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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2000-08-14
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
4
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
7
8 \f
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
10
11 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
12
13 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
14
15 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
16 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
17
18 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
19 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
20 to list them.
21
22 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
23 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
24
25 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
26 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
27
28 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
29 support 64-bit executables. See etc/MACHINES for instructions.
30
31 \f
32 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
33
34 * When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
35 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
36
37 ** Polish and German translations of Emacs' reference card have been
38 added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex' and `de-refcard.tex'.
39 Postscript files are included.
40
41 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
42 `dired-ref.tex'.
43
44 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
45 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
46
47 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
48 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
49 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
50 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
51 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
52 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
53
54 +++
55 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
56 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
57 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
58 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
59
60 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
61 a version-dependent component.
62
63 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
64 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
65 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
66 character is still bound as before.
67
68 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
69 using that menu.
70
71 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
72 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
73
74 +++
75 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
76 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
77 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
78 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
79 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
80 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
81 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
82
83 +++
84 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
85 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
86 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
87 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
88 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
89 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
90 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
91 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
92 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
93
94 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
95 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
96
97 +++
98 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
99 point in a pop-up window.
100
101 +++
102 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
103 displays all characters in that character set.
104
105 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
106 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
107
108 +++
109 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
110 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
111 defined on newcomment.el.
112
113 +++
114 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
115
116 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
117 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
118
119 +++
120 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
121 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
122 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
123 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
124
125 +++
126 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
127 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
128 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
129 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
130
131 +++
132 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
133 on the display using several methods
134
135 +++
136 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
137 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
138 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
139
140 +++
141 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
142 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
143
144 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
145
146 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
147 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
148
149 +++
150 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
151 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
152 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
153 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
154
155 +++
156 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
157 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
158 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
159
160 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
161 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
162
163 +++
164 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
165 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
166 this behavior.
167
168 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
169 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
170 Emacs dump core.
171
172 +++
173 ** New X resources recognized
174
175 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
176 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
177 is useful for debugging X problems.
178
179 Example:
180
181 emacs.synchronous: true
182
183 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
184 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
185 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
186 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
187 visual class names are
188
189 TrueColor
190 PseudoColor
191 DirectColor
192 StaticColor
193 GrayScale
194 StaticGray
195
196 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
197 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
198 meaning.
199
200 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
201 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
202 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
203 visual.
204
205 Example:
206
207 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
208
209 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
210 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
211 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
212 resource values are `true' or `on'.
213
214 Example:
215
216 emacs.privateColormap: true
217
218 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
219 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
220 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
221
222 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
223 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
224 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
225 be customized.
226
227 +++
228 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
229
230 +++
231 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
232 all frames except the selected one.
233
234 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
235 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
236
237 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
238 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
239 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
240 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
241
242 +++
243 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
244 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
245
246 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
247 read mail from the menu etc.
248
249 +++
250 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
251 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
252
253 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
254
255 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
256 macros
257
258 Key binding Macro
259 -------------------------
260 C-c C-c C-s @strong
261 C-c C-c C-e @emph
262 C-c C-c u @url
263 C-c C-c q @quotation
264 C-c C-c m @email
265
266 ** Changes in Outline mode.
267
268 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
269 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
270 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
271
272 ** Changes to Emacs Server
273
274 +++
275 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
276 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
277 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
278 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
279 buffers to kill, as before.
280
281 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
282 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
283 this way.
284
285 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
286
287 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
288 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
289 use. Default is 1000.
290
291 +++
292 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
293 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
294
295 +++
296 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
297 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
298 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
299 buffers.
300
301 +++
302 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
303 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
304 .emacs file.
305
306 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
307 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
308
309 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
310 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
311 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
312
313 ** Faces and frame parameters.
314
315 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
316 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
317 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
318 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
319 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
320 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
321 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
322
323 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
324 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
325 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
326 `default' face and vice versa.
327
328 +++
329 ** New face `menu'.
330
331 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
332 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
333 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
334
335 +++
336 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
337
338 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
339 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
340 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
341 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
342
343 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
344 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
345 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
346
347 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
348 `ScreenGamma'.
349
350 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
351
352 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
353 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
354 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
355 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
356 the text.
357
358 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
359
360 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
361 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
362 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
363 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
364 specify a font.
365
366 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
367 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
368 under Lisp changes, below.
369
370 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
371
372 +++
373 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
374 of its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid;
375 otherwise, it is hollow.
376
377 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
378 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
379 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
380 customizing face `fringe'.
381
382 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
383 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
384
385 ** LessTif support.
386
387 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see <http://www.lesstif.org>).
388 You will need a version 0.88.1 or later.
389
390 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
391
392 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
393 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
394 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
395 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
396 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
397 Emacs.
398
399 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
400 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
401 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
402 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
403 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
404 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
405
406 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
407 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
408 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
409 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
410 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
411 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
412
413 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
414 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
415 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
416 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
417 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
418
419 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
420
421 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
422 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
423 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
424
425 +++
426 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
427
428 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
429 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
430 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
431 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
432 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
433 whitespace.
434
435 +++
436 ** Busy-cursor.
437
438 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
439 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
440
441 +++
442 ** Blinking cursor
443
444 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
445 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
446 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
447 the group `cursor'.
448
449 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
450
451 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
452 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
453 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
454 details.
455
456 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
457 have to do anything to activate it.
458
459 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
460
461 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
462 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
463 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
464 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
465
466 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
467
468 +++
469 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
470
471 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
472
473 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
474 LessTif/Motif one.
475
476 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
477 LessTif and Motif.
478
479 +++
480 ** Hscrolling in C code.
481
482 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
483 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
484 customized.
485
486 ** Tool bar support.
487
488 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
489 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
490
491 +++
492 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
493
494 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
495 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
496 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
497 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
498 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
499
500 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
501
502 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
503 buffers.
504
505 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
506 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
507
508 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
509
510 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
511 `*') toggles the status.
512
513 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
514
515 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
516
517 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
518 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
519 non-nil.
520
521 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
522
523 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
524 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
525 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
526 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
527 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
528 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
529 on terminals.
530
531 ** Sound support
532
533 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
534 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
535 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
536
537 +++
538 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
539 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
540 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
541 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
542 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
543 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
544
545 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
546
547 +++
548 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
549
550 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
551 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
552 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
553
554 +++
555 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
556 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
557
558 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
559 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
560 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
561
562 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
563
564 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
565 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
566 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
567 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
568
569 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
570 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
571 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
572 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
573
574 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
575 notably at the end of lines.
576
577 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
578 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
579
580 +++
581 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
582
583 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
584 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
585 after each match to get the replacement text.
586
587 +++
588 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
589 you edit the replacement string.
590
591 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
592 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
593 lisp-complete-symbol.
594
595 +++
596 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
597
598 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
599 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
600 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
601 window size by setting the following variable:
602
603 - User option: max-mini-window-height
604
605 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
606 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
607 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
608
609 Default is 0.25.
610
611 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
612
613 ** Changes to hideshow.el
614
615 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
616 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
617
618 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
619
620 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
621 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
622 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
623 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
624 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
625 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
626
627 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
628 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
629 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
630 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
631
632 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
633
634 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
635 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
636 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
637 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
638 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
639
640 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
641 something like this in your .emacs.
642
643 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
644 (lambda ()
645 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
646
647 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
648
649 +++
650 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
651 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
652 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
653
654 +++
655 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
656 buffer.
657
658 +++
659 New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries in
660 a log file.
661
662 +++
663 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
664 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
665
666 +++
667 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
668 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
669 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be cutomized.
670 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
671
672 ** Changes in Font Lock
673
674 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
675 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
676 mode.
677
678 ** Comint (subshell) changes
679
680 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
681 distiguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
682 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
683 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
684 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
685 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
686 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
687 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
688
689 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
690 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
691
692 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
693 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
694 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
695
696 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
697 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
698 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
699
700 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and scheme-interaction-mode
701 now highlight user input and program prompts, and support choosing
702 previous input with mouse-2. To control these feature, see the
703 user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
704
705 ** Changes to Rmail mode
706
707 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
708 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
709 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
710 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
711 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
712 as correspondent.
713
714 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
715 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
716 regexp matching your mail addresses.
717
718 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
719 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
720 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
721 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
722 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
723
724 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
725 like `j'.
726
727 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
728 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
729 digest message.
730
731 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
732 in which folder to put messages automatically.
733
734 ** Changes to TeX mode
735
736 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
737 `latex-mode'.
738
739 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
740
741 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
742 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
743 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
744 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
745 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
746 can be edited from that buffer.
747
748 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
749 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
750 `A' to use all marked entries).
751
752 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
753 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
754
755 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
756 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
757 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
758 been cited.
759
760 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
761 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
762 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
763 in column 1 are always made leaves.
764
765 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
766 has the following new features:
767
768 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
769 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
770 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
771 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
772
773 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
774 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
775 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
776 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
777 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
778 defaults to 1.
779
780 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
781 file names.
782
783 +++
784 ** Tooltips.
785
786 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
787 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
788 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
789
790 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
791 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
792 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
793 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
794
795 +++
796 ** Customize changes
797
798 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
799 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
800 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
801
802 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
803 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
804 default).
805
806 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
807 between custom options. Example:
808
809 (defcustom default-input-method nil
810 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
811 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
812 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
813 :group 'mule
814 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
815 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
816
817 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
818 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
819 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
820
821 ** New features in evaluation commands
822
823 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
824 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
825 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
826 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
827 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
828
829 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
830 code when called with a prefix argument.
831
832 ** Ispell changes
833
834 +++
835 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
836 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
837 spell-checks the current buffer.
838
839 +++
840 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
841 added.
842
843 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
844 correction is made and re-checked.
845
846 *** An Italian and a Portuguese dictionary definition has been added.
847
848 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
849 cases.
850
851 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
852 on syntax errors.
853
854 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
855 end of the buffer.
856
857 ** Dired changes
858
859 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
860 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
861 is, delete only empty directories.
862
863 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
864 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
865 copy directories recursively.
866
867 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
868 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
869 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
870
871 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
872 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
873 directory.
874
875 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
876 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
877 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
878 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
879 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
880
881 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
882 from ls switches.
883
884 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
885 use the -f option when sending mail.
886
887 ** CC mode changes.
888
889 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
890 current user setups (although it's believed that these
891 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
892 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
893 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
894 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
895 release.
896
897 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
898 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
899 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
900 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
901 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
902 have to bother.
903
904 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
905 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
906 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
907 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
908 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
909 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
910
911 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
912 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
913 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
914 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
915 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
916 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
917 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
918 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
919
920 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
921 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
922 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
923 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
924 above.
925
926 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
927 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
928 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
929 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
930 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
931 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
932 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
933 function documentation for more info.
934
935 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
936 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
937 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
938 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
939 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
940 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
941 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
942 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
943
944 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
945
946 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
947 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
948
949 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
950 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
951 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
952 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
953 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
954 style system.
955
956 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
957 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
958 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
959 as far as possible.
960
961 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
962 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
963 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
964 chapter about this in the manual.
965
966 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
967 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
968 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
969 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
970 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
971
972 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
973 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
974 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
975
976 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
977 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
978
979 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
980 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
981 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
982 inside CC Mode.
983
984 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
985 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
986 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
987 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
988 cc-mode/).
989
990 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
991 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
992 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
993 literals.
994
995 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
996 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
997 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
998 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
999 this function.
1000
1001 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1002 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1003 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1004 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1005 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1006
1007 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1008 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1009 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1010
1011 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1012
1013 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1014 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1015 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1016 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1017
1018 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1019 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1020 the column specified by comment-column.
1021
1022 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1023 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1024 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1025 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1026 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1027 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1028
1029 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1030 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1031 arguments.
1032
1033 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1034
1035 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1036 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1037 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1038 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1039 Provan).
1040
1041 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1042
1043 ** Makefile mode changes
1044
1045 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1046
1047 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1048 Fontlock mode is active.
1049
1050 ** Isearch changes
1051
1052 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1053 so that searches can be resumed.
1054
1055 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1056 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1057 that started the search.
1058
1059 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1060 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1061
1062 +++
1063 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1064
1065 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1066 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1067 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1068 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1069 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1070 `secondary-selection'.
1071
1072 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1073 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1074 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1075 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1076 usual snappy response.
1077
1078 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1079 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1080 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1081 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1082
1083 +++
1084 ** Changes in sort.el
1085
1086 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1087 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1088 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
1089 numeric base.
1090
1091 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1092
1093 +++
1094 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1095 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1096 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1097
1098 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1099 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1100
1101 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1102 output ^M at the end of lines.
1103
1104 ** Shell script mode changes.
1105
1106 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1107 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1108 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1109
1110 ** Etags changes.
