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
6824 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
6825 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
6826 the normal block-hiding function.
6828 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
6830 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
6831 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
6832 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
6833 for `hs-minor-mode'.
6835 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
6836 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
6838 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
6840 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
6841 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
6842 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
6844 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
6847 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
6850 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
6851 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
6852 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
6853 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
6854 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
6855 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
6857 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
6859 ** Changes to cmuscheme
6861 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
6862 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
6864 ** Changes in Font Lock
6866 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
6867 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
6869 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
6870 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
6872 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
6873 the face used for each string/comment.
6875 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
6876 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
6878 ** Changes to Shell mode
6880 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
6881 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
6882 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
6883 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
6885 ** Comint (subshell) changes
6887 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
6888 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
6890 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
6891 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
6892 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
6893 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
6894 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
6895 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
6897 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
6898 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
6899 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
6900 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
6901 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
6902 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
6903 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
6904 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
6906 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
6907 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
6909 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
6910 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
6911 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
6913 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
6914 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
6915 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
6917 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
6918 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
6919 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
6921 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
6922 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
6923 argument, it appends to the file.
6925 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
6926 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
6929 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
6932 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
6933 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
6934 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
6936 ** Changes to Rmail mode
6938 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
6939 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
6940 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
6941 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
6942 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
6945 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
6946 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
6947 regexp matching your mail addresses.
6949 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
6950 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
6951 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
6952 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
6953 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
6955 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
6958 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
6959 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
6962 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
6963 in which folder to put messages automatically.
6965 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
6966 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
6967 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
6969 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
6970 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
6972 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
6973 use the -f option when sending mail.
6975 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
6976 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
6977 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
6978 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
6979 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
6980 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
6982 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
6983 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
6984 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
6986 ** Changes to TeX mode
6988 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
6991 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
6993 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
6995 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
6997 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6999 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
7000 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
7001 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
7002 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
7003 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
7004 can be edited from that buffer.
7006 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
7007 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
7008 `A' to use all marked entries).
7010 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
7011 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
7013 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
7014 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
7015 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
7018 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
7019 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
7020 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
7021 in column 1 are always made leaves.
7023 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
7024 has the following new features:
7026 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
7027 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
7028 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
7029 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
7031 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
7032 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
7033 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
7034 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
7035 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
7038 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
7043 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
7044 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
7045 spell-checks the current buffer.
7047 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
7050 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
7051 correction is made and re-checked.
7053 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
7055 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
7058 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
7061 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
7064 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
7066 ** Makefile mode changes
7068 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
7070 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
7071 Fontlock mode is active.
7075 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
7076 so that searches can be resumed.
7078 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
7079 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
7080 that started the search.
7082 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
7083 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
7085 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
7087 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
7088 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
7089 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
7090 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
7091 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
7092 `secondary-selection'.
7094 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
7095 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
7096 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
7097 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
7098 usual snappy response.
7100 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
7101 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
7102 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
7103 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
7107 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
7108 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
7109 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
7110 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
7111 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
7112 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
7113 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
7114 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
7115 file is registered in that backend.
7117 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
7118 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
7119 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
7120 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
7121 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
7122 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
7124 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
7125 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
7126 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
7127 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
7128 where it doesn't make sense.)
7130 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
7131 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
7132 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
7136 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
7137 checks are always done now.
7139 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
7142 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
7143 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
7144 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
7146 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
7147 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
7148 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
7149 the working file (``merge news'').
7151 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
7152 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
7155 *** Multiple Backends
7157 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
7158 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
7159 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
7160 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
7163 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
7164 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
7165 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
7166 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
7168 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
7169 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
7170 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
7171 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
7172 current revision number from the more remote backend.
7174 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
7175 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
7176 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
7177 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
7179 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
7180 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
7181 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
7182 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
7186 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
7187 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
7188 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
7189 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
7190 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
7191 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
7192 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
7194 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
7195 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
7196 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
7197 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
7198 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
7199 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
7200 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
7201 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
7202 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
7203 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
7204 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
7207 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
7208 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
7209 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
7210 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
7211 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
7212 entire directory tree.
7214 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
7215 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
7216 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
7217 "watched" by other developers.)
7219 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
7220 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
7221 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
7222 starting at the given directory.
7224 *** Lisp Changes in VC
7226 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
7227 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
7228 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
7229 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
7230 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
7231 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
7232 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
7233 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
7234 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
7236 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
7237 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
7238 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
7239 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
7241 ** New modes and packages
7243 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
7244 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
7245 the default is not applicable.
7247 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
7248 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
7249 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
7253 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
7254 drawn, like this: | \ /
7258 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
7259 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
7260 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
7261 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
7262 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
7265 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
7266 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
7268 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
7271 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
7272 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
7273 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
7274 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
7276 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
7277 also do without the mouse.
7279 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
7280 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
7281 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
7282 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
7283 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
7285 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
7287 lines straight-lines
7289 poly-lines straight poly-lines
7291 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
7292 spray-can setting size for spraying
7293 vaporize line vaporize lines
7294 erase characters erase rectangles
7296 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
7297 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
7298 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
7301 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
7302 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
7303 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
7304 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
7306 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
7309 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
7310 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
7311 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
7312 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
7313 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
7314 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
7315 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
7316 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
7317 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
7319 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
7320 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
7321 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
7322 on certain projects.
7324 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
7325 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
7327 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
7329 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
7330 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
7331 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
7332 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
7333 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
7334 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
7335 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
7336 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
7338 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
7341 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
7342 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
7344 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
7345 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
7347 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
7348 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
7349 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
7350 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
7351 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
7353 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
7354 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
7355 separate Texinfo file.
7357 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
7358 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
7359 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
7360 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
7361 enter check-in log messages.
7363 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
7364 without invoking external programs.
7366 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
7367 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
7368 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
7369 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
7370 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
7372 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
7373 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
7375 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
7376 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
7378 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
7379 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
7380 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
7381 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
7382 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
7385 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
7386 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
7387 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
7388 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
7390 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
7391 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
7392 actually modifying content of a buffer.
7394 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
7397 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
7399 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
7401 ; comment (until end of line)
7405 $A default non-terminal
7406 $"C" default terminal
7407 $?C? default special
7408 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
7409 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
7410 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
7411 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
7412 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
7413 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
7414 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
7415 C+ one or more occurrences of C
7416 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
7417 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
7418 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
7419 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
7420 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
7421 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7422 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7424 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
7426 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
7427 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
7428 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
7429 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
7430 equal signs of assignments.
7432 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
7433 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
7435 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
7436 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
7437 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
7439 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
7441 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
7442 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
7443 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
7444 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
7445 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
7446 which answers different needs.
7448 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
7449 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
7450 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
7451 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
7452 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
7455 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
7456 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
7458 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
7460 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
7461 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
7462 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
7464 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
7466 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
7467 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
7468 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
7469 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
7470 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
7471 and background colors.
7473 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
7476 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
7479 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
7481 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
7483 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
7484 whitespace in a file.
7486 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
7487 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
7488 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
7489 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
7490 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
7491 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
7492 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
7494 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
7496 Here is an example of columns:
7499 dog pineapple car EXTRA
7500 porcupine strawberry airplane
7502 Doing the following settings:
7504 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
7505 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
7506 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
7507 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
7510 Selecting the lines above and typing:
7512 M-x delimit-columns-region
7516 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
7517 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
7518 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
7520 delim-col has the following options:
7522 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
7525 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
7526 between each column.
7528 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
7531 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
7534 delim-col has the following commands:
7536 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
7537 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
7539 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
7540 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
7541 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
7542 recent file list can be displayed:
7544 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
7545 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
7546 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
7548 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
7549 dynamically change the menu appearance.
7551 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
7554 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
7555 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
7556 specific to Message mode.
7558 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
7559 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
7560 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
7562 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
7563 interface to access directory servers using different directory
7564 protocols. It has a separate manual.
7566 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
7567 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
7569 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
7571 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
7572 minibuffer with completion.
7574 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
7575 with the diary features.
7577 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
7578 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
7580 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
7583 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
7584 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
7585 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
7586 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
7588 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
7589 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
7592 ** Changes in sort.el
7594 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
7595 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
7596 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
7599 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
7601 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
7602 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
7603 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
7605 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
7606 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
7608 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
7609 output ^M at the end of lines.
7611 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
7612 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
7614 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
7615 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
7618 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
7621 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
7622 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
7625 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
7626 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
7627 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
7628 nil -- just delete one character.
7630 Default value is `untabify'.
7632 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
7634 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
7635 symbol, not double-quoted.
7637 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
7638 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
7639 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
7640 moved to lisp/obsolete.
7642 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
7643 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
7644 `auto-compression-mode' command.
7646 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
7647 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
7648 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
7650 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
7651 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
7653 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
7654 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
7656 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
7657 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
7659 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
7660 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
7661 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
7662 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
7663 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
7664 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
7666 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
7667 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
7669 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
7671 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
7672 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
7674 ** Shell script mode changes.
7676 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
7677 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
7678 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
7682 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
7684 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
7685 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
7686 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
7687 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
7688 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
7690 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
7691 declarations when given the --declarations option.
7693 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
7694 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
7696 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
7697 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
7698 `template' keywords.
7700 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
7701 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
7703 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
7706 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
7708 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
7710 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
7713 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
7715 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
7716 variables are tagged.
7718 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
7720 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
7723 ** Changes in etags.el
7725 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
7726 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
7727 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
7729 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
7730 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
7732 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
7733 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
7734 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
7735 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
7737 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
7739 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
7740 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
7742 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
7744 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
7745 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
7746 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
7748 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
7749 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
7751 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
7752 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
7754 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
7755 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
7756 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
7757 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
7758 point will go to the beginning of the file.
7760 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
7761 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
7762 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
7764 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
7765 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
7766 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
7768 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
7769 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
7770 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
7772 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
7774 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
7776 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
7777 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
7778 expression from that list, are not checked.
7780 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
7781 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
7782 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
7783 the buffer, just like for the local files.
7785 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
7787 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
7788 displays local abbrevs, only.