1111
1112 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1113
1114 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1115 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1116 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1117 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1118 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1119
1120 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1121 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1122
1123 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1124 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1125
1126 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1127 types.
1128
1129 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1130
1131 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1132
1133 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1134 are now tagged.
1135
1136 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1137 variables are tagged.
1138
1139 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1140
1141 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1142 for PSWrap.
1143
1144 +++
1145 ** Changes in etags.el
1146
1147 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1148 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1149 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1150
1151 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1152 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1153
1154 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1155 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1156 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1157 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1158
1159 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1160
1161 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1162 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1163
1164 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1165
1166 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1167 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1168 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1169
1170 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1171 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1172
1173 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1174 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1175
1176 +++
1177 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1178 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1179 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1180
1181 +++
1182 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1183 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1184 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1185 There is currently no specific input method support for them.
1186
1187 +++
1188 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1189 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1190 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1191
1192 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1193
1194 +++
1195 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1196
1197 +++
1198 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignore-regexps'
1199 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1200 expression from that list, are not checked.
1201
1202 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1203 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1204 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1205 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1206
1207 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1208
1209 ** New modes and packages
1210
1211 +++
1212 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1213 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1214 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1215 on certain projects.
1216
1217 *** The new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1218 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1219
1220 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1221
1222 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1223 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1224 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1225 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1226 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1227 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1228 corresponding file is read.
1229
1230 +++
1231 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1232 Emacs is idle.
1233
1234 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1235 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1236
1237 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1238 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1239 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1240
1241 +++
1242 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1243 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1244 separate Texinfo file.
1245
1246 +++
1247 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1248 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1249 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1250 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1251 enter checkin log messages.
1252
1253 +++
1254 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1255 without invoking external programs.
1256
1257 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1258 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1259 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1260 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1261 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1262
1263 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1264 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1265
1266 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1267 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1268
1269 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1270 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1271 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1272 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1273 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1274 single step.
1275
1276 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1277 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1278 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1279 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1280
1281 +++
1282 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1283 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1284 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1285
1286 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1287 PostScript.
1288
1289 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1290
1291 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1292
1293 ; comment (until end of line)
1294 A non-terminal
1295 "C" terminal
1296 ?C? special
1297 $A default non-terminal
1298 $"C" default terminal
1299 $?C? default special
1300 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1301 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1302 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1303 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1304 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1305 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1306 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1307 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1308 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1309 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1310 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1311 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1312 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1313 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1314 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1315
1316 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1317
1318 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1319 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1320 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1321 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1322 equal signs of assignments.
1323
1324 +++
1325 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1326 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1327
1328 +++
1329 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1330 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1331 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1332 customize the package.
1333
1334 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1335
1336 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1337 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1338 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1339 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1340 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1341 which answers different needs.
1342
1343 +++
1344 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1345 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1346 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1347 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1348 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1349 to be enabled.
1350
1351 +++
1352 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1353 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1354
1355 +++
1356 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1357
1358 +++
1359 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1360
1361 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1362
1363 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1364 Pascal) language.
1365
1366 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1367 the text at point.
1368
1369 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1370
1371 +++
1372 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1373
1374 *** whitespace.el ???
1375
1376 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1377 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1378 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1379 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1380 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1381 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1382 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1383
1384 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1385
1386 Here is an example of columns:
1387
1388 horse apple bus
1389 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1390 porcupine strawberry airplane
1391
1392 Doing the following settings:
1393
1394 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1395 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1396 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1397 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1398
1399
1400 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1401
1402 M-x delimit-columns-region
1403
1404 It results:
1405
1406 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1407 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1408 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1409
1410 delim-col has the following options:
1411
1412 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1413 before all columns.
1414
1415 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1416 between each column.
1417
1418 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1419 after all columns.
1420
1421 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1422 each column.
1423
1424 delim-col has the following commands:
1425
1426 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1427 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1428
1429 +++
1430 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1431 were operated on recently.
1432
1433 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1434
1435 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1436 recentf at Emacs startup.
1437
1438 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1439 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1440 file list can be displayed:
1441
1442 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1443 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1444 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1445
1446 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1447 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1448
1449 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1450 text.
1451
1452 +++
1453 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1454 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1455 specific to Message mode.
1456
1457 +++
1458 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1459 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1460 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1461
1462 +++
1463 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1464 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1465 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1466
1467 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1468 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1469
1470 +++
1471 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1472
1473 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1474 minibuffer with completion.
1475
1476 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1477 with the diary features.
1478
1479 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1480 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1481
1482 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1483 Fill mode.
1484
1485 ** Withdrawn packages
1486
1487 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1488 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1489
1490 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1491
1492 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1493
1494 \f
1495 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1496 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1497
1498 +++
1499 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
1500 is running in batch mode. For example,
1501
1502 (message "%s" (read t))
1503
1504 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
1505 to standard output.
1506
1507 +++
1508 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
1509 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
1510
1511 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1512 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1513 frame or window.
1514
1515 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1516 were added
1517
1518 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1519
1520 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1521 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1522
1523 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1524
1525 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1526 comparison is done with `eq'.
1527
1528 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1529
1530 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1531 has been changed.
1532
1533 +++
1534 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1535 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1536 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1537
1538 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1539 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1540
1541 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1542 function was declared obsolete.
1543
1544 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1545 retained as an alias).
1546
1547 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1548 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1549 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1550
1551 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1552
1553 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1554
1555 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1556 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1557
1558 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1559
1560 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1561
1562 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1563
1564 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1565 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1566 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1567 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1568 returned.
1569
1570 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1571 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1572 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1573 minibuffer even if it is active.
1574
1575 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1576 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1577 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1578 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1579 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1580 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1581
1582 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1583 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1584 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1585 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1586 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1587 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1588 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1589
1590 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1591 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1592 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1593
1594 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1595 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1596 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1597 Default value is nil.
1598
1599 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1600 meaning no limit.
1601
1602 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1603 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1604 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1605
1606 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1607 of a primitive.
1608
1609 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1610 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1611 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1612 than replacing the local map.
1613
1614 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1615 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1616
1617 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1618
1619 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1620 promised long ago.
1621
1622 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1623 \f
1624 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1625
1626 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1627 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1628 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1629 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1630
1631 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
1632 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
1633 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
1634 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
1635
1636 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1637 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1638 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1639 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1640
1641 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1642 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1643 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1644
1645 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1646 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1647 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1648 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1649 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1650 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1651 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1652 eight-bit-graphic.
1653
1654 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1655
1656 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1657 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1658 character set as previously.
1659
1660 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1661 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1662 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1663
1664 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1665 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1666 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1667 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1668
1669 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1670 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1671
1672 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1673 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1674 "fontset-default".
1675
1676 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1677 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1678
1679 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1680 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1681 buffers and strings.
1682
1683 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1684 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1685 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1686 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1687 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1688 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1689 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1690 also been deleted.
1691
1692 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1693 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1694 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1695
1696 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1697 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1698 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1699 may differ between buffer and string text.
1700
1701 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1702 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1703
1704 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1705 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1706 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1707 `composition' from STRING.
1708
1709 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1710 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1711
1712 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1713 obsolete.
1714
1715 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1716 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1717 character set is not used.
1718
1719 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1720 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1721 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1722
1723 +++
1724 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1725 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1726 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1727
1728 +++
1729 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1730 that offset in the file before writing.
1731
1732 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1733 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1734
1735 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1736 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1737 from which the command was issued.
1738
1739 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1740 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1741 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1742 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1743 operate on.
1744
1745 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1746 to `window-buffer-height'.
1747
1748 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1749
1750 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1751 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1752 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1753
1754 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1755 respectively.
1756
1757 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1758 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1759
1760 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1761 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1762 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1763
1764 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1765 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1766 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1767 is currently displayed in some window.
1768
1769 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1770 argument function's results.
1771
1772 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1773 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1774
1775 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1776 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1777
1778 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1779 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1780
1781 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1782 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1783 as follows:
1784
1785 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1786 nil don't display a cursor
1787 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1788 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1789 others display a box cursor.
1790
1791 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1792 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1793 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1794 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1795
1796 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1797 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1798 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1799 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1800
1801 Example:
1802
1803 (string-to-syntax "()")
1804 => (4 . 41)
1805
1806 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1807 other than 10.
1808
1809 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1810 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1811
1812 #b1111
1813 => 15
1814 #b-1111
1815 => -15
1816
1817 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1818
1819 #o666
1820 => 438
1821
1822 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1823
1824 #xbeef
1825 => 48815
1826
1827 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1828
1829 #2R-111
1830 => -7
1831 #25rah
1832 => 267
1833
1834 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1835 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1836 and isn't a string.
1837
1838 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1839 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1840 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1841 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1842
1843 +++
1844 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1845
1846 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1847 for a regexp in a string.
1848
1849 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1850 `mouse-position-function'.
1851
1852 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1853 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1854
1855 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1856 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1857
1858 +++
1859 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1860 returns it.
1861
1862 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1863 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1864
1865 +++
1866 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1867 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1868 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1869 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1870 mode.
1871
1872 +++
1873 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1874 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1875
1876 +++
1877 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1878 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1879 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1880 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1881 been performed."
1882
1883 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1884 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1885 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1886 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1887
1888 +++
1889 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1890 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1891 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1892
1893 +++
1894 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1895 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1896 specified table.
1897
1898 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1899
1900 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1901 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1902 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1903 what BODY returns.
1904
1905 +++
1906 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1907 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1908
1909 +++
1910 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1911 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1912
1913 +++
1914 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1915 instead of being optional.
1916
1917 +++
1918 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1919 modify read-only text.
1920
1921 +++
1922 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1923
1924 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1925 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1926 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1927 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1928 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1929
1930 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1931 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1932 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1933 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1934 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1935 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1936 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1937
1938 +++
1939 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1940 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1941 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1942 start sequences.
1943
1944 +++
1945 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1946 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1947
1948 +++
1949 ** New function `propertize'
1950
1951 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1952 strings with text properties.
1953
1954 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1955
1956 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1957 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1958 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1959 specified value of that property. Example:
1960
1961 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1962
1963 +++
1964 ** push and pop macros.
1965
1966 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1967 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1968 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1969
1970 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1971 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1972 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1973
1974 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1975
1976 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1977 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1978
1979 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1980 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1981 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1982 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1983
1984 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1985 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1986 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1987 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1988
1989 +++
1990 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1991 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1992
1993 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1994 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1995 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1996 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1997 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1998 space, and DEL.
1999 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2000 and DEL.
2001 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
2002 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2003 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2004 [:alpha:] matches letters.
2005 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2006 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2007 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2008 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2009 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
2010 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
2011 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2012 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2013 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2014 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
2015 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
2016
2017 +++
2018 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2019
2020 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2021
2022 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2023
2024 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2025 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2026
2027 :test TEST
2028
2029 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2030 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2031 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2032
2033 :size SIZE
2034
2035 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2036 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2037
2038 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2039
2040 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2041 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2042 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2043 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2044 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2045
2046 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2047
2048 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2049 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2050 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2051
2052 :weakness WEAK
2053
2054 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2055 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2056 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2057 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2058 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2059
2060 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2061
2062 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2063
2064 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2065
2066 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2067
2068 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2069
2070 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2071 values are shared.
2072
2073 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2074
2075 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2076
2077 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2078
2079 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2080
2081 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2082
2083 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2084
2085 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2086
2087 Returns the size of TABLE.
2088
2089 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2090
2091 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2092
2093 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2094
2095 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2096
2097 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2098
2099 Clear TABLE.
2100
2101 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2102
2103 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2104 not found.
2105
2106 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2107
2108 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2109 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2110
2111 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2112
2113 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2114
2115 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2116
2117 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2118 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2119
2120 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2121
2122 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2123
2124 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2125
2126 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2127 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2128 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2129 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2130 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2131
2132 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2133
2134 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2135 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2136 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
2137
2138 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
2139 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
2140
2141 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
2142 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
2143
2144 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2145 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2146
2147 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2148 'case-fold-string-hash))
2149
2150 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2151
2152 +++
2153 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2154
2155 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2156 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2157 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2158
2159 +++
2160 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2161
2162 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2163 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2164
2165 +++
2166 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2167 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2168 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2169 is too short to reach that column.
2170
2171 +++
2172 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2173 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2174 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2175 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2176
2177 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2178 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2179 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2180
2181 +++
2182 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2183 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2184
2185 +++
2186 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2187 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2188
2189 +++
2190 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2191 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2192 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2193 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2194 temporary-file-directory instead.