7790 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
7791 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
7793 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
7794 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
7795 is measured in pixels.
7797 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
7798 to be visited as images.
7800 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
7801 were added to compile.el.
7803 ** Withdrawn packages
7805 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
7806 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
7808 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
7810 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
7813 * Incompatible Lisp changes
7815 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
7816 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
7817 See the sections below for details.
7819 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
7820 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
7821 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
7822 to remove the properties of the copy.
7824 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
7825 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
7826 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
7827 these properties are active.
7829 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
7830 ranges may affect some code.
7832 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
7833 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
7834 make a difference to some code.
7836 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
7837 operates on the minibuffer.
7839 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
7840 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
7841 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
7842 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
7843 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
7844 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
7845 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
7846 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
7847 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
7848 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
7849 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
7850 the buffer as multibyte characters.
7852 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
7853 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
7854 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
7856 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
7857 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
7858 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
7860 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
7861 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
7862 such as `mapconcat'.
7864 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
7867 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
7868 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
7869 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
7870 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
7871 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
7872 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
7873 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
7874 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
7876 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
7877 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
7878 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
7879 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
7880 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
7881 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
7882 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
7883 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
7884 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
7885 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
7888 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
7889 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
7891 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
7893 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
7894 allows the animated display of strings.
7896 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
7897 interactive form of a function.
7899 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
7900 between custom options. Example:
7902 (defcustom default-input-method nil
7903 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
7904 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
7905 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
7907 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
7908 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
7910 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
7911 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
7912 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
7914 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
7915 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
7916 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
7917 (signal or normal termination).
7919 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
7920 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
7922 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
7923 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
7925 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
7926 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
7928 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
7930 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
7931 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
7934 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
7936 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
7937 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
7938 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
7939 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
7940 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
7943 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
7944 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
7947 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
7948 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
7950 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
7951 with the more general `:mask' property.
7953 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
7955 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
7958 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
7959 is running in batch mode. For example,
7961 (message "%s" (read t))
7963 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
7966 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
7967 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
7969 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
7970 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
7973 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
7976 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
7978 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
7979 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
7981 - Function: remq ELT LIST
7983 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
7984 comparison is done with `eq'.
7986 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
7988 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
7989 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
7990 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
7992 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
7993 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
7994 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
7996 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
7997 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
7999 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
8000 function was declared obsolete.
8002 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
8003 retained as an alias).
8005 ** Easy-menu's :filter now takes the unconverted form of the menu and
8006 the result is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
8008 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
8010 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
8012 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
8013 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
8014 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
8015 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
8016 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
8017 means never include the minibuffer window.
8019 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
8021 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
8023 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
8025 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
8026 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
8027 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
8028 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
8031 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
8032 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
8033 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
8034 minibuffer even if it is active.
8036 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
8037 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
8038 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
8039 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
8040 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
8041 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
8043 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
8044 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
8045 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
8046 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
8047 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
8048 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
8049 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
8051 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
8052 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
8053 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
8055 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
8056 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
8057 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
8058 Default value is nil.
8060 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
8063 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
8064 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
8065 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
8067 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
8068 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
8069 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
8071 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
8072 list of a primitive.
8074 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
8076 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
8077 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
8078 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
8079 than replacing the local map.
8081 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
8082 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
8083 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
8086 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
8088 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
8089 as promised long ago.
8091 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
8093 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
8094 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
8095 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
8098 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
8100 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
8101 regular expressions.
8103 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
8105 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
8109 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
8111 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
8115 matches string STRING literally.
8118 matches character CHAR literally.
8121 matches any character except a newline.
8124 matches any character
8127 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
8128 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
8134 matches any character not in SET
8137 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
8138 in the text being matched
8141 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
8144 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
8145 string being matched against.
8148 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
8149 string being matched against.
8152 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
8153 buffer being matched against.
8156 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
8157 buffer being matched against.
8160 matches the empty string, but only at point.
8163 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
8167 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
8170 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
8173 `(not word-boundary)'
8174 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
8178 matches 0 through 9.
8181 matches ASCII control characters.
8184 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8187 matches space and tab only.
8190 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8194 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8198 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8199 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8202 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8203 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8206 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8209 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8212 matches anything lower-case.
8215 matches anything upper-case.
8218 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8219 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8222 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8225 matches anything that has word syntax.
8228 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
8229 of the following symbols.
8231 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
8232 `punctuation' (\\s.)
8235 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
8236 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
8237 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
8238 `string-quote' (\\s\")
8239 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
8241 `character-quote' (\\s/)
8242 `comment-start' (\\s<)
8243 `comment-end' (\\s>)
8245 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
8246 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
8248 `(category CATEGORY)'
8249 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
8250 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
8252 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
8254 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
8255 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
8259 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
8261 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
8262 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
8263 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
8264 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
8265 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
8266 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
8267 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
8268 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
8269 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
8270 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
8271 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
8280 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
8284 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
8291 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
8292 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
8294 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8295 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
8297 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8298 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
8299 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
8301 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8302 another name for `submatch'.
8304 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8305 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
8306 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
8309 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
8310 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
8311 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
8312 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
8313 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
8315 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
8316 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
8318 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
8319 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8322 like `zero-or-more'.
8325 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8328 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8330 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
8331 matches one or more occurrences of A.
8337 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8340 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8342 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
8343 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
8349 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8352 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8355 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8358 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8361 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
8365 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
8367 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
8369 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
8370 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
8371 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
8372 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
8374 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
8375 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
8376 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
8377 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
8379 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
8380 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
8381 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
8383 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
8384 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
8385 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
8386 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
8387 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
8388 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
8389 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
8392 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
8394 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
8395 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
8396 character set as previously.
8398 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
8399 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
8400 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
8402 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
8403 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
8404 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
8405 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
8407 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
8408 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
8410 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
8411 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
8414 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
8415 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
8417 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
8418 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
8419 buffers and strings.
8421 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
8422 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
8423 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
8424 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
8425 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
8426 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
8427 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
8430 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
8431 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
8432 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
8434 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
8435 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
8436 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
8437 may differ between buffer and string text.
8439 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
8440 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
8442 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
8443 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
8444 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
8445 `composition' from STRING.
8447 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
8448 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
8450 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
8453 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
8454 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
8456 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
8457 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
8458 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
8459 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
8461 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
8462 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
8463 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
8464 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
8465 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
8466 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
8468 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
8469 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
8470 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
8472 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
8473 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
8474 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
8476 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
8477 have been introduced.
8479 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
8480 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
8481 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
8482 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
8483 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
8484 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
8485 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
8486 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
8487 their multibyte equivalent.
8489 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
8490 that offset in the file before writing.
8492 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
8493 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
8495 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
8496 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
8497 from which the command was issued.
8499 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
8500 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
8501 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
8502 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
8505 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
8506 to `window-buffer-height'.
8508 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
8510 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
8511 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
8512 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
8514 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
8517 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
8518 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
8520 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
8521 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
8522 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
8524 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
8525 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
8526 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
8527 is currently displayed in some window.
8529 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
8530 argument function's results.
8532 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
8533 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
8534 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
8535 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
8538 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
8539 header in the list of headers passed to it.
8541 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
8542 ignores differences in case and text representation.
8544 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
8545 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
8548 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
8549 nil don't display a cursor
8550 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
8551 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
8552 others display a box cursor.
8554 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
8555 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
8556 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
8557 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
8559 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
8560 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
8561 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
8562 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
8566 (string-to-syntax "()")
8569 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
8572 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
8573 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
8580 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
8585 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
8590 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
8597 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
8598 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
8601 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
8602 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
8603 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
8604 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
8606 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
8608 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
8609 for a regexp in a string.
8611 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
8612 `mouse-position-function'.
8614 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
8615 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
8617 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
8618 Keywords are now always considered constants.
8620 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
8623 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
8624 returned by function `recent-keys'.
8626 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
8627 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
8628 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
8629 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
8632 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
8633 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
8635 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
8636 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
8637 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
8638 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
8641 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
8642 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
8643 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
8644 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
8646 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
8647 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
8648 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
8650 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
8651 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
8654 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
8656 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
8657 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
8658 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
8661 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
8662 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
8663 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
8664 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
8665 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
8667 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
8668 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
8670 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
8671 instead of being optional.
8673 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
8674 modify read-only text.
8676 ** New functions and variables for locales.
8678 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
8679 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
8680 time functions like strftime. The new variables
8681 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
8682 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
8684 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
8685 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
8686 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
8687 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
8688 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
8689 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
8690 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
8692 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
8693 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
8694 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
8697 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
8698 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
8700 ** New function `propertize'
8702 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
8703 strings with text properties.
8705 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
8707 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
8708 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
8709 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
8710 specified value of that property. Example:
8712 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
8714 ** push and pop macros.
8716 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
8717 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
8718 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
8720 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
8721 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
8722 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
8724 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
8726 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
8727 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
8729 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
8730 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
8731 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
8732 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8734 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
8735 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
8736 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
8737 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8739 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
8740 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
8741 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
8744 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
8745 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
8746 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8747 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
8748 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8750 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8752 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
8753 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8754 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8755 [:alpha:] matches letters.
8756 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8757 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8758 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8759 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8760 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
8761 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
8762 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8763 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8764 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8765 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
8766 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
8768 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
8770 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
8772 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
8774 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
8775 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
8779 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
8780 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
8781 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
8785 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
8786 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
8788 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
8790 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
8791 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
8792 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
8793 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
8794 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
8796 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
8798 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
8799 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
8800 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
8804 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
8805 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
8806 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
8807 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
8808 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
8810 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
8812 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
8814 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
8816 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
8818 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
8820 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
8823 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
8825 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
8827 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8829 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
8831 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
8833 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
8835 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8837 Returns the size of TABLE.
8839 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
8841 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
8843 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
8845 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
8847 - Function: clrhash TABLE
8851 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
8853 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
8856 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
8858 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
8859 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
8861 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
8863 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
8865 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
8867 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
8868 arguments KEY and VALUE.