2195
2196 +++
2197 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2198 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2199 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2200 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2201
2202 +++
2203 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2204 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2205
2206 +++
2207 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2208
2209 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2210 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2211 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2212
2213 +++
2214 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2215
2216 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2217 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2218 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2219 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2220 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2221 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2222
2223 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2224 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2225 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2226 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2227
2228 +++
2229 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2230
2231 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2232 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2233 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2234 result string.
2235
2236 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2237 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2238
2239 Example:
2240
2241 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2242 (s2 "world"))
2243 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2244 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2245 (format s1 s2))
2246
2247 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2248
2249 +++
2250 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2251
2252 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2253 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2254 argument in it.
2255
2256 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2257 (arg "world"))
2258 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2259 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2260 (message msg arg))
2261
2262 +++
2263 ** Sound support
2264
2265 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2266 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2267
2268 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2269 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2270 to enable sound support.
2271
2272 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2273 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2274 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2275 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2276 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2277
2278 The following sound properties are supported:
2279
2280 - `:file FILE'
2281
2282 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2283 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2284
2285 - `:data DATA'
2286
2287 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2288 may be present, but not both.
2289
2290 - `:volume VOLUME'
2291
2292 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2293 0..1. This property is optional.
2294
2295 Other properties are ignored.
2296
2297 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2298
2299 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2300 a keyword symbol.
2301
2302 ** Changes to garbage collection
2303
2304 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2305 of live and free strings.
2306
2307 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2308 strings that have been consed so far.
2309
2310 \f
2311 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2312 Lisp Manual
2313
2314 +++
2315 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2316
2317 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2318 image.
2319
2320 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2321
2322 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2323
2324 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2325 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2326 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2327 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2328 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2329
2330 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2331 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2332
2333 +++
2334 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2335 optional.
2336
2337 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center'.
2338
2339 When this property is specified, the image is vertically centered
2340 around a centerline which would be the vertical center of text drawn
2341 at the position of the image, in the manner specified by the text
2342 properties and overlays that apply to the image.
2343
2344 \f
2345 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2346
2347 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2348 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2349 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2350 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2351
2352 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2353 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2354
2355 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2356 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2357 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2358 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2359 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2360 just display it black instead.
2361
2362 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2363 a line like
2364
2365 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2366
2367 in your `.emacs'.
2368
2369 ** New face implementation.
2370
2371 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2372 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2373
2374 +++
2375 *** New faces.
2376
2377 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2378
2379 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2380
2381 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2382 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2383
2384 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2385
2386 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2387
2388 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2389
2390 6. Foreground color.
2391
2392 7. Background color.
2393
2394 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2395
2396 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2397
2398 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2399
2400 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2401
2402 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2403 color.
2404
2405 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2406 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2407
2408 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2409 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2410 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2411 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2412 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2413 attributes mentioned above.
2414
2415 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2416 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2417 created frames.
2418
2419 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2420 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2421 `fully-specified'.
2422
2423 +++
2424 *** Face merging.
2425
2426 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2427 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2428 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2429 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2430 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2431 results in a fully-specified face.
2432
2433 +++
2434 *** Face realization.
2435
2436 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2437 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2438 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2439 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2440 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2441 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2442
2443 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2444 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2445 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2446 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2447
2448 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2449 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2450 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2451 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2452 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2453
2454 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2455 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2456 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2457 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2458 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2459 Emacs.
2460
2461 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2462 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2463 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2464 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2465
2466 ++++
2467 **** Clearing face caches.
2468
2469 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2470 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2471 unused fonts.
2472
2473 +++
2474 *** Font selection.
2475
2476 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2477 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2478 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2479
2480 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2481 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2482 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2483 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2484 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2485
2486 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2487 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2488 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2489
2490 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2491
2492 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2493 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2494 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2495 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2496 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2497 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2498 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2499
2500 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2501 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2502 face doesn't exist.
2503
2504 +++
2505 **** Scalable fonts
2506
2507 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2508 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2509 servers.
2510
2511 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2512 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2513 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2514 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2515 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2516 that list. Example:
2517
2518 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2519
2520 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2521
2522 +++
2523 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2524
2525 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2526
2527 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2528 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2529 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2530
2531 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2532 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2533 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2534 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2535 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2536 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2537 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2538 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2539 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2540 of the face font sort order.
2541
2542 - Function: x-font-family-list
2543
2544 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2545 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2546 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2547 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2548
2549 - Variable: font-list-limit
2550
2551 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2552 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2553 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2554
2555 +++
2556 *** Setting face attributes.
2557
2558 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2559 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2560 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2561 `face-attribute'.
2562
2563 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2564 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2565
2566 The following attributes are recognized:
2567
2568 `:family'
2569
2570 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2571 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2572 and `?' are allowed.
2573
2574 `:width'
2575
2576 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2577 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2578 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2579 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2580
2581 `:height'
2582
2583 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
2584 1/10 pt.
2585
2586 `:weight'
2587
2588 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2589 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2590 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2591
2592 `:slant'
2593
2594 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2595 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2596 `reverse-oblique'.
2597
2598 `:foreground', `:background'
2599
2600 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2601
2602 `:underline'
2603
2604 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2605 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2606 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2607 don't underline.
2608
2609 `:overline'
2610
2611 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2612 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2613 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2614 overline.
2615
2616 `:strike-through'
2617
2618 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2619 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2620 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2621 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2622
2623 `:box'
2624
2625 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2626 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2627 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2628 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2629 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2630 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2631 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2632 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2633 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2634 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2635 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2636 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2637 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2638 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2639 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2640 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2641 box.
2642
2643 `:inverse-video'
2644
2645 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2646 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2647
2648 `:stipple'
2649
2650 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2651 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2652 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2653 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2654 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2655 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2656
2657 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2658 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2659
2660 `:font'
2661
2662 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2663 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2664 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2665 versions of Emacs.
2666
2667 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2668 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2669 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2670
2671 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2672 `defface'.
2673
2674 *** Face attributes and X resources
2675
2676 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2677 from X resources:
2678
2679 Face attribute X resource class
2680 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2681 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2682 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2683 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2684 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2685 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2686 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2687 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2688 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2689 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2690 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2691 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2692 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2693 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2694 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2695 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2696 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2697 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2698 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2699 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2700
2701 +++
2702 *** Text property `face'.
2703
2704 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2705 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2706 specification can be
2707
2708 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2709
2710 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2711 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2712 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2713 for face attribute names.
2714
2715 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2716 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2717 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2718
2719 +++
2720 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2721
2722 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2723 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2724 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2725 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2726 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2727 used to clear the mapping table.
2728
2729 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2730
2731 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2732 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2733 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2734 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2735 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2736 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2737 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2738 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2739 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2740 modify their color-related behavior.
2741
2742 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2743 any frame type.
2744
2745 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2746
2747 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2748 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2749 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2750 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2751 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2752 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2753 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2754 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2755 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2756
2757 +++
2758 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2759
2760 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2761
2762 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2763 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2764 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2765
2766 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2767
2768 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2769 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2770 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
2771
2772 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2773 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2774 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2775 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2776 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2777 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2778 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2779 functions.
2780
2781 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2782 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2783 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2784
2785 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2786
2787 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
2788
2789 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2790
2791 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2792 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2793 constrained position if that is is different.
2794
2795 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2796 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2797 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2798 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
2799 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2800 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2801 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
2802 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
2803 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
2804
2805 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2806 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2807 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2808 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2809 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2810
2811 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
2812 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
2813
2814 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
2815
2816 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
2817
2818 Delete the field surrounding POS.
2819 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2820 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2821
2822 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2823
2824 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
2825 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2826 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2827 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
2828 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2829
2830 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2831
2832 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2833 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2834 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2835 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
2836 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2837
2838 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2839
2840 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2841 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2842 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2843
2844 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2845
2846 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2847 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2848 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2849
2850 +++
2851 ** Image support.
2852
2853 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2854 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2855 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2856 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2857
2858 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2859 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2860 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2861 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2862 area.
2863
2864 IMAGE is an image specification.
2865
2866 *** Image specifications
2867
2868 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
2869 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
2870 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
2871 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
2872 described below are ignored.
2873
2874 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
2875
2876 `:ascent ASCENT'
2877
2878 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
2879 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
2880 to use for its ascent.
2881
2882 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
2883 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
2884
2885 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
2886 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
2887 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
2888 overlays that apply to the image.
2889
2890 `:margin MARGIN'
2891
2892 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2893 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2894
2895 `:relief RELIEF'
2896
2897 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2898 around an image.
2899
2900 `:algorithm ALGO'
2901
2902 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2903 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2904 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2905 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2906
2907 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2908
2909 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2910 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2911 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2912 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2913 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2914 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2915 background of the image.
2916
2917 `:file FILE'
2918
2919 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2920 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2921 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2922 may be present in the image specification.
2923
2924 `:data DATA'
2925
2926 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2927 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2928 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2929 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2930
2931 *** Supported image types
2932
2933 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2934
2935 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2936 properties supported are
2937
2938 `:foreground FG'
2939
2940 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2941 is the frame's foreground.
2942
2943 `:background FG'
2944
2945 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2946 the frame's background color.
2947
2948 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2949 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2950 instead of a `:file' property.
2951
2952 `:width WIDTH'
2953
2954 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2955
2956 `:height HEIGHT'
2957
2958 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2959
2960 `:data DATA'
2961
2962 DATA must be either
2963
2964 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2965 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2966
2967 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2968
2969 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2970 bitmap.
2971
2972 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
2973 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
2974 in the file.
2975
2976 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2977
2978 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2979 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2980 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2981 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2982
2983 Additional image properties supported are:
2984
2985 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2986
2987 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2988 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2989 name.
2990
2991 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2992 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2993
2994 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2995 to display compressed images.
2996
2997 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2998
2999 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
3000 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
3001 defined.
3002
3003 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
3004
3005 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
3006 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
3007 are:
3008
3009 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
3010
3011 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
3012 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3013 properties defined.
3014
3015 **** GIF, image type `gif'
3016
3017 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
3018 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
3019
3020 Additional image properties supported are:
3021
3022 `:index INDEX'
3023
3024 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3025 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
3026
3027 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3028 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3029 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3030 every 0.1 seconds.
3031
3032 (defun show-anim (file max)
3033 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3034 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3035
3036 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
3037 (when (= idx max)
3038 (setq idx 0))
3039 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
3040 (save-excursion
3041 (set-buffer buffer)
3042 (goto-char (point-min))
3043 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
3044 (insert-image img "x"))
3045 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
3046
3047 **** PNG, image type `png'
3048
3049 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
3050 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3051 properties defined.
3052
3053 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
3054
3055 Additional image properties supported are:
3056
3057 `:pt-width WIDTH'
3058
3059 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
3060 integer. This is a required property.
3061
3062 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
3063
3064 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
3065 must be a integer. This is an required property.
3066
3067 `:bounding-box BOX'
3068
3069 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
3070 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
3071 files. This is an required property.
3072
3073 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
3074 lisp/gs.el.
3075
3076 *** Lisp interface.
3077
3078 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
3079 which are supported in the current configuration.
3080
3081 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
3082 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
3083 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
3084 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
3085 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
3086
3087 *** Simplified image API, image.el
3088
3089 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
3090 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
3091 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
3092 define an image based on available image types. The functions
3093 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
3094 buffer.
3095
3096 +++
3097 ** Display margins.
3098
3099 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
3100 and images.
3101
3102 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
3103 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
3104 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
3105 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
3106 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3107 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3108 of the display margins.
3109
3110 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
3111 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
3112 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
3113 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
3114 in this file).
3115
3116 +++
3117 ** Help display
3118
3119 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
3120 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
3121 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
3122 that have a `help-echo' property.
3123
3124 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
3125 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
3126 the window in which the help was found.
3127
3128 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
3129 `help-echo' text property was found.
3130
3131 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
3132 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
3133
3134 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
3135 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
3136 mouse.
3137
3138 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
3139 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
3140
3141 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
3142 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
3143 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
3144 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
3145 used as help string.
3146
3147 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
3148 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
3149 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
3150
3151 +++
3152 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3153
3154 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3155 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3156
3157 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3158 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3159 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3160 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3161 used.
3162
3163 (global-set-key [A-down]
3164 #'(lambda ()
3165 (interactive)
3166 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3167 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3168 (global-set-key [A-up]
3169 #'(lambda ()
3170 (interactive)
3171 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3172 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3173
3174 +++
3175 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3176
3177 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3178 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3179 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3180 is called with one argument, POS.
3181
3182 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3183 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3184 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3185 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3186 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3187
3188 +++
3189 ** Tool bar support.
3190
3191 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3192 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3193 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3194 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3195 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3196 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3197
3198 *** Tool bar item definitions
3199
3200 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3201 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3202 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3203
3204 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3205 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3206 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3207 property (see below).
3208
3209 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3210 binding are currently ignored.