8870 - Function: sxhash OBJ
8872 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
8874 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
8876 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
8877 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
8878 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
8879 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
8880 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
8882 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
8884 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
8885 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
8886 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
8888 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
8889 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
8891 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
8892 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
8894 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
8895 (sxhash (upcase a)))
8897 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
8898 'case-fold-string-hash))
8900 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
8902 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
8904 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
8905 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
8906 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
8908 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
8910 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
8911 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
8913 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
8914 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
8915 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
8916 is too short to reach that column.
8918 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
8919 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
8920 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
8921 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
8923 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
8924 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
8925 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
8927 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
8928 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
8930 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
8931 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
8933 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
8934 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
8935 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
8936 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
8937 temporary-file-directory instead.
8939 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
8940 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
8941 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
8942 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
8944 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
8945 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
8947 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
8949 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
8950 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
8951 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
8953 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
8955 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
8956 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
8957 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
8958 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
8959 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
8960 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
8962 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
8963 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
8964 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
8965 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
8967 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
8969 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
8970 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
8971 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
8974 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
8975 string where arguments appear in the result string.
8979 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
8981 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
8982 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
8985 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
8987 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
8989 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
8990 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
8993 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
8995 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
8996 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
9001 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
9002 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
9004 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
9005 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
9006 to enable sound support.
9008 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
9009 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
9010 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
9011 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
9012 sound to play, before playing the sound.
9014 The following sound properties are supported:
9018 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
9019 searched relative to `data-directory'.
9023 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
9024 may be present, but not both.
9028 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
9029 0..1. This property is optional.
9033 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
9034 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
9036 Other properties are ignored.
9038 An alternative interface is called as
9039 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
9041 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
9043 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
9046 ** Changes to garbage collection
9048 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
9049 of live and free strings.
9051 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
9052 strings that have been consed so far.
9055 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
9058 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
9061 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
9062 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
9063 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
9065 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
9067 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
9069 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
9072 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
9074 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
9076 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
9077 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
9078 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
9079 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
9080 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
9082 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
9085 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
9087 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
9088 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
9089 or omitted means use the selected frame.
9091 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
9092 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
9094 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
9097 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
9101 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
9103 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
9104 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
9106 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
9107 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
9108 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
9109 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
9110 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
9111 just display it black instead.
9113 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
9116 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
9120 ** New face implementation.
9122 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
9123 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
9127 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
9129 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
9131 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
9132 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
9134 3. Font height in 1/10pt
9136 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
9138 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
9140 6. Foreground color.
9142 7. Background color.
9144 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
9146 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
9148 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
9150 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
9152 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
9155 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
9156 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
9158 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
9159 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
9160 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
9161 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
9162 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
9163 attributes mentioned above.
9165 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
9166 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
9169 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
9170 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
9175 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
9176 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
9177 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
9178 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
9179 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
9180 results in a fully-specified face.
9182 *** Face realization.
9184 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
9185 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
9186 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
9187 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
9188 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
9189 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
9191 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
9192 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
9193 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
9194 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
9196 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
9197 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
9198 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
9199 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
9200 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
9202 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
9203 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
9204 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
9205 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
9206 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
9209 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
9210 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
9211 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
9212 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
9214 **** Clearing face caches.
9216 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
9217 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
9222 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
9223 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
9224 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
9226 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
9227 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
9228 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
9229 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
9230 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
9232 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
9233 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
9234 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
9236 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
9238 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
9239 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
9240 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
9241 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
9242 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
9243 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
9244 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
9246 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
9247 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
9250 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
9251 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
9254 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
9257 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
9262 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
9263 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
9266 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
9267 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
9268 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
9269 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
9270 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
9273 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
9275 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
9277 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
9279 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
9281 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
9282 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
9283 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
9285 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
9286 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
9287 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
9288 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
9289 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
9290 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
9291 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
9292 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
9293 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
9294 of the face font sort order.
9296 - Function: x-font-family-list
9298 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
9299 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
9300 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
9301 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
9303 - Variable: font-list-limit
9305 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
9306 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
9307 matching font. The default is currently 100.
9309 *** Setting face attributes.
9311 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
9312 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
9313 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
9316 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
9317 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
9319 The following attributes are recognized:
9323 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
9324 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
9325 and `?' are allowed.
9329 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
9330 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
9331 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
9332 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
9336 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
9337 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
9338 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
9339 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
9343 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
9344 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
9345 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
9349 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
9350 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
9353 `:foreground', `:background'
9355 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
9359 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
9360 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
9361 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
9366 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
9367 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
9368 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
9373 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
9374 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
9375 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
9376 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
9380 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
9381 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
9382 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
9383 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
9384 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
9385 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
9386 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
9387 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
9388 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
9389 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
9390 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
9391 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
9392 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
9393 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
9394 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
9395 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
9400 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
9401 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
9405 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
9406 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
9407 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
9408 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
9409 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
9410 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
9412 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
9413 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
9417 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
9418 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
9419 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
9422 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
9423 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
9424 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
9426 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
9431 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
9432 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
9433 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
9435 *** Face attributes and X resources
9437 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
9440 Face attribute X resource class
9441 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
9442 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
9443 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
9444 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
9445 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
9446 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
9447 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
9448 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
9449 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
9450 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
9451 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
9452 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
9453 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
9454 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
9455 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
9456 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
9457 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9458 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
9459 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
9460 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9462 *** Text property `face'.
9464 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
9465 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
9466 specification can be
9468 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
9470 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
9471 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
9472 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
9473 for face attribute names.
9475 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
9476 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
9477 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
9479 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
9481 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
9482 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
9483 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
9484 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
9485 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
9486 used to clear the mapping table.
9488 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
9490 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
9491 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
9492 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
9493 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
9494 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
9495 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
9496 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
9497 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
9498 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
9499 modify their color-related behavior.
9501 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
9504 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
9506 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
9507 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
9508 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
9509 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
9510 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
9511 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
9512 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
9513 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
9514 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
9516 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
9517 display can display image files.
9519 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
9521 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
9522 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
9523 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
9524 `Inviolable' option.
9526 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
9527 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
9528 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
9530 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
9532 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
9533 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
9534 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
9536 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
9537 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
9538 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
9539 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
9540 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
9541 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
9542 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
9545 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
9546 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
9547 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
9549 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
9551 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
9553 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
9555 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9556 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
9557 constrained position if that is different.
9559 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
9560 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
9561 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
9562 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
9563 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9564 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
9565 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
9566 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
9567 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
9569 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
9570 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
9571 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
9572 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
9573 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
9575 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
9576 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
9578 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
9580 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
9582 Delete the field surrounding POS.
9583 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9584 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9586 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9588 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
9589 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9590 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9591 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
9592 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
9594 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9596 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
9597 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9598 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9599 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
9600 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
9602 - Function: field-string &optional POS
9604 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
9605 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9606 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9608 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
9610 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
9611 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9612 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9616 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
9617 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
9618 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
9619 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
9621 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
9622 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
9623 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
9624 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
9627 IMAGE is an image specification.
9629 *** Image specifications
9631 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
9632 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
9633 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
9634 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
9635 described below are ignored.
9637 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
9641 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
9642 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
9643 to use for its ascent.
9645 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
9646 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
9648 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
9649 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
9650 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
9651 overlays that apply to the image.
9655 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
9656 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
9657 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
9661 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
9666 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
9668 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
9669 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
9671 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
9672 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
9673 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
9674 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
9675 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
9676 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
9677 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
9678 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
9681 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
9683 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
9685 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
9686 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
9687 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
9688 of the factors' absolute values.
9690 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
9696 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
9702 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
9707 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
9708 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
9709 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
9710 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
9711 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
9712 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
9713 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
9716 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
9717 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
9722 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
9723 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
9724 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
9725 may be present in the image specification.
9729 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
9730 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
9731 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
9732 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
9734 *** Supported image types
9736 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
9738 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
9739 properties supported are:
9743 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9744 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9748 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9749 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9751 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
9752 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
9753 instead of a `:file' property.
9757 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
9761 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
9767 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
9768 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
9770 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
9772 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
9775 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
9776 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
9779 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
9781 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
9782 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
9783 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
9784 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
9786 Additional image properties supported are:
9788 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
9790 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
9791 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
9794 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
9795 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
9797 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
9798 to display compressed images.
9800 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
9802 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
9803 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
9808 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9809 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9813 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9814 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9816 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
9818 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
9819 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9822 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
9824 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
9825 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9828 **** GIF, image type `gif'
9830 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
9831 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
9833 Additional image properties supported are:
9837 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
9838 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
9841 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
9842 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
9843 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
9846 (defun show-anim (file max)
9847 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
9848 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
9850 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
9853 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
9856 (goto-char (point-min))
9857 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
9858 (insert-image img "x"))
9859 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
9861 **** PNG, image type `png'
9863 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
9864 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9867 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
9869 Additional image properties supported are:
9873 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
9874 integer. This is a required property.
9878 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
9879 must be a integer. This is an required property.
9883 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
9884 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
9885 files. This is an required property.
9887 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
9892 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
9893 which are supported in the current configuration.
9895 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
9896 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
9897 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
9898 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
9899 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
9901 *** Simplified image API, image.el
9903 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
9904 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
9905 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
9906 define an image based on available image types. The functions
9907 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
9912 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
9915 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
9916 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
9917 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
9918 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
9919 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
9920 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
9921 of the display margins.
9923 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
9924 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
9925 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
9926 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
9931 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
9932 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
9933 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
9934 that have a `help-echo' property.
9936 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
9937 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
9938 the window in which the help was found.
9940 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
9941 `help-echo' text property was found.
9943 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
9944 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
9946 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
9947 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
9950 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
9951 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
9953 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
9954 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
9955 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
9956 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
9957 used as help string.
9959 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
9960 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
9961 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
9963 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
9965 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
9966 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
9968 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
9969 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
9970 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
9971 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
9974 (global-set-key [A-down]
9977 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9978 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
9979 (global-set-key [A-up]
9982 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9983 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
9985 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
9987 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
9988 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
9989 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
9990 is called with one argument, POS.
9992 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
9993 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
9994 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
9995 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
9996 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
9998 ** Tool bar support.