3211
3212 The following properties are recognized:
3213
3214 `:enable FORM'.
3215
3216 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3217 or disabled.
3218
3219 `:visible FORM'
3220
3221 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3222
3223 `:filter FUNCTION'
3224
3225 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3226 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3227 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3228
3229 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3230
3231 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3232 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3233
3234 `:image IMAGES'
3235
3236 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3237 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3238 meaning of each of the four elements:
3239
3240 Index Use when item is
3241 ----------------------------------------
3242 0 enabled and selected
3243 1 enabled and deselected
3244 2 disabled and selected
3245 3 disabled and deselected
3246
3247 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3248 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3249
3250 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3251
3252 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3253 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3254
3255 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3256
3257 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3258 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3259 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3260
3261 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3262 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3263
3264 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3265 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3266 pixels. Default is 1.
3267
3268 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3269 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3270
3271 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3272
3273 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3274 a tool bar item. If
3275
3276 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3277 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3278 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3279
3280 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3281
3282 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3283
3284 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3285 item.
3286
3287 ** Mode line changes.
3288
3289 +++
3290 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3291
3292 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3293 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3294 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3295
3296 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3297 a `local-map' text property.
3298
3299 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3300 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3301
3302 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3303 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3304 `local-map' property.
3305
3306 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3307 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3308 example.
3309
3310 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3311 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3312
3313 +++
3314 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3315 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3316
3317 +++
3318 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3319
3320 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3321 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3322 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3323 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3324 line.
3325
3326 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3327 `header-line'.
3328
3329 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3330 position in the header-line.
3331
3332 +++
3333 ** Text property `display'
3334
3335 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3336 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3337 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3338 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3339
3340 *** Variable width and height spaces
3341
3342 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3343 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3344 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3345 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3346 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3347 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3348 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3349
3350 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3351 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3352 properties described below.
3353
3354 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3355 characters having the `display' property.
3356
3357 - :width WIDTH
3358
3359 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3360 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3361
3362 - :relative-width FACTOR
3363
3364 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3365 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3366 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3367 width of that character by FACTOR.
3368
3369 - :align-to HPOS
3370
3371 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3372 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3373
3374 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3375
3376 - :height HEIGHT
3377
3378 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3379 normal line height.
3380
3381 - :relative-height FACTOR
3382
3383 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3384 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3385
3386 - :ascent ASCENT
3387
3388 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3389 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3390 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3391 equal to 100.
3392
3393 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3394
3395 *** Images
3396
3397 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3398 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3399 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3400 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3401 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3402 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3403 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3404 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3405 as display specification.
3406
3407 *** Other display properties
3408
3409 - :space-width FACTOR
3410
3411 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3412 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3413 integer or float.
3414
3415 - :height HEIGHT
3416
3417 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3418
3419 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3420 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3421 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3422 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3423 a font is available counts as a step.
3424
3425 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3426 as tall as the frame's default font.
3427
3428 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3429 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3430
3431 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3432 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3433
3434 - :raise FACTOR
3435
3436 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3437 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3438 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3439 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3440 `:height' subproperty.
3441
3442 *** Conditional display properties
3443
3444 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3445 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3446 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3447 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3448 the text having the `display' property.
3449
3450 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3451 `(:when t SPEC)'.
3452
3453 +++
3454 ** New menu separator types.
3455
3456 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3457 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3458 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3459 to specify other menu separator types.
3460
3461 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3462
3463 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3464 separator occurs.
3465
3466 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3467
3468 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3469
3470 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3471
3472 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3473
3474 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3475
3476 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3477
3478 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3479
3480 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3481
3482 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3483
3484 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3485 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3486
3487 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3488
3489 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3490
3491 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3492
3493 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3494
3495 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3496
3497 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3498
3499 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3500
3501 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3502
3503 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3504
3505 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3506
3507 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3508
3509 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3510
3511 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3512
3513 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3514
3515 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3516 the corresponding single-line separators.
3517
3518 +++
3519 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3520
3521 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3522 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3523 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3524 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3525 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3526 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3527 default foreground is black.
3528
3529 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3530 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3531 `ScrollBarBackground').
3532
3533 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3534 settings for scroll bar colors.
3535
3536 +++
3537 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3538 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3539
3540 ---
3541 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3542 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3543 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3544 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3545 the original window start.
3546
3547 ---
3548 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3549 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3550 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3551
3552 +++
3553 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3554
3555 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3556 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3557 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3558 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3559
3560 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3561 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3562
3563 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3564
3565 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3566 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3567 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3568 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3569 temporarily to nil, for example
3570
3571 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3572 (enlarge-window 10))
3573
3574 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3575 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3576
3577 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3578 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3579 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3580 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3581 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3582 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3583
3584
3585 ^L
3586 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3587
3588 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3589 input.
3590
3591 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3592
3593 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3594
3595 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3596 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3597 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3598 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3599 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3600
3601 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3602 been added.
3603
3604 ^L
3605 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3606
3607 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3608
3609 ^L
3610 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3611
3612 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3613 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3614 \f
3615 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3616
3617 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3618
3619 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3620 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3621 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3622
3623 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3624 is the one that is used.
3625
3626 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3627 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3628 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3629 separate from the command's regular output.
3630 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3631 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3632 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3633 the buffer name.
3634
3635 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3636 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3637 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3638 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3639
3640 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3641 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3642 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3643 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3644
3645 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3646 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3647 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3648 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3649
3650 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3651 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3652 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3653 they never ignore case.
3654
3655 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3656 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3657 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3658 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3659 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3660 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3661 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3662
3663 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3664 the same format that was used in the file before.
3665
3666 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3667 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3668
3669 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3670 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3671 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3672
3673 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3674 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3675 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3676 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3677 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3678 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3679 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3680
3681 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3682 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3683 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3684 format. You can now customize these variables.
3685
3686 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3687 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3688 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3689 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3690
3691 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3692 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3693 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3694
3695 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3696 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3697 doesn't have any effect.
3698
3699 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3700 not one per buffer.
3701
3702 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3703 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3704 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3705
3706 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3707 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3708 `auto-show-mode' command.
3709
3710 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3711 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3712 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3713 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3714 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3715
3716 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3717 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3718
3719 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3720 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3721 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3722
3723 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3724 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3725 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3726 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3727
3728 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3729
3730 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3731 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3732 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3733 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3734 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3735
3736 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3737 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3738
3739 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3740 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3741 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3742 `?' on other systems.
3743
3744 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3745 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3746 Unix.
3747
3748 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3749 current codepage when it starts.
3750
3751 ** Mail changes
3752
3753 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3754 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3755 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3756 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3757 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3758 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3759 latin-1:
3760
3761 MIME-version: 1.0
3762 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3763 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3764
3765 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3766 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3767 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3768 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3769 buffer-file-coding-system.
3770
3771 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3772 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3773 mail.
3774
3775 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3776 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3777 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3778 list of possible coding systems.
3779
3780 ** CC Mode changes
3781
3782 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3783 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3784 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3785 docstring for details.
3786
3787 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3788 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3789 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3790 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3791 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3792
3793 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3794 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3795
3796 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3797 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3798
3799 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3800 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3801 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3802 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3803 anonymous classes.
3804
3805 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3806 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3807
3808 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3809 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3810 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3811 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3812
3813 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3814 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3815 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3816 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3817 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3818
3819 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3820
3821 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
3822
3823 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
3824 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
3825
3826 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
3827
3828 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
3829 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
3830 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
3831 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
3832 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
3833
3834 ** Gnus changes.
3835
3836 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
3837 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
3838 Gnus manual for the full story.
3839
3840 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
3841 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
3842 group, which is created automatically.
3843
3844 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
3845 values.
3846
3847 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
3848
3849 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
3850 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
3851
3852 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
3853 `C-u C-c C-c'.
3854
3855 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
3856
3857 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
3858 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
3859
3860 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
3861
3862 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
3863 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
3864
3865 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
3866 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
3867
3868 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
3869 control over simplification.
3870
3871 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
3872
3873 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
3874 limit.
3875
3876 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
3877
3878 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
3879
3880 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
3881 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
3882 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
3883
3884 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
3885 `a' forces normal posting method.
3886
3887 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
3888 -- `W d'.
3889
3890 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
3891 to a non-nil value.
3892
3893 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
3894 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
3895
3896 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
3897 has been added.
3898
3899 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
3900
3901 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
3902
3903 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
3904 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
3905
3906 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
3907 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
3908
3909 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
3910
3911 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
3912 been added.
3913
3914 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
3915 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
3916
3917 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
3918 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
3919
3920 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
3921
3922 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
3923
3924 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
3925
3926 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
3927
3928 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
3929 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
3930 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
3931
3932 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
3933 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
3934 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
3935 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
3936 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3937
3938 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3939 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3940 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3941 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3942
3943 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3944 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3945 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3946 mismatch.
3947
3948 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3949
3950 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3951 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3952
3953 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3954 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3955 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3956 removed from the label.
3957
3958 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3959 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3960
3961 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3962 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3963
3964 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3965 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3966 expressions.
3967
3968 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3969
3970 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3971
3972 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3973 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3974
3975 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3976 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3977 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3978
3979 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3980 changes with a special face.
3981
3982 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3983 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3984 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3985 \f
3986 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3987
3988 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3989 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3990 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3991 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3992 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3993
3994 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3995 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3996 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3997
3998 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3999 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
4000 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
4001 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
4002 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
4003 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
4004 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
4005 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
4006 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
4007
4008 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
4009 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
4010 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
4011 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
4012 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
4013 program.
4014
4015 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
4016 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
4017 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
4018 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
4019 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
4020 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
4021
4022 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
4023 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
4024 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
4025 was not documented clearly before.
4026
4027 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
4028 This includes Tetris and Snake.
4029 \f
4030 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
4031
4032 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
4033 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
4034 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
4035 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
4036
4037 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
4038 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
4039 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
4040
4041 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
4042
4043 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
4044 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
4045
4046 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
4047 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
4048 integers.
4049
4050 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
4051 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
4052 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
4053 file names and attributes are returned.
4054
4055 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
4056 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
4057 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
4058 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
4059 returns the result.
4060
4061 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
4062 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
4063
4064 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
4065
4066 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
4067 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
4068 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
4069 optionally.
4070
4071 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
4072 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
4073
4074 **
4075 The new function process-running-child-p
4076 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
4077 terminal to its own child process.
4078
4079 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
4080 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
4081 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
4082 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
4083
4084 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
4085 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
4086
4087 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
4088 :included is an alias for :visible.
4089
4090 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
4091 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
4092 to move or copy menu entries.
4093
4094 ** Multibyte editing changes
4095
4096 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
4097 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
4098 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
4099 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
4100 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
4101 (setq char (sref str idx)
4102 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
4103 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
4104
4105 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
4106 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
4107 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
4108
4109 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
4110 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
4111 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
4112
4113 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
4114
4115 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
4116 across the boundary.
4117
4118 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
4119 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
4120 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
4121 contains 8-bit characters.
4122 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
4123 contains invalid characters.
4124
4125 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
4126 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
4127 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
4128 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
4129 way.
4130
4131 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
4132 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
4133 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
4134 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
4135
4136 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
4137 compose Thai characters in a string.
4138
4139 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
4140 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
4141 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
4142 menus should always use the third argument.
4143
4144 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
4145 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
4146 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
4147 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
4148
4149 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
4150 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
4151 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
4152 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
4153
4154 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4155 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4156 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4157 echo area contents.
4158
4159 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4160
4161 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4162 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4163 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4164
4165 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4166 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4167 means to clear out that attribute.
4168
4169 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4170 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4171
4172 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4173 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4174 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4175 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4176
4177 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4178 the gap of the current buffer.
4179
4180 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4181 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4182 current buffer.
4183
4184 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4185 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4186 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4187 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4188 \f
4189 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4190
4191 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4192 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4193 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4194 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4195 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4196
4197 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4198 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4199 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4200 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4201 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4202
4203 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4204 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4205 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4206
4207 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4208 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4209 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4210 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4211 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4212 results.
4213
4214 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4215 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4216 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4217 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4218 \f
4219 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4220
4221 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4222 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4223 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4224 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4225
4226 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4227 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4228 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4229 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4230 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4231 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4232 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4233 region.
4234
4235 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4236 selective undo.
4237
4238 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4239 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4240 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4241 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4242 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4243
4244 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4245 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4246 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4247 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4248
4249 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4250 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4251 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4252 something that most users not do.
4253
4254 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4255 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4256 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4257 applications.
4258
4259 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4260 pasting operations.
4261
4262 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4263 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4264 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4265 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4266 `ps-printer-name'.
4267
4268 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4269 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4270 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4271 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4272 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4273 hits a new word.