10000 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
10001 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
10002 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
10003 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
10004 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
10005 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
10007 *** Tool bar item definitions
10009 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
10010 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
10011 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
10013 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
10014 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
10015 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
10016 property (see below).
10018 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
10019 binding are currently ignored.
10021 The following properties are recognized:
10025 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
10030 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
10034 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
10035 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
10036 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
10038 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
10040 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
10041 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
10045 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
10046 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
10047 meaning of each of the four elements:
10049 Index Use when item is
10050 ----------------------------------------
10051 0 enabled and selected
10052 1 enabled and deselected
10053 2 disabled and selected
10054 3 disabled and deselected
10056 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
10057 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
10059 `:help HELP-STRING'.
10061 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
10062 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
10064 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
10065 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
10066 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
10069 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
10070 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
10071 buffer-locally to override the global map.
10073 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
10075 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
10076 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
10077 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
10079 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
10080 raised when the mouse moves over them.
10082 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
10083 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
10084 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
10085 vertical margins . Default is 1.
10087 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
10088 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
10090 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
10092 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
10093 a tool bar item. If
10095 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
10096 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
10097 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
10099 is the original tool bar item definition, then
10101 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
10103 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
10106 ** Mode line changes.
10108 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
10110 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
10111 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
10112 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
10114 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
10115 a `local-map' text property.
10117 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
10118 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
10120 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
10121 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
10122 `local-map' property.
10124 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
10125 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
10128 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
10129 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
10131 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
10132 variable mode-line-format to nil.
10134 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
10136 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
10137 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
10138 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
10139 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
10142 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
10145 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
10146 position in the header-line.
10148 ** Text property `display'
10150 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
10151 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
10152 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
10153 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
10154 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
10156 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
10158 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
10159 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
10161 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
10162 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
10163 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
10164 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
10165 simpler form STRING as property value.
10167 *** Variable width and height spaces
10169 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
10170 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
10171 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
10172 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
10173 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
10174 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
10175 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
10177 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
10178 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
10179 properties described below.
10181 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
10182 characters having the `display' property.
10186 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
10187 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
10189 - :relative-width FACTOR
10191 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
10192 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
10193 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
10194 width of that character by FACTOR.
10198 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
10199 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
10201 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
10205 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
10206 normal line height.
10208 - :relative-height FACTOR
10210 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
10211 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
10215 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
10216 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
10217 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
10220 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
10224 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
10225 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
10226 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
10227 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
10228 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
10229 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
10230 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
10231 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
10232 as display specification.
10234 *** Other display properties
10236 - (space-width FACTOR)
10238 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
10239 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
10244 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
10246 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
10247 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
10248 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
10249 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
10250 a font is available counts as a step.
10252 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
10253 as tall as the frame's default font.
10255 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
10256 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
10258 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
10259 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
10263 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
10264 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
10265 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
10266 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
10267 `height' subproperty.
10269 *** Conditional display properties
10271 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
10272 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
10273 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
10274 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
10275 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
10276 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
10277 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
10278 different when object is a string.
10280 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
10283 ** New menu separator types.
10285 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
10286 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
10287 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
10288 to specify other menu separator types.
10290 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
10292 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
10295 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
10297 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
10299 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
10301 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
10303 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
10305 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10307 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
10309 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10311 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
10313 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
10314 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
10316 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
10318 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
10320 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
10322 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
10324 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
10326 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
10328 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
10330 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10332 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
10334 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
10336 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
10338 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10340 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
10342 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
10344 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
10345 the corresponding single-line separators.
10347 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
10349 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
10350 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
10351 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
10352 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
10353 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
10354 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
10355 default foreground is black.
10357 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
10358 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
10359 `ScrollBarBackground').
10361 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
10362 settings for scroll bar colors.
10364 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
10365 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
10367 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
10368 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
10369 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
10370 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
10371 the original window start.
10373 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
10374 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
10375 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
10377 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
10379 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
10380 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
10381 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
10382 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
10384 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
10385 fixed-width and fixed-height.
10387 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
10389 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
10390 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
10391 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
10392 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
10393 temporarily to nil, for example
10395 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
10396 (enlarge-window 10))
10398 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
10399 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
10401 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
10402 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
10403 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
10404 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
10405 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
10406 support a vertical-bar cursor).
10410 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
10412 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
10415 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
10417 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
10419 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
10420 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
10421 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
10422 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
10423 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
10425 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
10429 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
10431 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
10435 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
10437 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
10438 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
10440 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
10442 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
10444 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
10445 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
10446 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
10448 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
10449 is the one that is used.
10451 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
10452 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
10453 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
10454 separate from the command's regular output.
10455 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
10456 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
10457 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
10460 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
10461 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
10462 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
10463 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
10465 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
10466 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
10467 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
10468 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
10470 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
10471 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
10472 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
10473 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
10475 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
10476 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
10477 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
10478 they never ignore case.
10480 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
10481 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
10482 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
10483 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
10484 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
10485 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
10486 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
10488 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
10489 the same format that was used in the file before.
10491 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
10492 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
10494 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
10495 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
10496 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
10498 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
10499 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
10500 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
10501 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
10502 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
10503 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
10504 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
10506 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
10507 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
10508 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
10509 format. You can now customize these variables.
10511 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
10512 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
10513 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
10514 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
10516 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
10517 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
10518 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
10520 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
10521 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
10522 doesn't have any effect.
10524 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
10525 not one per buffer.
10527 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
10528 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
10529 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
10531 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
10532 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
10533 `auto-show-mode' command.
10535 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
10536 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
10537 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
10538 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
10539 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
10541 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
10542 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
10544 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
10545 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
10546 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
10548 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
10549 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
10550 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
10551 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
10553 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
10555 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
10556 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
10557 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
10558 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
10559 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
10561 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
10562 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
10564 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
10565 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
10566 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
10567 `?' on other systems.
10569 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
10570 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
10573 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
10574 current codepage when it starts.
10578 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
10579 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
10580 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
10581 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
10582 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
10583 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
10587 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
10588 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
10590 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
10591 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
10592 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
10593 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
10594 buffer-file-coding-system.
10596 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
10597 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
10600 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
10601 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
10602 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
10603 list of possible coding systems.
10607 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
10608 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
10609 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
10610 docstring for details.
10612 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
10613 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
10614 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
10615 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
10616 lineup functions use this feature currently.
10618 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
10619 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
10621 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
10622 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
10624 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
10625 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
10626 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
10627 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
10630 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
10631 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
10633 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
10634 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
10635 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
10636 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
10638 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
10639 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
10640 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
10641 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
10642 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
10644 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
10646 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
10648 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
10649 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
10651 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
10653 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
10654 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
10655 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
10656 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
10657 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
10661 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
10662 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
10663 Gnus manual for the full story.
10665 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
10666 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
10667 group, which is created automatically.
10669 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
10672 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
10674 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
10675 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
10677 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
10680 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
10682 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
10683 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
10685 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
10687 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
10688 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
10690 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
10691 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
10693 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
10694 control over simplification.
10696 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
10698 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
10701 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
10703 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
10705 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
10706 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
10707 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
10709 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
10710 `a' forces normal posting method.
10712 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
10715 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
10716 to a non-nil value.
10718 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
10719 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
10721 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
10724 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
10726 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
10728 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
10729 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
10731 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
10732 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
10734 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
10736 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
10739 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
10740 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
10742 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
10743 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
10745 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
10747 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
10749 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
10751 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
10753 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
10754 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
10755 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
10757 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
10758 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
10759 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
10760 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
10761 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
10763 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
10764 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
10765 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
10766 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
10768 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
10769 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
10770 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
10773 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
10775 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
10776 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
10778 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
10779 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
10780 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
10781 removed from the label.
10783 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
10784 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
10786 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
10787 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
10789 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
10790 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
10793 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
10795 ** New/deleted modes and packages
10797 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
10798 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
10800 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
10801 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
10802 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
10804 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
10805 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
10806 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
10808 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
10810 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
10811 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
10812 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
10813 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
10814 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
10816 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
10817 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
10818 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
10820 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
10821 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
10822 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
10823 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
10824 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
10825 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
10826 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
10827 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
10828 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
10830 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
10831 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
10832 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
10833 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
10834 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
10837 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
10838 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
10839 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
10840 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
10841 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
10842 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
10844 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
10845 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
10846 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
10847 was not documented clearly before.
10849 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
10850 This includes Tetris and Snake.
10852 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
10854 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
10855 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
10856 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
10857 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
10859 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
10860 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
10861 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
10863 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
10865 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
10866 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
10868 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
10869 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
10872 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
10873 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
10874 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
10875 file names and attributes are returned.
10877 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
10878 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
10879 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
10880 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
10881 returns the result.
10883 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
10884 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
10886 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
10888 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
10889 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
10890 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
10893 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
10894 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
10897 The new function process-running-child-p
10898 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
10899 terminal to its own child process.
10901 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
10902 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
10903 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
10904 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
10906 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
10907 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
10909 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
10910 :included is an alias for :visible.
10912 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
10913 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
10914 to move or copy menu entries.
10916 ** Multibyte editing changes
10918 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
10919 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
10920 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
10921 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
10922 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
10923 (setq char (sref str idx)
10924 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
10925 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
10927 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
10928 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
10929 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
10931 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
10932 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
10933 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
10935 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
10937 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
10938 across the boundary.
10940 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
10941 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
10942 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
10943 contains 8-bit characters.
10944 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
10945 contains invalid characters.
10947 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
10948 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
10949 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
10950 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
10953 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
10954 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
10955 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
10956 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
10958 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
10959 compose Thai characters in a string.
10961 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
10962 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
10963 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
10964 menus should always use the third argument.
10966 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
10967 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
10968 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
10969 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
10971 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
10972 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
10973 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
10974 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
10976 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
10977 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
10978 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
10979 echo area contents.
10981 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
10983 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
10984 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
10985 requested feature cannot be loaded.
10987 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
10988 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
10989 means to clear out that attribute.
10991 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
10992 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
10994 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
10995 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
10996 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
10997 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
10999 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
11000 the gap of the current buffer.