4274
4275 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4276 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4277 to be confused by TeX commands.
4278
4279 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4280 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4281 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4282 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4283
4284 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4285 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4286 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4287 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4288 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4289
4290 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4291 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4292
4293 ** Changes in input method usage.
4294
4295 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4296 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4297 respectively.
4298
4299 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4300
4301 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4302 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4303
4304 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4305 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4306
4307 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4308
4309 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4310
4311 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4312 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4313
4314 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4315 given in the following case:
4316 o When you are using a complex input method.
4317 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4318
4319 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4320 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4321 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4322 setting it to t is helpful.
4323
4324 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4325
4326 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4327 keys:
4328 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4329 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4330 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4331 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4332 environment.
4333
4334 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4335 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4336 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4337 get
4338
4339 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4340
4341 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4342
4343 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4344 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4345
4346 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4347 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4348 its owner and group.
4349
4350 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4351 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4352
4353 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4354 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4355
4356 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4357 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4358 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4359 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4360
4361 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4362 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4363 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4364 for writing keyboard macros.
4365
4366 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4367 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4368 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4369 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4370 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4371 info.
4372
4373 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4374
4375 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4376 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4377 contents only.
4378
4379 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4380 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4381 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4382 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4383
4384 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4385 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4386 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4387
4388 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4389 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4390 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4391 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4392
4393 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4394 failure if the command produces no output.
4395
4396 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4397 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4398 the mouse.
4399
4400 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4401 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4402 function and variable names.
4403
4404 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4405 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4406 file-coding-system-alist.
4407
4408 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4409 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4410 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4411 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4412 according to the current fontset.
4413
4414 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4415
4416 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4417 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4418 nonascii-insert-offset.
4419
4420 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4421 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4422 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4423 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4424
4425 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4426 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4427
4428 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4429 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4430
4431 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4432 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4433 command keys.
4434
4435 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4436 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4437
4438 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4439 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4440 all variables that have documentation.
4441
4442 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4443 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4444 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4445 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4446 it should show; the default is 20.
4447
4448 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4449 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4450 of your input.
4451
4452 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4453 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4454 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4455 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4456 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4457 Newly added options are included as well.
4458
4459 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4460 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4461 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4462
4463 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4464 Customize menu.
4465
4466 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4467 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4468
4469 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4470 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4471 invoked.
4472
4473 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4474 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4475 The default is 1.
4476
4477 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4478 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4479 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4480 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4481 sensibly.
4482
4483 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4484
4485 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4486 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4487 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4488
4489 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4490 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4491 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4492 every night.
4493
4494 ** Desktop changes
4495
4496 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4497 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4498
4499 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4500 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4501
4502 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4503 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4504
4505 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4506 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4507 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4508 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4509 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4510 made invisible again.
4511
4512 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4513
4514 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4515 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4516 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4517 toggle.
4518
4519 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4520 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4521 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4522 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4523 rmail-default-body-file.
4524
4525 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4526 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4527 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4528
4529 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4530 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4531 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4532
4533 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4534 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4535 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4536 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4537 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4538 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4539
4540 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4541 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4542 provided by feedmail are:
4543
4544 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4545 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4546 there is also a queue for draft messages
4547
4548 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4549 be prompted for confirmation
4550
4551 **** does smart filling of address headers
4552
4553 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4554 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4555 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4556
4557 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4558 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4559 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4560 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4561
4562 ** Dired changes
4563
4564 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4565 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4566
4567 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4568 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4569
4570 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4571 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4572 for a specified regexp.
4573
4574 ** VC Changes
4575
4576 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4577 conveniently.
4578
4579 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4580 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4581 Dired.
4582
4583 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4584 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4585 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4586 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4587
4588 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4589 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4590 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4591 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4592 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4593
4594 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4595 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4596 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4597 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4598 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4599
4600 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4601 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4602 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4603 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4604
4605 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4606 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4607 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4608
4609 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4610 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4611 session to resolve them.
4612
4613 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4614 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4615 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4616 uses as well).
4617
4618 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4619 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4620 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4621 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4622 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4623 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4624 using ediff.
4625
4626 ** Changes in Font Lock
4627
4628 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4629 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4630 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4631 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4632 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4633
4634 ** Frame name display changes
4635
4636 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4637 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4638 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4639 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4640
4641 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4642 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4643 menu.
4644
4645 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4646
4647 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4648 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4649 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4650
4651 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4652
4653 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4654 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4655 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4656
4657 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4658 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4659 the following line.
4660
4661 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4662 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4663 previously sent input.
4664
4665 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4666 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4667 as the search string.
4668
4669 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4670 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4671
4672 ** C mode changes
4673
4674 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4675 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4676 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4677 definition.
4678
4679 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4680 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4681 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4682 style is still the default however.
4683
4684 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4685
4686 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4687 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4688 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4689
4690 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4691 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4692
4693 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4694 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4695
4696 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4697 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4698
4699 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4700 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4701
4702 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4703 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4704 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4705 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4706
4707 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4708
4709 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4710 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4711 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4712
4713 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4714 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4715 expanding dynamically.
4716
4717 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4718 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4719
4720 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4721 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4722 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4723 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4724
4725 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4726
4727 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4728
4729 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4730 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4731 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4732 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4733 against the first word in the title.
4734
4735 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4736 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4737 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4738 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4739 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4740 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4741
4742 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4743 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4744 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4745 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4746
4747 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4748
4749 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4750 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4751 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4752 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4753 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4754 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4755
4756 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4757 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4758
4759 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4760 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4761 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4762
4763 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4764 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4765
4766 ** Ispell changes.
4767
4768 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4769 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4770 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4771
4772 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4773 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4774 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4775 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4776 include:
4777
4778 o URLs are automatically skipped
4779 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4780
4781 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4782
4783 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4784
4785 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4786 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4787 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4788 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4789
4790 *** New recursive parser.
4791
4792 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4793 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4794 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4795
4796 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4797
4798 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4799 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4800 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4801
4802 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4803
4804 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4805
4806 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4807
4808 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4809
4810 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4811
4812 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4813 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4814
4815 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4816
4817 *** References to external documents.
4818
4819 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4820 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4821 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
4822 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
4823 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
4824 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
4825 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
4826
4827 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
4828
4829 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
4830 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
4831
4832 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
4833 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
4834
4835 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
4836
4837 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
4838 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
4839
4840 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
4841
4842 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
4843 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
4844 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
4845 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
4846 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
4847 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
4848 more.
4849
4850 *** Support for the varioref package
4851
4852 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
4853
4854 *** New hooks
4855
4856 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
4857 and citations are created. These hooks are
4858 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
4859 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
4860
4861 *** Citations outside LaTeX
4862
4863 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
4864 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
4865
4866 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
4867
4868 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
4869 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
4870 fontified, use
4871
4872 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
4873
4874 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
4875 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
4876 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
4877 directories that contain the same file name.
4878
4879 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
4880 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
4881 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
4882 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
4883 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
4884 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
4885 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
4886 directory.
4887
4888 ** New modes and packages
4889
4890 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
4891 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
4892 it, but some do not.
4893
4894 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
4895 code.
4896
4897 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
4898 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
4899 around in a buffer.
4900
4901 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
4902
4903 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
4904 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
4905 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
4906 established system of notation similar to Chess.
4907
4908 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
4909 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
4910 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
4911
4912 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
4913 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
4914 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
4915 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
4916 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
4917 the like.
4918
4919 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
4920 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
4921
4922 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
4923 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
4924 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
4925 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
4926
4927 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
4928
4929 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
4930 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
4931 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
4932 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
4933 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
4934 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
4935 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
4936 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
4937 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
4938 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
4939 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
4940
4941 Platform-specific modes:
4942
4943 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4944 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4945 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4946 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4947 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4948 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4949 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4950 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4951 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4952 \f
4953 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4954
4955 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4956 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4957 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4958 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4959
4960 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4961 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4962 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4963
4964 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4965 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4966 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4967 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4968
4969 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4970 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4971 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4972 environment.
4973
4974 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4975 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4976 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4977 current input method for reading this one event.
4978
4979 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4980 now control whether to output certain characters as
4981 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4982 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4983 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4984 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4985 \f
4986 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4987
4988 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4989 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4990
4991 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4992 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4993 always increases point by 1.
4994
4995 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4996 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4997
4998 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4999
5000 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
5001 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
5002 default value changed. For example,
5003
5004 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
5005 :type 'integer
5006 :group 'foo
5007 :version "20.3")
5008
5009 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
5010 :version "20.3")
5011
5012 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
5013 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
5014 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
5015 `:version' in the top level group.
5016
5017 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
5018
5019 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
5020 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
5021
5022 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
5023 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
5024 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
5025 to themselves.
5026
5027 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
5028 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
5029 values whatever.
5030
5031 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
5032 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
5033 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
5034
5035 ** Frame-local variables.
5036
5037 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
5038 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
5039 local bindings for that variable.
5040
5041 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
5042 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
5043 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
5044 parameter name.
5045
5046 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
5047 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
5048 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
5049 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
5050
5051 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
5052 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
5053 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
5054 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
5055
5056 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
5057 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
5058 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
5059 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
5060 See the documentation in sregex.el.
5061
5062 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
5063 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
5064 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
5065 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
5066
5067 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
5068 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
5069
5070 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
5071 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
5072 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
5073
5074 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
5075 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
5076 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
5077 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
5078
5079 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
5080 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
5081 empty input.
5082
5083 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
5084 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
5085 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
5086 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
5087 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
5088
5089 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
5090 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
5091 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
5092 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
5093
5094 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
5095 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
5096 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
5097 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
5098 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
5099
5100 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
5101 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
5102 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
5103 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
5104
5105 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
5106 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
5107 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
5108
5109 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
5110 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
5111 was directed to display this buffer.
5112
5113 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
5114 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
5115 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
5116 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
5117 set-window-configuration.
5118
5119 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
5120 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
5121 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
5122 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
5123
5124 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
5125 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
5126 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
5127
5128 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
5129 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
5130 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
5131
5132 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
5133 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
5134
5135 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
5136 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
5137
5138 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
5139 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
5140 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
5141
5142 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
5143 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
5144 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
5145 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
5146
5147 ** Menu changes
5148
5149 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
5150 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
5151 better supported.
5152
5153 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
5154 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5155 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5156 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5157 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5158
5159 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5160
5161 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5162 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5163 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5164 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5165
5166 The format is:
5167 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5168 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5169 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5170 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5171 The supported properties include
5172
5173 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5174 item is enabled.
5175 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5176 item should appear in the menu.
5177 :filter FILTER-FN
5178 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5179 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5180 It should return a binding to use instead.
5181 :keys DESCRIPTION
5182 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5183 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5184 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5185 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5186 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5187 keyboard binding.
5188 :key-sequence nil
5189 This means that the command normally has no
5190 keyboard equivalent.
5191 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5192 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5193 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5194 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5195 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5196
5197 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5198 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5199
5200 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5201
5202 ** New event types
5203
5204 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5205 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5206 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5207 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5208
5209 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5210
5211 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5212 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5213 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5214 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5215 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5216 forward, away from the user.
5217
5218 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5219
5220 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5221 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5222 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5223 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5224 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5225
5226 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5227
5228 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5229 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5230 that were dragged and dropped.
5231
5232 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5233
5234 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5235
5236 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5237 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5238 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5239
5240 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5241 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5242 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5243
5244 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5245 in Emacs 19 and before.
5246
5247 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5248 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5249
5250 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5251 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5252 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5253 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5254
5255 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5256 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5257 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5258 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5259 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5260
5261 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5262 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5263 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5264 consistent with the new representation.
5265
5266 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5267 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5268 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5269 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5270
5271 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5272 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5273 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5274
5275 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5276 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5277 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5278
5279 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5280 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5281 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5282
5283 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5284 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5285
5286 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5287 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5288
5289 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5290 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5291 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5292 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5293
5294 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5295 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5296
5297 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5298 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5299 buffer or string being searched.
5300
5301 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5302 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5303 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5304 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5305 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5306 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5307 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5308
5309 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5310
5311 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5312 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5313 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5314 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5315 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5316 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5317 define-coding-system-alias.
5318
5319 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5320 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5321 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5322 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5323 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5324 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5325 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5326 `iso-8859-1'.
5327
5328 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5329 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5330 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5331 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5332
5333 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5334 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5335 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5336 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5337
5338 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5339 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5340 This function requires a user interaction.
5341
5342 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5343 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5344 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5345 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5346 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5347 select-safe-coding-system.
5348
5349 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5350 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5351 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5352 was done.
5353
5354 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5355 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5356 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5357
5358 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5359 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5360 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5361 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5362
5363 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5364 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5365 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5366 converted.