11002 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
11003 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
11006 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
11007 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
11008 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
11009 it back in after any modifications have been made.
11011 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
11013 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
11014 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
11015 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
11016 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
11017 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
11019 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
11020 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
11021 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
11022 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
11023 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
11025 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
11026 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
11027 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
11029 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
11030 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
11031 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
11032 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
11033 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
11036 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
11037 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
11038 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
11039 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
11041 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
11043 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
11044 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
11045 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
11046 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
11048 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
11049 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
11050 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
11051 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
11052 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
11053 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
11054 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
11057 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
11060 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
11061 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
11062 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
11063 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
11064 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
11066 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
11067 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
11068 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
11069 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
11071 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
11072 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
11073 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
11074 something that most users not do.
11076 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
11077 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
11078 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
11081 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
11082 pasting operations.
11084 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
11085 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
11086 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
11087 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
11090 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
11091 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
11092 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
11093 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
11094 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
11097 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
11098 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
11099 to be confused by TeX commands.
11101 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
11102 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
11103 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
11104 of various alternative replacements and actions.
11106 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
11107 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
11108 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
11109 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
11110 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
11112 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
11113 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
11115 ** Changes in input method usage.
11117 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
11118 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
11121 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
11123 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
11124 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
11126 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
11127 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
11129 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
11131 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
11133 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
11134 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
11136 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
11137 given in the following case:
11138 o When you are using a complex input method.
11139 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
11141 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
11142 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
11143 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
11144 setting it to t is helpful.
11146 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
11148 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
11150 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
11151 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
11152 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
11153 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
11156 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
11157 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
11158 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
11161 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
11163 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
11165 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
11166 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
11168 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
11169 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
11170 its owner and group.
11172 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
11173 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
11175 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
11176 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
11178 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
11179 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
11180 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
11181 by the left edge of the rectangle.
11183 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
11184 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
11185 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
11186 for writing keyboard macros.
11188 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
11189 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
11190 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
11191 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
11192 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
11195 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
11197 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
11198 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
11201 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
11202 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
11203 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
11204 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
11206 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
11207 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
11208 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
11210 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
11211 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
11212 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
11213 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
11215 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
11216 failure if the command produces no output.
11218 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
11219 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
11222 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
11223 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
11224 function and variable names.
11226 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
11227 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
11228 file-coding-system-alist.
11230 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
11231 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
11232 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
11233 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
11234 according to the current fontset.
11236 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
11238 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
11239 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
11240 nonascii-insert-offset.
11242 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
11243 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
11244 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
11245 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
11247 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
11248 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
11250 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
11251 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
11253 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
11254 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
11257 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
11258 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
11260 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
11261 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
11262 all variables that have documentation.
11264 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
11265 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
11266 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
11267 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
11268 it should show; the default is 20.
11270 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
11271 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
11274 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
11275 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
11276 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
11277 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
11278 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
11279 Newly added options are included as well.
11281 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
11282 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
11283 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
11285 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
11288 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
11289 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
11291 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
11292 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
11295 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
11296 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
11299 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
11300 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
11301 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
11302 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
11305 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
11307 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
11308 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
11309 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
11311 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
11312 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
11313 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
11318 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
11319 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
11321 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
11322 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
11324 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
11325 read and post multi-lingual articles.
11327 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
11328 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
11329 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
11330 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
11331 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
11332 made invisible again.
11334 ** Mail reading and sending changes
11336 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
11337 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
11338 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
11341 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
11342 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
11343 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
11344 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
11345 rmail-default-body-file.
11347 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
11348 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
11349 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
11351 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
11352 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
11353 is evaluated to insert the signature.
11355 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
11356 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
11357 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
11358 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
11359 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
11360 especially interested in trying feedmail.
11362 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
11363 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
11364 provided by feedmail are:
11366 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
11367 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
11368 there is also a queue for draft messages
11370 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
11371 be prompted for confirmation
11373 **** does smart filling of address headers
11375 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
11376 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
11377 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
11379 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
11380 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
11381 /usr/lib/sendmail, and Emacs Lisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
11382 function for something else (10-20 lines of Lisp code).
11386 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
11387 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
11389 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
11390 run Dired on the directory name at point.
11392 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
11393 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
11394 for a specified regexp.
11398 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
11401 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
11402 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
11405 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
11406 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
11407 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
11408 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
11410 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
11411 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
11412 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
11413 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
11414 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
11416 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
11417 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
11418 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
11419 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
11420 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
11422 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
11423 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
11424 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
11425 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
11427 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
11428 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
11429 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
11431 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
11432 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
11433 session to resolve them.
11435 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
11436 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
11437 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
11440 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
11441 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
11442 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
11443 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
11444 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
11445 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
11448 ** Changes in Font Lock
11450 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
11451 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
11452 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
11453 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
11454 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
11456 ** Frame name display changes
11458 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
11459 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
11460 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
11461 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
11463 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
11464 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
11467 ** Comint (subshell) changes
11469 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
11470 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
11471 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
11473 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
11475 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
11476 that is, the line after the last line you got.
11477 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
11479 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
11480 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
11481 the following line.
11483 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
11484 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
11485 previously sent input.
11487 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
11488 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
11489 as the search string.
11491 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
11492 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
11496 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
11497 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
11498 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
11501 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
11502 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
11503 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
11504 style is still the default however.
11506 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
11508 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
11509 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
11510 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
11512 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
11513 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
11515 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
11516 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
11518 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
11519 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
11521 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
11522 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
11524 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
11525 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
11526 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
11527 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
11529 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
11531 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
11532 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
11533 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
11535 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
11536 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
11537 expanding dynamically.
11539 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
11540 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
11542 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
11543 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
11544 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
11545 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
11547 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
11549 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11551 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
11552 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
11553 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
11554 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
11555 against the first word in the title.
11557 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
11558 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
11559 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
11560 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
11561 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
11562 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
11564 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
11565 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
11566 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
11567 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
11569 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
11571 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
11572 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
11573 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
11574 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
11575 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
11576 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
11578 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
11579 Editing group once the package is loaded.
11581 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
11582 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
11583 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
11585 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
11586 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
11590 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
11591 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
11592 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
11594 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
11595 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
11596 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
11597 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
11600 o URLs are automatically skipped
11601 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
11603 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
11605 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
11607 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
11608 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
11609 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
11610 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
11612 *** New recursive parser.
11614 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
11615 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
11616 recursive parser scans the individual files.
11618 *** Parsing only part of a document.
11620 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
11621 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
11622 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
11624 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
11626 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
11628 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
11630 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
11632 *** Using multiple selection buffers
11634 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
11635 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
11637 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
11639 *** References to external documents.
11641 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
11642 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
11643 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
11644 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
11645 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
11646 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
11647 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
11649 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
11651 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
11652 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
11654 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
11655 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
11657 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
11659 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
11660 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
11662 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
11664 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
11665 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
11666 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
11667 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
11668 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
11669 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
11672 *** Support for the varioref package
11674 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
11678 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
11679 and citations are created. These hooks are
11680 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
11681 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
11683 *** Citations outside LaTeX
11685 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
11686 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
11688 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
11690 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
11691 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
11694 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
11696 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
11697 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
11698 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
11699 directories that contain the same file name.
11701 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
11702 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
11703 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
11704 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
11705 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
11706 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
11707 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
11710 ** New modes and packages
11712 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
11713 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
11714 it, but some do not.
11716 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
11719 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
11720 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
11721 around in a buffer.
11723 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
11725 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
11726 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
11727 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
11728 established system of notation similar to Chess.
11730 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
11731 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
11732 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
11734 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
11735 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
11736 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc.); others are implementations of
11737 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
11738 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
11741 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
11742 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
11744 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
11745 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
11746 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
11747 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
11749 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
11751 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
11752 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
11753 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
11754 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
11755 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc.)
11756 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
11757 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
11758 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
11759 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
11760 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
11761 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
11763 Platform-specific modes:
11765 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
11766 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
11767 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
11768 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
11769 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
11770 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
11771 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
11772 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
11773 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
11775 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11777 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
11778 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
11779 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
11780 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
11782 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
11783 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
11784 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
11786 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
11787 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
11788 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
11789 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
11791 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
11792 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
11793 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
11796 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
11797 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
11798 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
11799 current input method for reading this one event.
11801 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
11802 now control whether to output certain characters as
11803 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
11804 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
11805 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
11806 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
11808 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11810 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
11811 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
11813 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
11814 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
11815 always increases point by 1.
11817 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
11818 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
11820 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
11822 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
11823 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
11824 default value changed. For example,
11826 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
11831 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
11834 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
11835 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
11836 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
11837 `:version' in the top level group.
11839 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
11841 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
11842 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
11844 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
11845 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
11846 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
11849 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
11850 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
11853 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
11854 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
11855 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
11857 ** Frame-local variables.
11859 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
11860 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
11861 local bindings for that variable.
11863 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
11864 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
11865 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
11868 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
11869 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
11870 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
11871 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
11873 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
11874 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
11875 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
11876 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
11878 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
11879 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
11880 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
11881 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
11882 See the documentation in sregex.el.
11884 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
11885 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
11886 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
11887 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
11889 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
11890 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
11892 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
11893 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
11894 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
11896 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
11897 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
11898 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
11899 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
11901 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
11902 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
11905 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
11906 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
11907 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
11908 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
11909 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
11911 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
11912 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
11913 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
11914 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
11916 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
11917 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
11918 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
11919 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
11920 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
11922 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
11923 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
11924 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
11925 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
11927 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
11928 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
11929 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
11931 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
11932 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
11933 was directed to display this buffer.
11935 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
11936 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
11937 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
11938 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
11939 set-window-configuration.
11941 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
11942 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
11943 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
11944 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
11946 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
11947 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
11948 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
11950 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
11951 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
11952 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
11954 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
11955 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
11957 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
11958 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
11960 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
11961 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
11962 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
11964 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
11965 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
11966 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
11967 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
11971 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
11972 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
11975 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
11976 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
11977 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
11978 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
11979 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
11981 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
11983 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
11984 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
11985 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
11986 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
11989 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
11990 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
11991 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
11992 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
11993 The supported properties include
11995 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11997 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11998 item should appear in the menu.
12000 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
12001 which will be REAL-BINDING.
12002 It should return a binding to use instead.
12004 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
12005 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
12006 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
12007 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
12008 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
12011 This means that the command normally has no
12012 keyboard equivalent.
12013 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
12014 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
12015 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
12016 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
12017 value says whether this button is currently selected.
12019 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
12020 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
12022 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
12026 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
12027 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
12028 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
12029 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
12031 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
12033 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
12034 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
12035 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
12036 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
12037 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
12038 forward, away from the user.
12040 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
12042 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
12043 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
12044 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
12045 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
12046 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
12048 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
12050 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
12051 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
12052 that were dragged and dropped.
12054 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
12056 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
12058 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
12059 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
12060 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
12062 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
12063 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
12064 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
12066 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
12067 in Emacs 19 and before.
12069 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
12070 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
12072 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
12073 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
12074 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
12075 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
12077 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
12078 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
12079 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
12080 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
12081 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
12083 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
12084 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
12085 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
12086 consistent with the new representation.
12088 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
12089 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
12090 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
12091 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
12093 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
12094 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
12095 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
12097 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
12098 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
12099 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
12101 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
12102 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
12103 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
12105 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
12106 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
12108 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
12109 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
12111 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
12112 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
12113 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
12114 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
12116 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
12117 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
12119 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
12120 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
12121 buffer or string being searched.
12123 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
12124 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
12125 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
12126 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
12127 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
12128 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
12129 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
12131 *** Structure of coding system changed.
12133 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
12134 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
12135 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
12136 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
12137 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
12138 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
12139 define-coding-system-alias.
12141 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
12142 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
12143 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
12144 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
12145 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
12146 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
12147 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
12150 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
12151 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
12152 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
12153 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
12155 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
12156 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
12157 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
12158 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
12160 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
12161 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
12162 This function requires a user interaction.
12164 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
12165 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
12166 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
12167 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
12168 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
12169 select-safe-coding-system.
12171 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
12172 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
12173 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
12176 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
12177 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
12178 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
12180 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
12181 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
12182 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
12183 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
12185 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
12186 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
12187 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
12190 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
12191 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
12193 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
12194 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
12195 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
12196 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
12197 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
12198 range of characters.
12200 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
12201 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
12203 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
12204 in the current buffer at position POS.
12206 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
12207 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
12208 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
12209 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
12210 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
12211 binding input-method-function to nil.
12213 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
12214 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
12215 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
12216 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
12217 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
12219 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
12220 subsequent events of a key sequence.
12222 *** You can customize any language environment by using
12223 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
12225 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
12226 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
12227 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
12228 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
12229 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
12231 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
12233 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
12234 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
12235 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
12238 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
12239 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
12241 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
12242 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
12243 in your .emacs file.)
12245 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
12246 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
12248 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
12249 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
12251 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
12252 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
12255 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
12256 delete the character before point, as usual.
12258 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
12259 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
12260 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
12262 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
12263 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
12264 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
12265 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
12266 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
12269 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
12270 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
12271 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
12272 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
12273 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
12275 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
12276 and is an alias for it.
12278 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
12279 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
12281 ** Scrolling changes
12283 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
12284 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
12286 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
12287 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
12290 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
12291 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
12292 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
12293 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
12295 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
12296 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
12297 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
12298 recenters the window.
12300 ** International character set support (MULE)
12302 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
12303 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
12304 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
12305 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
12306 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
12307 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
12309 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
12310 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
12311 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
12312 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
12313 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
12315 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
12316 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
12317 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
12318 language, to make it possible to type them.
12320 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
12321 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
12323 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
12324 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
12326 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
12328 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
12330 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
12331 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
12332 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
12333 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
12334 characters for their work until they want to change.
12338 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
12339 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
12340 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
12341 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
12342 support several input methods.
12344 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
12345 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
12348 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
12349 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
12350 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
12351 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
12352 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
12355 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
12356 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
12357 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
12358 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
12359 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
12361 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
12362 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
12363 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
12364 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
12366 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
12367 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
12368 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
12369 the first guess is wrong.
12371 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
12372 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
12374 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
12375 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
12376 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
12377 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
12379 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
12380 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
12381 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
12382 translate automatically to and from either one.
12384 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
12386 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
12387 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
12388 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
12391 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
12392 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
12393 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
12394 multibyte characters in that buffer.
12396 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
12397 character conversion as well.
12399 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
12401 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
12402 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
12403 requires using many fonts.
12405 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
12406 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
12408 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
12409 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
12410 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
12411 you would use a font.
12413 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
12414 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
12415 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
12417 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
12418 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
12421 *** Defining fontsets.
12423 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
12424 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
12425 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
12427 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
12428 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
12429 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
12430 standard fontset are created automatically.
12432 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
12433 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
12434 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
12435 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
12436 name is `fontset-startup'.
12438 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
12439 The resource value should have this form:
12440 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
12441 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
12442 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
12443 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
12444 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
12445 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
12446 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
12447 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
12448 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
12450 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
12451 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
12452 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
12454 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
12455 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
12456 following resource,
12457 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
12458 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
12459 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
12460 Here is the substitution rule:
12461 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
12462 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
12463 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
12464 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
12465 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
12467 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
12468 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
12469 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
12471 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
12472 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
12473 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
12474 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
12477 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
12478 defaults for a particular choice of language.
12480 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
12481 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
12482 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
12483 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
12484 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
12485 system for new files that you create.
12487 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
12488 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
12489 whole Emacs session.
12491 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
12492 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
12493 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
12495 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
12496 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
12497 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
12498 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
12499 coding systems that Emacs supports.
12501 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
12502 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
12503 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
12504 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
12505 is used for *the immediately following command*.
12507 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
12508 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
12510 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
12511 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
12513 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
12514 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
12516 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
12517 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
12518 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
12519 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
12522 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
12523 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
12524 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
12525 translated into that character code.
12527 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
12528 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
12530 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
12532 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
12533 the coding system for keyboard input.
12535 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
12536 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
12537 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
12539 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
12541 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
12542 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
12543 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
12544 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
12545 designed to work with terminals.
12547 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
12548 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
12549 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
12550 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
12551 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
12552 in the corresponding buffer.
12554 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
12556 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
12557 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
12558 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
12560 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
12561 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
12562 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
12565 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
12566 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
12568 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
12569 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
12570 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
12571 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
12573 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
12574 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
12575 related information.
12577 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
12578 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
12581 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
12582 information about the support for a particular language.
12583 You specify the language as an argument.
12585 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
12586 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
12589 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
12590 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
12591 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
12592 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
12594 A alternativnyj (Russian)
12596 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
12597 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
12598 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
12599 E euc-japan (Japanese)
12600 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12601 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
12602 K euc-korea (Korean)
12605 S shift_jis (Japanese)
12608 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
12609 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12610 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
12611 v viqr (Vietnamese)
12614 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
12615 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
12616 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
12617 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
12619 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
12620 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
12622 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
12623 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
12624 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
12625 Rmail files themselves.
12627 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
12628 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
12630 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
12633 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
12634 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
12635 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
12636 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
12637 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
12639 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
12640 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
12641 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
12644 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
12645 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
12646 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
12647 without any conversion.
12649 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
12650 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
12651 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
12652 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
12654 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
12655 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
12657 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
12658 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
12660 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
12661 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
12663 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
12664 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
12665 in the buffer before point.
12667 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
12668 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
12671 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
12672 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
12674 ** File locking works with NFS now.
12676 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
12677 in the same directory as FILENAME.
12679 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
12680 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
12681 can become a bottleneck.
12683 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
12684 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
12685 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
12686 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
12687 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
12688 so useful that the change is worth while.
12690 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
12691 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
12692 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
12693 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
12695 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
12696 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
12699 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
12700 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
12701 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
12703 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
12704 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
12705 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
12707 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
12708 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
12709 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
12711 ** Changes in View mode.
12713 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
12714 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
12716 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
12717 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
12719 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
12722 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
12723 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
12725 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
12726 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
12727 not just the selected window.
12729 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
12730 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
12731 turns View mode on or off.
12733 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
12734 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
12735 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
12737 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
12738 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
12740 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
12741 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
12742 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
12743 which version to compare with.
12745 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
12746 blocks if a match is inside the block.
12748 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
12749 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
12750 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
12751 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
12753 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
12754 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
12755 blocks, all of them or none.
12757 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
12758 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
12759 confirmation first.
12761 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
12762 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
12763 However, the mode will not be changed if
12764 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
12765 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
12766 not suitable for ordinary files, or
12767 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
12769 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
12771 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
12772 these commands do not change the major mode.
12774 ** M-x occur changes.
12776 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
12777 it performs a case-sensitive search.
12779 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
12780 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
12781 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
12783 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
12784 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
12785 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
12786 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
12787 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
12789 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
12790 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
12791 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
12792 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
12794 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12795 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
12796 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
12798 ** Outline mode changes.
12800 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
12802 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
12804 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
12805 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
12806 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
12807 was already active.
12809 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
12810 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
12811 get confused by it.
12813 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
12814 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
12816 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
12818 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
12819 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
12820 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
12821 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
12823 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
12824 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
12825 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
12827 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
12828 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
12831 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
12832 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
12833 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
12834 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
12836 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
12837 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
12838 can be. The default value is 30.
12840 ** Changes in Mail mode.
12842 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
12843 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
12844 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
12845 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
12846 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
12849 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
12850 compose-mail-other-frame.
12852 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
12853 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
12854 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
12855 buffer that shows the original message.
12857 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
12858 with separator lines around the contents.
12860 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
12861 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
12862 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
12863 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
12865 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
12867 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
12868 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
12869 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
12870 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
12872 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
12873 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
12876 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
12877 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
12880 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
12881 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
12882 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
12883 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
12885 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
12886 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
12887 be taken to be magic.
12889 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
12890 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
12891 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
12893 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
12894 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
12896 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
12897 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
12899 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
12901 new key dired.el binding old key
12902 ------- ---------------- -------
12903 * c dired-change-marks c
12905 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
12906 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
12907 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
12909 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
12910 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
12911 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
12912 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
12913 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
12914 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
12918 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
12919 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
12920 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
12921 each time you run it.