5367
5368 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5369 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5370
5371 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5372 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5373 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5374 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5375 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5376 range of characters.
5377
5378 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5379 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5380
5381 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5382 in the current buffer at position POS.
5383
5384 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5385 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5386 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5387 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5388 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5389 binding input-method-function to nil.
5390
5391 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5392 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5393 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5394 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5395 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5396
5397 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5398 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5399
5400 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5401 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5402
5403 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5404 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5405 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5406 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5407 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5408 \f
5409 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5410
5411 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5412 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5413 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5414 tree structure.
5415
5416 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5417 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5418
5419 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5420 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5421 in your .emacs file.)
5422
5423 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5424 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5425
5426 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5427 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5428
5429 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5430 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5431 kills the region.
5432
5433 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5434 delete the character before point, as usual.
5435
5436 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5437 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5438 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5439
5440 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5441 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5442 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5443 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5444 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5445 past.)
5446
5447 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5448 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5449 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5450 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5451 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5452
5453 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5454 and is an alias for it.
5455
5456 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5457 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5458
5459 ** Scrolling changes
5460
5461 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5462 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5463
5464 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5465 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5466 where it started.
5467
5468 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5469 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5470 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5471 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5472
5473 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5474 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5475 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5476 recenters the window.
5477
5478 ** International character set support (MULE)
5479
5480 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5481 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5482 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5483 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5484 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5485 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5486
5487 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5488 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5489 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5490 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5491 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5492
5493 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5494 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5495 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5496 language, to make it possible to type them.
5497
5498 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5499 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5500
5501 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5502 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5503
5504 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5505
5506 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5507
5508 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5509 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5510 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5511 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5512 characters for their work until they want to change.
5513
5514 *** Input methods
5515
5516 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5517 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5518 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5519 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5520 support several input methods.
5521
5522 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5523 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5524 work.
5525
5526 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5527 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5528 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5529 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5530 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5531 letter.
5532
5533 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5534 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5535 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5536 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5537 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5538
5539 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5540 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5541 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5542 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5543
5544 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5545 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5546 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5547 the first guess is wrong.
5548
5549 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5550 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5551
5552 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5553 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5554 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5555 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5556
5557 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5558 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5559 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5560 translate automatically to and from either one.
5561
5562 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5563
5564 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5565 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5566 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5567 what you want.
5568
5569 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5570 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5571 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5572 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5573
5574 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5575 character conversion as well.
5576
5577 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5578
5579 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5580 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5581 requires using many fonts.
5582
5583 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5584 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5585
5586 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5587 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5588 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5589 you would use a font.
5590
5591 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5592 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5593 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5594
5595 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5596 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5597 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5598 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5599 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5600
5601 *** Defining fontsets.
5602
5603 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5604 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5605 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5606
5607 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5608 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5609 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5610 standard fontset are created automatically.
5611
5612 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5613 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5614 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5615 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5616 name is `fontset-startup'.
5617
5618 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5619 The resource value should have this form:
5620 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5621 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5622 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5623 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5624 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5625 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5626 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5627 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5628 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5629
5630 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5631 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5632 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5633
5634 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5635 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5636 following resource,
5637 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5638 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5639 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5640 Here is the substitution rule:
5641 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5642 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5643 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5644 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5645 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5646
5647 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5648 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5649 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5650
5651 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5652 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5653 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5654 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5655 fontsets.
5656
5657 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5658 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5659
5660 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5661 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5662 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5663 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5664 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5665 system for new files that you create.
5666
5667 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5668 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5669 whole Emacs session.
5670
5671 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5672 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5673 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5674
5675 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5676 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5677 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5678 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5679 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5680
5681 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5682 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5683 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5684 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5685 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5686
5687 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5688 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5689
5690 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5691 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5692
5693 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5694 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5695
5696 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5697 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5698 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5699 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5700 of the file.
5701
5702 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5703 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5704 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5705 translated into that character code.
5706
5707 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5708 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5709
5710 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5711
5712 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5713 the coding system for keyboard input.
5714
5715 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5716 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5717 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5718
5719 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5720
5721 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5722 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5723 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5724 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5725 designed to work with terminals.
5726
5727 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5728 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5729 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5730 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5731 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5732 in the corresponding buffer.
5733
5734 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5735
5736 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5737 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5738 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5739
5740 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5741 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5742 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5743 want to use.
5744
5745 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5746 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5747
5748 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5749 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5750 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5751 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5752
5753 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5754 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5755 related information.
5756
5757 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5758 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5759 scripts.
5760
5761 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5762 information about the support for a particular language.
5763 You specify the language as an argument.
5764
5765 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5766 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5767 first dash.
5768
5769 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5770 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5771 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5772 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5773
5774 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5775 B big5 (Chinese)
5776 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5777 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5778 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5779 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5780 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5781 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5782 K euc-korea (Korean)
5783 R koi8 (Russian)
5784 Q tibetan
5785 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5786 T lao
5787 T tis620 (Thai)
5788 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5789 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5790 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5791 v viqr (Vietnamese)
5792 z hz (Chinese)
5793
5794 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5795 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5796 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5797 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5798
5799 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5800 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5801
5802 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5803 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5804 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5805 Rmail files themselves.
5806
5807 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5808 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5809
5810 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5811 for sending mail:
5812
5813 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5814 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5815 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5816 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5817 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5818
5819 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5820 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5821 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
5822 translations.
5823
5824 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
5825 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
5826 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
5827 without any conversion.
5828
5829 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
5830 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
5831 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
5832 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
5833
5834 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
5835 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
5836
5837 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
5838 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
5839
5840 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
5841 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
5842
5843 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
5844 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
5845 in the buffer before point.
5846
5847 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
5848 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
5849 you are using.
5850
5851 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
5852 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
5853
5854 ** File locking works with NFS now.
5855
5856 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
5857 in the same directory as FILENAME.
5858
5859 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
5860 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
5861 can become a bottleneck.
5862
5863 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
5864 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
5865 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
5866 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
5867 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
5868 so useful that the change is worth while.
5869
5870 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
5871 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
5872 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
5873 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
5874
5875 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
5876 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
5877 show-paren-mode.
5878
5879 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
5880 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
5881 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
5882
5883 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
5884 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
5885 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
5886
5887 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
5888 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
5889 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
5890
5891 ** Changes in View mode.
5892
5893 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
5894 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
5895
5896 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
5897 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
5898
5899 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
5900 previous state.
5901
5902 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
5903 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
5904
5905 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
5906 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
5907 not just the selected window.
5908
5909 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
5910 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
5911 turns View mode on or off.
5912
5913 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
5914 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
5915 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
5916
5917 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
5918 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
5919
5920 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
5921 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
5922 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
5923 which version to compare with.
5924
5925 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
5926 blocks if a match is inside the block.
5927
5928 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
5929 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
5930 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
5931 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
5932
5933 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
5934 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
5935 blocks, all of them or none.
5936
5937 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
5938 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
5939 confirmation first.
5940
5941 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5942 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5943 However, the mode will not be changed if
5944 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5945 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5946 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5947 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5948
5949 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5950
5951 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5952 these commands do not change the major mode.
5953
5954 ** M-x occur changes.
5955
5956 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5957 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5958
5959 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5960 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5961 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5962
5963 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5964 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5965 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5966 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5967 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5968
5969 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5970 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5971 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5972 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5973
5974 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5975 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5976 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5977
5978 ** Outline mode changes.
5979
5980 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5981
5982 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5983
5984 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5985 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5986 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5987 was already active.
5988
5989 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5990 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5991 get confused by it.
5992
5993 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5994 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5995
5996 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5997
5998 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5999 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
6000 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
6001 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
6002
6003 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
6004 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
6005 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
6006
6007 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
6008 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
6009 values.
6010
6011 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
6012 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
6013 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
6014 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
6015
6016 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
6017 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
6018 can be. The default value is 30.
6019
6020 ** Changes in Mail mode.
6021
6022 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
6023 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
6024 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
6025 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
6026 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
6027 behavior.
6028
6029 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
6030 compose-mail-other-frame.
6031
6032 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
6033 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
6034 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
6035 buffer that shows the original message.
6036
6037 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
6038 with separator lines around the contents.
6039
6040 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
6041 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
6042 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
6043 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
6044
6045 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
6046
6047 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
6048 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
6049 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
6050 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
6051
6052 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
6053 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
6054 /etc/passwd.
6055
6056 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
6057 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
6058 /etc/passwd.
6059
6060 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
6061 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
6062 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
6063 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
6064
6065 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
6066 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
6067 be taken to be magic.
6068
6069 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
6070 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
6071 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
6072
6073 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
6074 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
6075
6076 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
6077 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
6078
6079 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
6080
6081 new key dired.el binding old key
6082 ------- ---------------- -------
6083 * c dired-change-marks c
6084 * m dired-mark m
6085 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
6086 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
6087 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
6088 * u dired-unmark u
6089 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
6090 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
6091 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
6092 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
6093 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
6094 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
6095
6096 ** Rmail changes.
6097
6098 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
6099 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
6100 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
6101 each time you run it.
6102
6103 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
6104 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
6105
6106 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
6107 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
6108 means to move in the opposite direction.
6109
6110 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
6111 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
6112
6113 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
6114 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
6115 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
6116 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
6117 for output.
6118
6119 ** Gnus changes.
6120
6121 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
6122
6123 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
6124 Gnus.
6125
6126 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
6127 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
6128
6129 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
6130 article mode line.
6131
6132 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
6133
6134 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
6135
6136 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
6137
6138 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
6139 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
6140 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
6141
6142 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
6143
6144 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
6145
6146 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
6147 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
6148
6149 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
6150 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
6151 used to pick articles.
6152
6153 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
6154 another have been added.
6155
6156 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6157
6158 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6159 generating lines in buffers.
6160
6161 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6162 `M-C-_'.
6163
6164 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6165
6166 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6167
6168 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6169
6170 *** Scores can be decayed.
6171
6172 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6173
6174 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6175 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6176
6177 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6178 the native server.
6179
6180 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6181
6182 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6183 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6184
6185 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6186
6187 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6188 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6189
6190 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6191 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6192
6193 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6194 a group.
6195
6196 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6197 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6198
6199 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6200
6201 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6202
6203 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6204
6205 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6206
6207 Use the `Y c' command.
6208
6209 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6210
6211 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6212
6213 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6214
6215 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6216 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6217
6218 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6219
6220 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6221
6222 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6223 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6224
6225 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6226
6227 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6228 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6229 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6230 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6231 this issue.)
6232
6233 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6234 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6235 particular news group. This can be done by:
6236
6237 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6238
6239 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6240 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6241 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6242 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6243 for reading and posting).
6244
6245 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6246 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6247 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6248 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6249 there.
6250
6251 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6252 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6253
6254 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6255 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6256 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6257 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6258 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6259
6260 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6261 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6262
6263 ** CC mode changes.
6264
6265 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6266 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6267 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6268 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6269 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6270 loaded.
6271
6272 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6273 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6274 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6275 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6276 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6277 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6278
6279 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6280 of the current buffer.
6281
6282 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6283 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6284 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6285
6286 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6287 style that the Python developers like.
6288
6289 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6290 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6291 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6292
6293 ** VC Changes [new]
6294
6295 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6296 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6297 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6298
6299 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6300 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6301 developers.
6302
6303 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6304 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6305
6306 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6307 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6308 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6309 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6310
6311 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6312 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6313
6314 ** Calendar changes.
6315
6316 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6317 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6318 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6319
6320 ** ps-print changes
6321
6322 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6323
6324 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6325
6326 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6327 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6328 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6329 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6330 It defaults to `letter'.
6331 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6332
6333 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6334 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6335 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6336
6337 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6338 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6339 It defaults to 1.
6340
6341 *** Horizontal layout
6342
6343 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6344 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6345 All are measured in points.
6346
6347 *** Vertical layout
6348
6349 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6350 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6351 All are measured in points.
6352
6353 *** Headers
6354
6355 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6356 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6357 margin above the text.
6358
6359 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6360 framing box is printed around the header.
6361
6362 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6363 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6364
6365 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6366 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6367 `ps-header-font-size'.
6368
6369 *** Font managing
6370
6371 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6372 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6373 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6374 elements to this alist.
6375
6376 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6377 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6378
6379 ** hideshow changes.
6380
6381 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6382 C++, ; for lisp).
6383
6384 *** Support for java-mode added.
6385
6386 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6387 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6388
6389 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6390 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6391 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6392
6393 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6394 robust and a lot faster.
6395
6396 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6397
6398 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6399 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6400 documentation for more details.
6401
6402 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6403
6404 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6405 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6406 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6407 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6408 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6409
6410 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6411 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6412 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6413 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6414
6415 ** Font Lock mode
6416
6417 *** Custom support
6418
6419 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6420 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6421 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6422 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6423 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6424 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6425
6426 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6427
6428 *** Maximum decoration
6429
6430 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6431 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6432 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6433 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6434 to get the old behavior.
6435
6436 *** New support
6437
6438 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6439
6440 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6441 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6442
6443 *** Configurable support
6444
6445 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6446 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6447 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6448 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6449 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6450 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6451 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6452
6453 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6454 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6455 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6456
6457 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6458
6459 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6460 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6461 for any mode.
6462
6463 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6464
6465 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6466
6467 in your ~/.emacs.
6468
6469 *** New faces
6470
6471 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6472 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6473 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6474 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6475
6476 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6477
6478 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6479 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6480 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6481
6482 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6483
6484 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6485 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6486 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6487 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6488 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6489 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6490 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6491
6492 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6493 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6494 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6495 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6496 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6497 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6498
6499 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6500
6501 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6502 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6503 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6504 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6505
6506 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6507 settings.
6508
6509 ** Ada mode changes.
6510
6511 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6512 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6513 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6514 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6515 stubs.
6516
6517 *** There are two new commands:
6518 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6519 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6520
6521 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6522 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6523 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6524
6525 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6526 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6527 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6528
6529 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6530 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6531 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6532 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6533
6534 ** Scheme mode changes.
6535
6536 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6537 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6538 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6539 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6540 have any effect.
6541
6542 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6543 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6544 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6545 variables as buffer-local variables.
6546
6547 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6548 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
6549
6550 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6551
6552 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6553 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6554 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6555 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6556
6557 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6558 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6559 buffer in Emacs.
6560
6561 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6562 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6563 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6564 option takes precedence.
6565
6566 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6567 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6568 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6569
6570 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6571 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6572 the current defun.
6573
6574 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6575 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6576
6577 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6578 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6579 necessary).
6580
6581 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6582 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6583 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6584 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6585 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6586 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6587
6588 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6589 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6590 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6591 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6592
6593 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6594 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6595 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6596 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6597 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6598
6599 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6600 since it applies only to the current frame.
6601
6602 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6603 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6604 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6605
6606 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6607 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6608 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6609 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6610 instead of just the file you are editing.
6611
6612 ** RefTeX mode
6613
6614 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6615 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6616 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6617 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6618 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6619
6620 C-c ( reftex-label
6621 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6622 knows which kind of label is needed.
6623
6624 C-c ) reftex-reference
6625 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6626 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6627
6628 C-c [ reftex-citation
6629 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6630 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6631
6632 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6633 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6634
6635 C-c = reftex-toc
6636 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6637 can quickly jump to every section.
6638
6639 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6640 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6641 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6642 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6643 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6644
6645 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6646
6647 *** Info documentation is now available.
6648
6649 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6650 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6651
6652 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6653 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6654
6655 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6656 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6657
6658 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6659 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6660 appropriate functions.
6661
6662 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6663 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6664
6665 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6666 been cleaned.
6667
6668 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6669 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6670
6671 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6672 shall be delimited.
6673
6674 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6675 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6676 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6677
6678 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6679 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6680 prefixed with `ALT'.
6681
6682 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6683 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6684 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6685 documentation).
6686
6687 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6688 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6689 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6690
6691 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6692 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6693
6694 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6695 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6696 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6697
6698 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6699
6700 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6701
6702 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6703 from alien sources.
6704
6705 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6706 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6707 crossref entries.
6708
6709 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6710 region.
6711
6712 *** Added support for imenu.
6713
6714 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6715 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6716 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6717 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6718
6719 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6720 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6721
6722 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6723
6724 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6725
6726 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6727 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6728 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6729 as an argument.
6730
6731 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6732 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6733
6734 ** browse-url changes
6735
6736 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6737 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6738 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6739 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6740 customization variables.
6741
6742 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6743
6744 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6745 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6746 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6747
6748 ** Changes in Ediff
6749
6750 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6751 pops up the Info file for this command.
6752
6753 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6754 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6755 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6756 directories).
6757
6758 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6759 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6760 files in the same directory.
6761
6762 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6763 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6764 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6765
6766 ** Changes in Viper
6767
6768 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6769 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6770 instead of vip-.
6771 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6772 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6773 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6774 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6775 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6776 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6777 color when Viper is in insert state.
6778 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6779 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6780 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6781
6782 ** Etags changes.
6783
6784 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6785 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6786 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6787 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6788 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6789
6790 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6791
6792 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6793 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6794
6795 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6796 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6797 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6798
6799 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6800 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6801 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6802 methods and protocols.
6803
6804 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6805 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6806 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6807 paragraph name.
6808
6809 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6810 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6811 at least M times and as many as N times.
6812
6813 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6814 in files has changed slightly.
6815
6816 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6817 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6818 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6819 with old time-stamp-format values.
6820
6821 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
6822 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
6823 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
6824 reasons.
6825
6826 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
6827 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
6828 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
6829 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
6830 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
6831 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
6832
6833 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
6834 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
6835 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
6836
6837 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
6838 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
6839 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
6840 recommended now will continue to work then.
6841
6842 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
6843 details.
6844
6845 ** There are some additional major modes:
6846
6847 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
6848 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
6849 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
6850
6851 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
6852 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
6853 into Emacs.
6854
6855 ** New Lisp packages include:
6856
6857 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
6858
6859 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
6860 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
6861
6862 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
6863
6864 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
6865 in shell buffers.
6866
6867 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
6868 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
6869 and `elint-defun'.
6870
6871 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
6872 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
6873 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
6874 strings or comments.
6875
6876 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
6877 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
6878 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
6879 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
6880 at these points.
6881
6882 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
6883 can visit them by short forms of their names.
6884
6885 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
6886 Emacs Lisp function at point.
6887
6888 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
6889
6890 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
6891 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
6892
6893 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
6894
6895 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
6896
6897 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
6898
6899 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
6900 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
6901
6902 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
6903 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
6904 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
6905 original place after inserting the copy.
6906
6907 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
6908 on the buffer.
6909
6910 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
6911 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
6912 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
6913
6914 Enable mouse-drag with:
6915 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
6916 -or-
6917 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
6918
6919 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
6920 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
6921
6922 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
6923 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
6924
6925 *** ogonek
6926
6927 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
6928 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
6929 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
6930 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
6931 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
6932 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
6933 instance) and vice versa.
6934
6935 To use this package load it using
6936 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
6937 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
6938 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
6939 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
6940 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
6941 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6942
6943 *** Interface to ph.
6944
6945 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6946
6947 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6948 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6949 these servers.
6950
6951 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6952
6953 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6954 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6955 while the real cursor does not move.
6956
6957 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6958 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6959
6960 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6961 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6962
6963 ** movemail change
6964
6965 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6966 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6967 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6968 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6969
6970 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6971 \f
6972 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6973
6974 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6975
6976 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6977 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6978 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6979 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6980 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6981
6982 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6983 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6984 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6985 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6986 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6987 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6988 \f
6989 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6990
6991 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6992 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6993 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6994 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6995
6996 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6997 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6998
6999 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
7000 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
7001 "win".
7002
7003 ** Basic Lisp changes
7004
7005 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
7006 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
7007
7008 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
7009 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
7010 or by the user.
7011
7012 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
7013
7014 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
7015
7016 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
7017 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
7018
7019 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
7020 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
7021 its argument.
7022
7023 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
7024
7025 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
7026
7027 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
7028
7029 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
7030 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
7031 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
7032 `format' function.
7033
7034 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
7035 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
7036 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
7037
7038 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
7039 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
7040 adding one of these suffixes.
7041
7042 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
7043 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
7044 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
7045
7046 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
7047 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
7048
7049 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
7050
7051 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
7052 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
7053
7054 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
7055 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
7056
7057 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
7058
7059 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
7060 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
7061
7062 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
7063 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
7064 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
7065 works using `save-current-buffer'.
7066
7067 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
7068 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
7069 of the last form.
7070
7071 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
7072 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
7073 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
7074 as the last form.
7075
7076 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
7077 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
7078 matches.
7079
7080 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
7081
7082 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
7083 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
7084 Then it returns that string.
7085
7086 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
7087
7088 (with-output-to-string
7089 (princ "The buffer is ")
7090 (princ (buffer-name)))
7091
7092 returns "The buffer is foo".
7093
7094 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
7095 is non-nil.
7096
7097 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
7098 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
7099 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
7100
7101 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
7102 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
7103
7104 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
7105 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
7106 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
7107 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
7108 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
7109 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
7110
7111 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
7112 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
7113 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
7114 characters".
7115
7116 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
7117 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
7118 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
7119 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
7120 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
7121
7122 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
7123 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
7124 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
7125 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
7126
7127 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
7128 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
7129
7130 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
7131
7132 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
7133 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
7134 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
7135 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
7136 guaranteed.
7137
7138 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
7139 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
7140 character).
7141
7142 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
7143
7144 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
7145 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
7146 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
7147 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
7148 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
7149
7150 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
7151
7152 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
7153 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
7154 more than the number of characters.
7155
7156 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7157 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7158 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7159 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7160 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7161 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7162
7163 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7164 and returns a string containing those characters.
7165
7166 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7167 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7168 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7169 character, sref signals an error.
7170
7171 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7172 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7173 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7174
7175 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7176 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7177 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7178
7179 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7180 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7181 to a vector of the characters in it.
7182
7183 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7184 of a string. You call it as follows:
7185
7186 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7187
7188 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7189 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7190 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7191 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7192 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7193
7194 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7195 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7196
7197 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7198 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7199
7200 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7201 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7202 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7203 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7204
7205 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7206
7207 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7208
7209 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7210 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7211 are not included in the resulting value.
7212
7213 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7214 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7215 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7216 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7217
7218 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7219 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7220 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7221 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7222 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7223 column START-COLUMN.
7224
7225 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7226 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7227 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7228 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7229 changed text, before the change.
7230
7231 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7232 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7233 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7234
7235 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7236
7237 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7238
7239 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7240 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7241
7242 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7243 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7244 which identify the character within that character set.
7245
7246 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7247 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7248 opposite of split-char.
7249
7250 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7251 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7252
7253 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7254 of all the characters in a string.
7255
7256 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7257 and specifying coding systems.
7258
7259 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7260 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7261 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7262 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7263 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7264 as what to do about code conversion.)
7265
7266 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7267 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7268
7269 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7270 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7271 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7272
7273 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7274 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7275 to match against a file name.
7276
7277 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7278 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7279 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7280 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7281 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7282 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7283
7284 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7285 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7286
7287 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7288 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7289
7290 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7291 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7292 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7293 service names.
7294
7295 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7296 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7297 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7298 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7299 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7300 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7301
7302 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7303 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7304
7305 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7306 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7307 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7308 start the subprocess.
7309
7310 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7311 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7312 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7313 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7314 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7315
7316 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7317 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7318 subprocess.
7319
7320 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7321 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7322 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7323 connection permanently or until overridden.
7324
7325 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7326 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7327 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7328 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7329 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7330 system for one operation at a time.
7331
7332 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7333 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7334
7335 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7336 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7337 The value is a cons cell,
7338 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7339 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7340 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7341 input to the subprocess.
7342
7343 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7344 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7345
7346 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7347 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7348 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7349
7350 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7351 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7352 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7353 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7354 customization.
7355
7356 Thus, instead of writing
7357
7358 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7359 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7360
7361 you would now write this:
7362
7363 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7364 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7365 :type 'boolean
7366 :group foo)
7367
7368 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7369 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7370 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7371 for a description of them.
7372
7373 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7374 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7375
7376 (defgroup ispell nil
7377 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7378 :group 'processes)
7379
7380 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7381 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7382 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7383 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7384 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7385
7386 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7387 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7388 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7389 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7390 first-level subgroups.
7391
7392 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7393
7394 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7395 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7396
7397 ** easy-mmode
7398
7399 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7400 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7401 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7402 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7403 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7404 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7405
7406 ** Text property changes
7407
7408 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7409 text property.
7410
7411 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7412 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7413 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7414 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7415 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7416
7417 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7418 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7419 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7420 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7421
7422 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7423 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7424 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7425
7426 ** Changes in invisibility features
7427
7428 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7429 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7430 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7431 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7432 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7433 make the overlay visible.
7434
7435 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7436 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7437 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7438 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7439 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7440 t when it should hide it.
7441
7442 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7443
7444 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7445 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7446 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7447 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7448 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7449 Here is an example of how to do this:
7450
7451 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7452 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7453 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7454 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7455
7456 ...
7457 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7458
7459 ...