12923 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
12924 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
12926 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
12927 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
12928 means to move in the opposite direction.
12930 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
12931 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
12933 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
12934 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
12935 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
12936 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
12941 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
12943 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
12946 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
12947 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
12949 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
12952 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
12954 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
12956 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
12958 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
12959 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
12960 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
12962 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
12964 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
12966 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
12967 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
12969 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
12970 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
12971 used to pick articles.
12973 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
12974 another have been added.
12976 `M-x gnus-change-server'
12978 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
12979 generating lines in buffers.
12981 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
12984 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
12986 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
12988 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
12990 *** Scores can be decayed.
12992 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
12994 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
12995 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
12997 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
13000 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
13002 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
13003 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
13005 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
13007 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
13008 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
13010 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
13011 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
13013 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
13016 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
13017 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
13019 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
13021 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
13023 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
13025 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
13027 Use the `Y c' command.
13029 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
13031 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
13033 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
13035 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
13036 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
13038 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
13040 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
13042 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
13043 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
13045 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
13047 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
13048 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
13049 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
13050 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
13053 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
13054 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
13055 particular news group. This can be done by:
13057 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
13059 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
13060 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
13061 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
13062 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
13063 for reading and posting).
13065 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
13066 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
13067 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
13068 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
13071 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
13072 default. Here are some of these default settings:
13074 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
13075 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
13076 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
13077 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
13078 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
13080 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
13081 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
13083 ** CC mode changes.
13085 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
13086 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
13087 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
13088 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
13089 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
13092 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
13093 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
13094 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
13095 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
13096 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
13097 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
13099 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
13100 of the current buffer.
13102 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
13103 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
13104 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
13106 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
13107 style that the Python developers like.
13109 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
13110 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
13111 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
13113 ** VC Changes [new]
13115 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
13116 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
13117 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
13119 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
13120 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
13123 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
13124 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
13126 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
13127 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
13128 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
13129 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
13131 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
13132 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
13134 ** Calendar changes.
13136 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
13137 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
13138 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
13139 following/previous years.
13141 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
13142 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
13143 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
13144 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
13145 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
13146 supposed attribute of God.
13148 ** ps-print changes
13150 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
13153 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
13155 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
13156 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
13157 printer system has this behavior, set variable
13158 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
13160 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
13161 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
13162 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
13164 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
13165 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
13167 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
13168 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
13169 printing for your printer.
13171 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
13172 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
13174 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
13175 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
13177 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
13178 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
13179 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
13180 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
13181 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
13182 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
13183 The default value is nil.
13185 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
13186 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
13188 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
13189 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
13190 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
13191 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
13192 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
13193 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
13194 color). The default is 0 ("black").
13196 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
13197 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
13199 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
13200 The default is 0 ("black").
13202 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
13203 The default is 0 ("black").
13205 border-width Specify the border width.
13206 The default is 0.4.
13208 Any other property is ignored.
13210 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
13211 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
13214 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
13215 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
13216 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
13217 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
13218 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
13219 controlling headers.
13221 *** Color management (subgroup)
13223 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
13226 *** Face Management (subgroup)
13228 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
13229 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
13230 background should be used. Valid values are:
13232 t always use face background color.
13233 nil never use face background color.
13234 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
13236 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
13238 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
13241 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
13242 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
13244 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
13247 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
13248 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
13249 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
13251 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
13255 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
13259 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
13263 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
13267 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
13269 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
13271 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
13274 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
13275 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
13276 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
13278 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
13279 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13280 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13281 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13282 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13286 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13287 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13288 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13291 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13292 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13293 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
13294 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
13295 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
13296 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13297 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13298 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13299 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
13300 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
13301 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
13304 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13306 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
13309 *** Printer management (subgroup)
13311 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
13312 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
13313 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
13314 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
13317 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
13318 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
13319 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
13321 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
13322 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
13325 *** Page settings (subgroup)
13327 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
13328 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
13329 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
13330 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
13331 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
13332 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
13335 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
13336 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
13337 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
13339 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
13340 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
13341 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
13342 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
13343 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
13344 its TO, are ignored.
13346 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
13347 pages. Valid values are:
13349 nil print all pages.
13351 `even-page' print only even pages.
13353 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
13355 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
13356 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13357 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
13358 print only the even sheet of paper.
13360 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
13361 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13362 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
13363 only the odd sheet of paper.
13365 Any other value is treated as nil.
13367 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
13368 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
13369 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
13371 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
13373 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
13374 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
13376 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
13377 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13378 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
13379 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13380 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13381 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13382 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13384 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
13385 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13386 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
13387 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
13388 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
13389 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
13390 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
13392 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
13394 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
13395 messages should be sent.
13397 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
13398 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
13399 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
13401 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
13403 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
13404 points for line numbers.
13406 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
13407 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
13409 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
13410 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
13411 to 2, the printing will look like:
13423 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
13424 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
13427 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
13428 zebra stripe is to be printed.
13430 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
13432 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
13433 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
13434 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
13435 3, the output will look like:
13449 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
13450 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
13452 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
13453 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13456 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
13457 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13460 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
13462 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
13463 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
13465 ** hideshow changes.
13467 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
13470 *** Support for java-mode added.
13472 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
13473 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
13475 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
13476 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
13477 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
13479 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
13480 robust and a lot faster.
13482 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
13484 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
13485 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
13486 documentation for more details.
13488 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
13490 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
13491 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
13492 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
13493 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
13494 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
13496 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
13497 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
13498 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
13499 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
13505 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
13506 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify
13507 the faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new
13508 custom group font-lock-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in your
13509 ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
13510 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
13512 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
13514 *** Maximum decoration
13516 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
13517 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
13518 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
13519 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
13520 to get the old behavior.
13524 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
13526 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
13527 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
13529 *** Configurable support
13531 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
13532 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
13533 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
13534 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
13535 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
13536 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
13537 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
13539 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
13540 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
13541 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
13543 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
13545 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
13546 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
13549 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
13551 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
13557 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
13558 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
13559 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
13560 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
13562 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
13564 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
13565 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
13566 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
13568 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
13570 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
13571 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
13572 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
13573 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
13574 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
13575 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
13576 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
13578 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
13579 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
13580 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
13581 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
13582 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
13583 the command M-o M-o (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
13585 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
13587 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
13588 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
13589 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
13590 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
13592 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
13595 ** Ada mode changes.
13597 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
13598 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
13599 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
13600 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
13603 *** There are two new commands:
13604 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
13605 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
13607 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
13608 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
13609 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
13611 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
13612 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
13613 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
13615 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
13616 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
13617 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
13618 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
13620 ** Scheme mode changes.
13622 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
13623 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
13624 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
13625 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
13628 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
13629 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
13630 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
13631 variables as buffer-local variables.
13633 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
13634 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
13636 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
13638 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
13639 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
13640 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
13641 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
13643 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
13644 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
13647 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
13648 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
13649 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
13650 option takes precedence.
13652 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
13653 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
13654 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
13656 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
13657 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
13660 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
13661 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
13663 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
13664 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
13667 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
13668 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
13669 these register values no longer become completely useless.
13670 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
13671 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
13672 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
13674 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
13675 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
13676 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
13677 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
13679 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
13680 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
13681 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
13682 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
13683 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
13685 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
13686 since it applies only to the current frame.
13688 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
13689 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
13690 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
13692 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
13693 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
13694 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
13695 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
13696 instead of just the file you are editing.
13700 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
13701 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
13702 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
13703 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
13704 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
13707 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
13708 knows which kind of label is needed.
13710 C-c ) reftex-reference
13711 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
13712 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
13714 C-c [ reftex-citation
13715 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
13716 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
13718 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
13719 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
13722 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
13723 can quickly jump to every section.
13725 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
13726 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
13727 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
13728 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
13729 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
13731 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
13733 *** Info documentation is now available.
13735 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
13736 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
13738 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
13739 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
13741 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
13742 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
13744 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
13745 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
13746 appropriate functions.
13748 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
13749 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
13751 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
13754 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
13755 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
13757 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
13758 shall be delimited.
13760 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
13761 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
13762 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
13764 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
13765 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
13766 prefixed with `ALT'.
13768 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
13769 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
13770 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
13773 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
13774 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
13775 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
13777 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
13778 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
13780 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
13781 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
13782 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
13784 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
13786 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
13788 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
13789 from alien sources.
13791 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
13792 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
13795 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
13798 *** Added support for imenu.
13800 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
13801 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
13802 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
13803 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
13805 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
13806 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
13808 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
13810 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
13812 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
13813 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
13814 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
13817 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
13818 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
13820 ** browse-url changes
13822 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
13823 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
13824 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
13825 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
13826 customization variables.
13828 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
13830 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
13831 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
13832 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
13834 ** Changes in Ediff
13836 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
13837 pops up the Info file for this command.
13839 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
13840 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
13841 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
13844 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
13845 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
13846 files in the same directory.
13848 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
13849 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
13850 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
13852 ** Changes in Viper
13854 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
13855 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
13857 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
13858 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
13859 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
13860 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
13861 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
13862 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
13863 color when Viper is in insert state.
13864 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
13865 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
13866 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
13870 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
13871 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
13872 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
13873 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
13874 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
13876 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
13878 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
13879 constructs are tagged. Files are recognized by the extension .java.
13881 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
13882 recognized by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
13883 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
13885 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
13886 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
13887 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
13888 methods and protocols.
13890 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognized by the extension
13891 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
13892 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
13895 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
13896 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
13897 at least M times and as many as N times.
13899 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
13900 in files has changed slightly.
13902 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
13903 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
13904 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
13905 with old time-stamp-format values.
13907 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
13908 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
13909 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
13912 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
13913 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
13914 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
13915 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
13916 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
13917 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
13919 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
13920 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
13921 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
13923 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
13924 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
13925 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
13926 recommended now will continue to work then.
13928 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
13931 ** There are some additional major modes:
13933 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
13934 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
13935 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
13937 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
13938 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
13941 ** New Lisp packages include:
13943 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
13945 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
13946 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
13948 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
13950 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
13953 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
13954 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
13957 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
13958 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
13959 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
13960 strings or comments.
13962 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
13963 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
13964 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
13965 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
13968 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
13969 can visit them by short forms of their names.
13971 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
13972 Emacs Lisp function at point.
13974 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
13976 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
13977 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
13979 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
13981 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
13983 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
13985 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
13986 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
13988 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
13989 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
13990 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
13991 original place after inserting the copy.
13993 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
13996 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
13997 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
13998 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
14000 Enable mouse-drag with:
14001 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
14003 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
14005 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
14006 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
14008 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
14009 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
14013 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
14014 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
14015 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
14016 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
14017 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
14018 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
14019 instance) and vice versa.
14021 To use this package load it using
14022 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
14023 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
14024 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
14025 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
14026 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
14027 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
14029 *** Interface to ph.
14031 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
14033 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
14034 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
14037 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
14039 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
14040 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
14041 while the real cursor does not move.
14043 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
14044 for visiting your favorite web sites.
14046 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
14047 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
14051 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
14052 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
14053 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
14054 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
14056 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
14058 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
14060 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
14062 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
14063 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
14064 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
14065 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
14066 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
14068 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
14069 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
14070 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
14071 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
14072 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
14073 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
14075 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
14077 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
14078 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
14079 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
14080 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
14082 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
14083 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
14085 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
14086 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
14089 ** Basic Lisp changes
14091 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
14092 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
14094 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
14095 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
14098 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
14100 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
14102 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
14103 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
14105 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
14106 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
14109 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
14111 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
14113 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
14115 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
14116 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
14117 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
14120 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
14121 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
14122 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
14124 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
14125 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
14126 adding one of these suffixes.
14128 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
14129 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
14130 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
14132 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
14133 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
14135 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
14137 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
14138 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
14140 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
14141 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
14143 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
14145 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
14146 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
14148 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
14149 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
14150 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
14151 works using `save-current-buffer'.
14153 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
14154 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
14157 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
14158 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
14159 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
14162 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
14163 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
14166 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
14168 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
14169 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
14170 Then it returns that string.
14172 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
14174 (with-output-to-string
14175 (princ "The buffer is ")
14176 (princ (buffer-name)))
14178 returns "The buffer is foo".
14180 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
14183 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
14184 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
14185 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
14187 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
14188 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
14190 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
14191 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
14192 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
14193 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
14194 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
14195 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
14197 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
14198 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
14199 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
14202 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
14203 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
14204 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
14205 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
14206 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
14208 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
14209 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
14210 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
14211 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
14213 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
14214 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
14216 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
14218 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
14219 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
14220 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
14221 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
14224 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
14225 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
14228 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
14230 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
14231 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
14232 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
14233 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
14234 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
14236 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
14238 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
14239 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
14240 more than the number of characters.
14242 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
14243 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
14244 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
14245 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
14246 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
14247 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
14249 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
14250 and returns a string containing those characters.
14252 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
14253 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
14254 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
14255 character, sref signals an error.
14257 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
14258 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
14259 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14261 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
14262 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
14263 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14265 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
14266 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
14267 to a vector of the characters in it.
14269 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
14270 of a string. You call it as follows:
14272 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
14274 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
14275 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
14276 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
14277 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
14278 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
14280 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
14281 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14283 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
14284 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14286 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
14287 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
14288 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
14289 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
14291 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
14293 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
14295 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
14296 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
14297 are not included in the resulting value.
14299 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
14300 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
14301 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
14302 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
14304 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
14305 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
14306 character extends across that column), then the padding character
14307 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
14308 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
14309 column START-COLUMN.
14311 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
14312 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
14313 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
14314 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
14315 changed text, before the change.
14317 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
14318 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
14319 one character set for each script, not for each language.
14321 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
14323 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
14325 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
14326 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
14328 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
14329 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
14330 which identify the character within that character set.
14332 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
14333 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
14334 opposite of split-char.
14336 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
14337 of all the characters between BEG and END.
14339 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
14340 of all the characters in a string.
14342 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
14343 and specifying coding systems.
14345 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
14346 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
14347 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
14348 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
14349 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
14350 as what to do about code conversion.)
14352 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
14353 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
14355 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14356 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14357 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
14359 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14360 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
14361 to match against a file name.
14363 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14364 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14365 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14366 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14367 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14368 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14370 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14371 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14373 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
14374 the coding system to use for network sockets.
14376 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14377 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
14378 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
14381 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14382 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14383 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14384 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14385 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14386 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14388 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14389 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14391 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14392 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14393 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
14394 start the subprocess.
14396 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
14397 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
14398 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
14399 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
14400 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
14402 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
14403 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
14406 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
14407 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
14408 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
14409 connection permanently or until overridden.
14411 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
14412 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
14413 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
14414 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
14415 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
14416 system for one operation at a time.
14418 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
14419 files, subprocesses or network connections.
14421 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
14422 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
14423 The value is a cons cell,
14424 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
14425 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
14426 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
14427 input to the subprocess.
14429 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
14430 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
14432 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
14433 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
14434 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
14436 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
14437 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
14438 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
14439 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
14442 Thus, instead of writing
14444 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
14445 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
14447 you would now write this:
14449 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
14450 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
14454 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
14455 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
14456 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
14457 for a description of them.
14459 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
14460 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
14462 (defgroup ispell nil
14463 "Spell checking using Ispell."
14466 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
14467 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
14468 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
14469 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
14470 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
14472 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
14473 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
14474 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
14475 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
14476 first-level subgroups.
14478 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
14480 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
14481 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
14485 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
14486 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
14487 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
14488 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
14489 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
14490 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
14492 ** Text property changes
14494 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
14497 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
14498 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
14499 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
14500 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
14501 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
14503 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
14504 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
14505 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
14506 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
14508 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
14509 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
14510 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
14512 ** Changes in invisibility features
14514 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
14515 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
14516 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
14517 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
14518 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
14519 make the overlay visible.
14521 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
14522 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
14523 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
14524 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
14525 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
14526 t when it should hide it.
14528 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
14530 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
14531 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
14532 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
14533 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
14534 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
14535 Here is an example of how to do this:
14537 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
14538 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14539 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
14540 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14543 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
14546 ;; When done with the overlays:
14547 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14548 ;; Or respectively:
14549 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14551 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
14553 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
14554 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
14555 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
14556 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
14558 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
14559 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
14560 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
14562 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
14563 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
14565 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
14566 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
14568 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
14569 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
14570 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
14572 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
14573 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
14574 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
14575 determine the syntax type of the character.
14577 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
14578 of the current buffer.
14580 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
14581 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
14582 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
14584 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
14585 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
14586 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
14587 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
14588 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
14590 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
14593 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
14594 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
14595 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
14597 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
14598 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
14599 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
14600 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
14601 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
14603 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
14604 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
14605 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
14607 ** Changes in face features
14609 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
14610 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
14612 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
14613 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
14615 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
14616 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
14618 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
14619 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
14621 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
14622 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
14623 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
14624 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
14627 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
14628 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
14630 ** Changes in file-handling functions
14632 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
14633 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
14634 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
14635 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
14637 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
14640 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
14641 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
14643 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
14644 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
14646 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
14647 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
14649 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
14650 character code conversion as well as other things.
14652 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
14653 (formerly it did not).
14655 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
14656 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
14658 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
14659 instead of constant strings.
14661 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
14662 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
14663 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
14665 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
14666 in the same way as before.
14668 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
14669 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
14670 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
14672 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
14673 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
14674 else, and returns nil.
14676 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
14677 directory cannot be listed.
14679 ** Changes in minibuffer input
14681 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
14682 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
14683 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
14684 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
14687 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
14688 It is available through the history command M-n.
14690 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
14691 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
14692 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
14693 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
14694 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
14696 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
14697 argument in this way.
14699 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
14700 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
14701 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
14703 ** Echo area features
14705 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
14706 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
14707 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
14708 after the echo area is cleared.
14710 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
14711 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
14713 ** Keyboard input features
14715 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
14716 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
14718 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
14719 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
14720 by keyboard macros.
14722 ** Frame-related changes
14724 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
14725 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
14726 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
14728 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
14729 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
14730 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
14732 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
14733 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
14734 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
14735 in the selected frame.
14737 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
14738 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
14739 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
14741 ** X Windows features
14743 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
14744 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
14745 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
14747 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
14748 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
14750 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
14751 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
14752 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
14754 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
14755 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
14757 ** Subprocess features
14759 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
14760 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
14763 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
14764 and returns the output from the command as a string.
14766 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
14767 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
14769 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
14770 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
14772 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
14773 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
14774 goes after the other menu items.
14776 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
14777 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
14778 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
14781 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
14782 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
14784 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
14785 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
14788 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
14789 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
14790 but its hook is still run.
14792 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
14793 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
14795 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
14796 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
14797 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
14799 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
14800 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
14801 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
14804 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
14805 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
14807 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
14808 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
14809 functions like display-time.
14811 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
14812 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
14814 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
14815 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
14816 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
14818 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
14819 if there is an error in compilation.
14821 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
14822 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
14823 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
14824 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
14826 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
14827 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
14828 the *scratch* buffer.
14830 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
14831 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
14832 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
14833 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
14835 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
14836 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
14837 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
14839 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
14840 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
14841 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
14842 and compose-mail-other-frame.
14844 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
14845 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
14846 full name of the specified user will be returned.
14848 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
14849 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
14850 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
14851 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
14852 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
14855 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
14856 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
14857 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
14858 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
14860 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
14861 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
14862 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
14863 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
14865 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
14867 ** imenu.el changes.
14869 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
14870 item from menu created by imenu.
14872 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
14873 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
14874 select one of those items.
14876 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
14878 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
14879 Copyright information:
14881 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
14882 2005, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
14884 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
14885 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
14886 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
14887 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
14889 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
14890 of this document, or of portions of it,
14891 under the above conditions, provided also that they
14892 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
14896 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
14899 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793