7460 ;; When done with the overlays:
7461 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7462 ;; Or respectively:
7463 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7464
7465 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7466
7467 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7468 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7469 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7470 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7471
7472 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7473 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7474 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7475
7476 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7477 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7478
7479 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7480 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7481
7482 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7483 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7484 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7485
7486 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7487 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7488 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7489 determine the syntax type of the character.
7490
7491 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7492 of the current buffer.
7493
7494 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7495 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7496 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7497
7498 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7499 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7500 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7501 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7502 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7503
7504 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7505 text property.
7506
7507 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7508 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7509 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7510
7511 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7512 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7513 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7514 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7515 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7516
7517 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7518 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7519 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7520
7521 ** Changes in face features
7522
7523 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7524 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7525
7526 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7527 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7528
7529 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7530 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7531
7532 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7533 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7534
7535 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7536 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7537 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7538 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7539 overlay property).
7540
7541 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7542 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7543
7544 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7545
7546 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7547 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7548 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7549 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7550
7551 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7552 begins with ~.
7553
7554 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7555 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7556
7557 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7558 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7559
7560 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7561 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7562
7563 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7564 character code conversion as well as other things.
7565
7566 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7567 (formerly it did not).
7568
7569 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7570 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7571
7572 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7573 instead of constant strings.
7574
7575 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7576 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7577 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7578
7579 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7580 in the same way as before.
7581
7582 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7583 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7584 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7585
7586 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7587 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7588 else, and returns nil.
7589
7590 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7591 directory cannot be listed.
7592
7593 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7594
7595 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7596 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7597 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7598 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7599 ways:
7600
7601 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7602 It is available through the history command M-n.
7603
7604 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7605 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7606 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7607 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7608 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7609
7610 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7611 argument in this way.
7612
7613 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7614 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7615 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7616
7617 ** Echo area features
7618
7619 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7620 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7621 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7622 after the echo area is cleared.
7623
7624 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7625 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7626
7627 ** Keyboard input features
7628
7629 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7630 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7631
7632 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7633 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7634 by keyboard macros.
7635
7636 ** Frame-related changes
7637
7638 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7639 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7640 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7641
7642 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7643 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7644 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7645
7646 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7647 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7648 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7649 in the selected frame.
7650
7651 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7652 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7653 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7654
7655 ** X Windows features
7656
7657 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7658 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7659 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7660
7661 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7662 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7663
7664 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7665 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7666 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7667
7668 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7669 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7670
7671 ** Subprocess features
7672
7673 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7674 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7675 automatically.
7676
7677 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7678 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7679
7680 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7681 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7682
7683 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7684 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7685
7686 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7687 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7688 goes after the other menu items.
7689
7690 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7691 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7692 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7693 are in use.
7694
7695 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7696 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7697
7698 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7699 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7700 form.
7701
7702 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7703 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7704 but its hook is still run.
7705
7706 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7707 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7708
7709 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7710 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7711 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7712
7713 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7714 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7715 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7716 warned.
7717
7718 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7719 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7720
7721 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7722 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7723 functions like display-time.
7724
7725 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7726 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7727
7728 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7729 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7730 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7731
7732 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7733 if there is an error in compilation.
7734
7735 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7736 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7737 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7738 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7739
7740 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7741 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7742 the *scratch* buffer.
7743
7744 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7745 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7746 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7747 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7748
7749 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7750 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7751 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7752
7753 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7754 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7755 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7756 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7757
7758 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7759 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7760 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7761
7762 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7763 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7764 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7765 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7766 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7767 files at all.
7768
7769 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7770 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7771 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7772 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7773
7774 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7775 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7776 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7777 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7778
7779 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7780
7781 ** imenu.el changes.
7782
7783 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7784 item from menu created by imenu.
7785
7786 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7787 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7788 select one of those items.
7789 \f
7790 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7791 \f
7792 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7793
7794 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7795 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7796
7797 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7798 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7799 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7800 \f
7801 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7802
7803 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7804 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7805
7806 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7807 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7808 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7809 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7810 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7811 all caps.
7812
7813 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7814 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7815
7816 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7817 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7818 as in previous Emacs versions.
7819
7820 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7821 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
7822 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
7823 frames.
7824
7825 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
7826 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
7827 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
7828 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
7829 accident.
7830
7831 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
7832 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
7833 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
7834 line and then executing the macro.
7835
7836 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
7837
7838 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
7839 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
7840 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
7841 characters.
7842
7843 ** Font Lock mode
7844
7845 *** Font Lock support modes
7846
7847 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
7848 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
7849 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
7850 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
7851 Font Lock mode is enabled.
7852
7853 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
7854
7855 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
7856
7857 in your ~/.emacs.
7858
7859 *** lazy-lock
7860
7861 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
7862 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
7863 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
7864 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
7865 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
7866 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
7867 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
7868
7869 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
7870
7871 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
7872
7873 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
7874
7875 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7876
7877 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
7878 paren and key.
7879
7880 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
7881 supported.
7882
7883 ** Gnus changes.
7884
7885 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
7886 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
7887 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
7888 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
7889
7890 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
7891 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
7892
7893 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
7894 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
7895 obsolete.
7896
7897 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
7898 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
7899
7900 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
7901
7902 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
7903
7904 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
7905
7906 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
7907 referred.
7908
7909 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
7910
7911 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
7912
7913 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
7914
7915 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
7916
7917 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
7918 buffers.
7919
7920 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
7921
7922 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
7923
7924 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
7925
7926 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
7927
7928 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
7929
7930 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
7931
7932 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
7933
7934 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
7935 is possible.
7936
7937 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
7938
7939 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
7940 groups of groups.
7941
7942 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7943
7944 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7945 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7946
7947 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7948
7949 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7950
7951 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7952
7953 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7954
7955 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7956 expiration times.
7957
7958 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7959
7960 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7961 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7962
7963 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7964 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7965 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7966
7967 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7968 articles with the `*' command.
7969
7970 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7971
7972 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7973
7974 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7975
7976 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7977
7978 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7979 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7980
7981 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7982 buffer.
7983
7984 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7985
7986 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7987
7988 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7989
7990 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7991
7992 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7993
7994 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7995
7996 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7997
7998 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7999
8000 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
8001
8002 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
8003 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
8004
8005 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
8006 refetching.
8007
8008 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
8009
8010 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
8011 buffer to allow easier treatment.
8012
8013 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
8014
8015 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
8016
8017 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
8018
8019 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
8020 articles.
8021
8022 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
8023
8024 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
8025
8026 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
8027 cited text to hide is now customizable.
8028
8029 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
8030
8031 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
8032
8033 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
8034
8035 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
8036
8037 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
8038
8039 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
8040 in greater detail.
8041 \f
8042 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
8043
8044 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
8045 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
8046 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
8047 exists.
8048
8049 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
8050 as well as lists.
8051
8052 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
8053 of a given keymap.
8054
8055 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
8056 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
8057 keymap or nil.
8058
8059 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
8060 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
8061 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
8062 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
8063 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
8064 alias.
8065 \f
8066 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
8067
8068 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
8069
8070 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
8071 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
8072 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
8073 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
8074 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
8075
8076 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
8077 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
8078 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
8079
8080 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
8081
8082 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
8083 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
8084 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
8085 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
8086 chapter of the manual for details.
8087
8088 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
8089 customization variables take effect.
8090
8091 ** Marking with the mouse.
8092
8093 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
8094 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
8095 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
8096
8097 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
8098
8099 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
8100
8101 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
8102 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
8103
8104 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
8105 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
8106 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
8107 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
8108 applications, these problems are significant.
8109
8110 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
8111 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
8112 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
8113 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
8114 other DOS application as a subprocess.
8115
8116 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
8117 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
8118
8119 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
8120 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
8121 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
8122 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
8123 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
8124 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
8125
8126 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
8127
8128 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
8129 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
8130 minibuffer contains.
8131
8132 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
8133
8134 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
8135 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
8136 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
8137 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
8138
8139 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
8140 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
8141 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
8142 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
8143
8144 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
8145 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
8146
8147 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
8148 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
8149 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
8150
8151 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
8152 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
8153 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
8154 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8155
8156 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8157
8158 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8159 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8160
8161 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8162
8163 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8164 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8165 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8166 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8167 immediately after the selected one.
8168
8169 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8170 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8171
8172 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8173
8174 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8175 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8176 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8177 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8178 recover-session.
8179
8180 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8181 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8182 will not work.
8183
8184 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8185 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8186 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8187 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8188 now that the bug is fixed.
8189
8190 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8191
8192 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8193 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8194 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8195 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8196
8197 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8198 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8199 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8200 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8201
8202 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8203 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8204 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8205
8206 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8207 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8208 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8209 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8210 remain normal.
8211
8212 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8213 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8214
8215 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8216 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8217 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8218 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8219
8220 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8221 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8222 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8223 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8224 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8225 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8226
8227 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8228 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8229 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8230 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8231
8232 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8233 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8234 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8235
8236 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8237 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8238 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8239 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8240 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8241 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8242 to a limitation in font-lock).
8243
8244 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8245
8246 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8247 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8248 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8249 this example:
8250
8251 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8252 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8253
8254 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8255
8256 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8257
8258 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8259
8260 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8261
8262 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8263 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8264 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8265 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8266 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8267 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8268
8269 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8270 does the same job.
8271
8272 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8273 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8274
8275 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8276 text.
8277
8278 ** Font Lock mode
8279
8280 *** Global Font Lock mode
8281
8282 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8283 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8284 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8285 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8286 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8287
8288 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8289
8290 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8291
8292 in your ~/.emacs.
8293
8294 *** Local Refontification
8295
8296 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8297 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8298 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8299 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8300
8301 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8302 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8303 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8304 above and below point.
8305
8306 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8307
8308 ** Follow mode
8309
8310 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8311 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8312 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8313 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8314 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8315 follow-mode.
8316
8317 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8318
8319 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8320 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8321
8322 ** hide-show changes.
8323
8324 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8325 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8326 normal hooks.
8327
8328 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8329 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8330
8331 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8332 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8333 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8334
8335 ** MSDOS Changes
8336
8337 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8338 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8339
8340 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8341 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8342
8343 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8344
8345 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8346 pressing both mouse buttons.
8347
8348 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8349 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8350 are:
8351
8352 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8353 now works.
8354
8355 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8356
8357 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8358 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8359
8360 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8361
8362 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8363
8364 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8365
8366 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8367
8368 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8369 \f
8370 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8371
8372 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8373 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8374 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8375 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8376 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8377
8378 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8379
8380 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8381 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8382 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8383 be different.
8384
8385 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8386 than `system-type'.
8387
8388 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8389
8390 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8391 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8392
8393 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8394 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8395
8396 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8397 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8398 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8399
8400 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8401 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8402 like this:
8403
8404 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8405
8406 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8407 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8408 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8409
8410 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8411 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8412 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8413
8414 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8415 up if too much time passes.
8416
8417 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8418
8419 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8420 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8421 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8422 form in BODY.
8423
8424 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8425 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8426 call looks like this:
8427
8428 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8429
8430 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8431 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8432 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8433 ARGS.
8434
8435 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8436 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8437 command.
8438
8439 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8440 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8441 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8442 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8443
8444 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8445 idle for SECS seconds.
8446
8447 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8448 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8449 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8450 instead.
8451
8452 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8453 there is no answer within a certain time.
8454
8455 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8456
8457 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8458 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8459 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8460
8461 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8462 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8463 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8464 arguments in between are ignored.
8465
8466 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8467 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8468
8469 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8470 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8471 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8472 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8473 version.
8474
8475 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8476 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8477 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8478 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8479 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8480 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8481
8482 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8483 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8484 systems with limited file name syntax.
8485
8486 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8487 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8488 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8489 completions.el:
8490
8491 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8492 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8493 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8494
8495 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8496 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8497 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8498 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8499 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8500
8501 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8502 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8503 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8504
8505 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8506 marker from its buffer position.
8507
8508 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8509 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8510 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8511
8512 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8513 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8514 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8515 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8516 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8517 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8518
8519 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8520 errors that happen often during editing.
8521
8522 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8523 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8524 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8525
8526 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8527 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8528
8529 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8530 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8531 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8532 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8533 and not get-buffer-window.
8534
8535 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8536 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8537 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8538
8539 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8540 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8541 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8542 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8543 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8544 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8545 over and over for the same text.
8546
8547 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8548
8549 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8550 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8551
8552 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8553 ;; $HEADER: text $
8554
8555 in addition to the normal
8556
8557 ;; HEADER: text
8558
8559 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8560 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8561 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8562
8563
8564 \f
8565 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
8566
8567 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8568 Copyright information:
8569
8570 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8571
8572 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8573 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8574 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8575 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8576
8577 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8578 of this document, or of portions of it,
8579 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8580 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8581 \f
8582 Local variables:
8583 mode: outline
8584 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
8585 end: