1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
3 Copyright (C) 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 23.
11 See files NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18, and NEWS.1-17
12 for changes in older Emacs versions.
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
18 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
19 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
20 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
21 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
24 * About external Lisp packages
27 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.1
29 ** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+, rather than Lucid.
31 ** Fonts are handled by new code capable of dealing with multiple font
32 backends. This requires the freetype and fontconfig libraries, and
33 supports local fonts (fonts installed on the machine where Emacs is
34 running). Additionally, the Xft library can be used for antialiasing
35 support, the otf library for complex text layout by OpenType fonts,
36 and the m17n library for text shaping. Fontconfig-like font names
37 (e.g. monospace-12) are accepted. The old font handling code can
38 be used by passing the configure option `--disable-font-backend'
39 (also available as a run-time option).
41 ** The new configuration option "--with-dbus" enables D-Bus language
44 ** The Mac Carbon port is no longer supported.
45 Instead, use... [FIXME what?]
47 ** configure now checks for libgif before libungif when searching for
50 ** Support for systems without alloca has been removed.
52 ** Support for Sun windows has been removed.
54 ** Support for many obsolete platforms has been removed.
55 See the list at the end of etc/MACHINES for details.
57 ** The `emacstool' utility has been removed.
59 ** The configure options `--with-gcc', `--without-gcc' have been removed.
60 Configure will use gcc by default. Set the CC environment variable if
61 you need control over which C compiler is used.
63 ** The configure option `--with-gtk' has been removed. Gtk is now the
64 default toolkit, but you can use --with-x-toolkit=gtk if necessary.
66 * Changes in Emacs 23.1
68 ** Minibuffer input of shell commands now comes with completion.
70 ** Operations like C-x b and C-x C-f which use switch-to-buffer do not fail
71 any more when used in a minibuffer or a dedicated window. Instead, they
72 fallback on using pop-to-buffer which will use some other window.
74 ** Emacs now supports using both X displays and ttys in one session.
75 Start the server (M-x server-start). Then `emacsclient -t' creates a
76 tty frame connected to the running emacs server. You can also use any
77 number of different ttys. `emacsclient -c' creates a new X11 frame on
78 the current $DISPLAY or a tty frame if $DISPLAY is not set.
80 You can test for the presence of this feature in your Lisp code by
81 testing for the `multi-tty' feature.
83 ** The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.
84 (It has about four times the code space, which should be plenty).
86 The internal encoding used for buffers and strings is now
87 Unicode-based and called `utf-8-emacs'. utf-8-emacs is backwards
88 compatible with the UTF-8 encoding of Unicode. The `emacs-mule'
89 coding system can still read and write data in the old internal encoding.
91 Since the internal encoding is also used by default for byte-compiled
92 files -- i.e. the normal coding system for byte-compiled Lisp files is
93 now utf-8-Emacs -- Lisp containing non-ASCII characters which is
94 compiled by Emacs 23 can't be read by earlier versions of Emacs. Files
95 compiled by Emacs 20, 21, or 22 are loaded correctly as emacs-mule
96 (whether or not they contain multibyte characters), which makes loading
97 them somewhat slower than Emacs 23-compiled files. Thus it may be worth
98 recompiling existing .elc files which don't need to be shared with older
101 ** There are assorted new coding systems/aliases -- see M-x list-coding-systems.
103 ** There is a new charset implementation with many new charsets.
104 See M-x list-character-sets. New charsets can be defined conveniently
105 as tables of unicodes.
107 The dimension of a charset is now 1, 2, 3, or 4, and the size of each
108 dimension is no longer limited to 94 or 96.
110 A dynamic charset priority list is used to infer the charset of
111 characters for display.
113 ** There are new Chinese-GBK, Chinese-GB18030, Khmer, Bengali,
114 Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu, Sinhala, and TaiViet language
117 ** Emacs now supports the XEmbed specification.
118 You can embed Emacs in another application on X11. The new command line option
119 --parent-id is used to pass the parent window id to Emacs. See
120 http://standards.freedesktop.org/xembed-spec/xembed-spec-latest.html
121 for details about XEmbed.
123 ** Emacs comes with a new set of default icons.
124 Various resolutions are available as etc/images/icons/hicolor/*/apps/emacs.png.
125 The Emacs 22 icon is available as `emacs22.png' in the same location.
127 ** Built-in functions (subr) can now have an interactive specification
128 that is not a prompt string. If the `intspec' parameter of a `DEFUN'
129 starts with a `(', the string is evaluated as a Lisp form.
131 ** set-file-modes is now interactive and can take the mode value in
132 symbolic notation thanks to auxiliary functions.
134 ** split-window-preferred-function specifies whether display-buffer should
135 split windows vertically or horizontally.
137 ** Emacsclient has been extended to support opening a new terminal
138 frame. Its behavior has been changed to open a new Emacs frame by
139 default. Use the -c option to get the old behavior of opening files in
140 the currently selected Emacs frame.
142 ** The refcards are now shipped as PDF files.
144 ** Emacs now supports the SVG image format through librsvg2.
146 ** Transient Mark Mode is now on by default.
148 ** mark-even-if-inactive now defaults to t
150 ** C-SPC C-SPC in transient-mark-mode pushes a mark without activating it.
152 ** If you set find-file-confirm-nonexistent-file to t, then C-x C-f
153 requires confirmation before opening a non-existent file.
155 ** If the gpm mouse server is running and t-mouse-mode enabled, Emacs uses a
156 Unix socket in a GNU/Linux console to talk to server, rather than faking events
157 using the client program mev. This C level approach provides mouse
158 highlighting, and help echoing in the minibuffer.
160 ** The new variable next-error-recenter specifies how next-error should
161 recenter the visited source file. Its value can be a number (for example,
162 0 for top line, -1 for bottom line), or nil for no recentering.
164 ** New command recenter-top-bottom moves the current line to window
165 center, top and bottom on successive invokations.
167 ** C-l is bound to the new command recenter-top-bottom, rather than recenter.
169 ** The mode-line displays a `@' if the default-directory for the current buffer
170 is on a remote machine, or a hyphen otherwise.
172 ** The mode-line displays a mode menu when mouse-1 is clicked on a minor mode,
173 in the same way as it already did for major modes.
175 ** The new command balance-windows-area balances windows both vertically
178 ** The new command close-display-connection can be used to close a connection
179 to a remote display, e.g. because the display is about to become unreachable.
181 ** The command shell prompts for the default directory, when it is
182 called with a prefix, and the default directory is a remote file name.
183 This is because some file name handlers (like ange-ftp) are not able to
184 run processes remotely.
186 ** The new command `display-time-world' starts an updating time display
187 using several time zones, in a buffer.
189 ** The new function `format-seconds' converts a number of seconds into a
190 readable string of days, hours, etc.
192 ** The new variables `before-init-time' and `after-init-time' record the
193 value of `current-time' before and after Emacs loads the init files.
195 ** The new function `emacs-uptime' returns the uptime of an Emacs instance.
197 ** The new function `emacs-init-time' returns the duration of the
198 Emacs initialization.
200 ** The minor modes unify-8859-on-encoding-mode, unify-8859-on-decoding-mode
204 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.1
206 ** The option `inhibit-startup-screen' (with aliases to old names
207 `inhibit-splash-screen' and `inhibit-startup-message') doesn't inhibit
208 display of the initial message in the *scratch* buffer. If you don't
209 want to display the initial message in the *scratch* buffer at startup,
210 you can set the option `initial-scratch-message' to nil.
212 ** New user option `initial-buffer-choice' specifies what to display
213 after starting Emacs: startup screen, *scratch* buffer, visiting a
216 ** New alias `argv' for `command-line-args-left'
217 This is a convenience alias, so that one can write `(pop argv)'
218 inside of --eval command line arguments in order to access
221 ** The new command-line option `--disable-font-backend' disables the
222 new font backend code at runtime. This option is not available if
223 Emacs was compiled without font-backend support.
225 ** The abbrev file is no longer read at startup in batch mode.
227 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
230 ** In Dired-x, all command guesses for ! are now added to the default
231 list accessible by M-n instead of pushing all guesses temporarily into
235 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
238 ** C-M-% now shows replacement as it would look in the buffer, with
239 `\N' and `\&' substituted according to the match. Old behavior can be
240 restored by customizing `query-replace-show-replacement'.
243 ** M-q now fills the region if the region is active and
244 `transient-mark-mode' is turned on. Otherwise, it fills the current
248 ** M-$ now checks spelling of the region if the region is active and
249 `transient-mark-mode' is turned on. Otherwise, it checks spelling of the
252 ** TAB now indents the region if the region is active and
253 `transient-mark-mode' is turned on.
255 ** `use-empty-active-region' controls whether an empty active region
256 in Transient Mark mode should make commands operate on that empty region.
258 ** C-z now invokes `suspend-frame', C-x C-c now invokes
259 `save-buffers-kill-terminal'.
261 ** New command kill-matching-buffers kills buffers whose name matches a regexp.
263 ** You can disable kill ring commands from accessing the primary selection
264 by setting `x-select-enable-primary' to nil.
266 ** If `select-active-regions' is t, setting the mark automatically
267 makes the new region into the primary selection (for interaction with
268 other window applications). If you enable this, you might want to bind
269 `mouse-yank-primary' to Mouse-2.
271 ** If `yank-pop-change-selection' is t, rotating the kill ring
272 also updates the selection or clipboard to the current yank,
273 just as M-w would do so with the text it copies to the kill ring.
275 ** Minibuffer changes
277 *** Many commands that read a buffer name now provide a list of all buffers
278 sorted by recency in the list of minibuffer default values available
279 via M-n or down-arrow. It is also possible to search this buffer list
280 in the minibuffer using incremental search commands C-s and C-M-s
281 (for instance, `C-x b C-s substr RET RET' to select a buffer by part
284 *** In C-x d, if you type M-n you get the visited file name of the
287 *** In Dired, a list of commands for ! extracted from mailcap according to
288 file extensions are added to the default list accessible by M-n.
290 *** A list of regexp default values is available via M-n for `occur',
291 `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many'. This list includes the active
292 region in transient-mark-mode, the word under the cursor, the last isearch
293 regexp, the last isearch string and the last replacement regexp.
295 *** isearch started in the minibuffer searches in the minibuffer history.
296 Reverse isearch commands (C-r, C-M-r) search in previous minibuffer
297 history elements, and forward isearch commands (C-s, C-M-s) search in
298 next history elements. When the reverse search reaches the first history
299 element, it wraps to the last history element, and the forward search
300 wraps to the first history element. When the search is terminated, the
301 history element containing the search string becomes the current.
305 *** `mode-line-emphasis' is used to highlight certain mode-line information;
306 for example while waiting for a VC command to finish.
310 *** The new function `face-all-attributes' returns an alist describing
311 all the basic attributes of a given face.
314 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
316 ** FIXME add details of new packages imported from lisp/gnus.
317 [Maybe some information from doc/misc/gnus-coding.texi can be reused]
319 ** The package doc-view.el has been added. It supports viewing of PDF,
320 PostScript and DVI documents inside an Emacs buffer by converting the
321 document to a set of PNG images first. One can also search for a
322 regular expression in the document. The commentary of the file explains
325 ** The nXML package has been added. It is a new mode for editing XML
326 documents. nXML mode allows a schema to be associated with the XML
327 document being edited. nXML mode uses Relax NG as its schema
328 language. The schema is used to provide two key features:
330 *** Continuous validation. nXML validates as you type, highlighting
331 any invalid parts of your document.
333 *** Completion. nXML can assist you in entering an element name,
334 attribute name or data value by using information about what is
335 allowed by the schema in that context.
337 ** A new game called `bubbles' has been added. This is a version of
338 the "Same Game" with configurable difficulty level.
340 ** minibuffer-indicate-depth-mode shows the minibuffer depth in the prompt.
342 ** Remember Mode (remember.el) is now included with Emacs. It is a
343 mode for quickly jotting down things to remember. Included with
344 remember.el is a backend that can save notes to a Diary file. Please
345 consult the Remember Manual for usage details.
347 ** D-Bus language bindings for Elisp are provided by the package
348 dbus.el and by extensions to the C modules of Emacs. D-Bus is an
349 inter-process communication mechanism for applications residing on the
350 same host, based on messages. See the manual for further details.
352 ** EasyPG is now part of the Emacs distribution. It is an all-in-one
353 GnuPG interface which includes GnuPG keyring browser, cryptographic
354 operations on regions and files, and automatic encryption of *.gpg
355 files. See the EasyPG Assistant User's Manual for further details.
357 ** json.el is now included with Emacs. It is a library for parsing
358 and generating JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). JSON is a
359 lightweight data-interchange format.
361 ** Auto Composition Mode is a minor mode that composes characters
362 automatically when they are displayed. It is globally on by default.
363 It uses `auto-composition-function' (default `auto-compose-chars').
365 ** The package linum.el is now included with Emacs. It it a new minor
366 mode to display line numbers for the current buffer.
368 ** proced.el has been added. It operates on processes like dired.
369 Proced makes an Emacs buffer containing a listing of the current processes
370 (using ps(1)). You can use the normal Emacs commands to move around in
371 this buffer, and special Proced commands to operate on the processes listed.
374 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
376 ** A new `whitespace' package has been installed, and the pre-existing one
377 renamed to `old-whitespace'.
378 [FIXME someone explain why this is good, if it is...]
380 ** In Change Log mode, the new function `change-log-find-file', bound to
381 C-c C-f, finds the file associated with the current log entry.
383 ** abbrev was rewritten in Elisp and extended with more flexibility.
384 *** New functions: abbrev-get, abbrev-put, abbrev-table-get, abbrev-table-put,
386 *** Special hook `abbrev-expand-functions' obsoletes `pre-abbrev-expand-hook'.
387 *** `make-abbrev-table', `define-abbrev', `define-abbrev-table' all take
388 extra arguments for arbitrary properties.
389 *** New variable `abbrev-minor-mode-table-alist'.
390 *** `local-abbrev-table' can hold a list of abbrev-tables.
391 *** Abbrevs have now the following special properties:
392 `:count', `:system', `:enable-function', `:case-fixed'.
393 *** Abbrev-tables have now the following special properties:
394 `:parents', `:case-fixed', `:enable-function', `:regexp',
395 `abbrev-table-modiff'.
398 *** New macro `with-help-window' should set up help windows better
399 than `with-output-to-temp-buffer' with `print-help-return-message'.
400 *** New option `help-window-select' permits to customize whether help
401 window shall be automatically selected when invoking help.
402 *** New variable `help-window-point-marker' permits to specify new
403 position of point in help window (for example in `view-lossage').
405 ** view-remove-frame-by-deleting is now by default t
406 since users found iconification of view-mode frames distracting.
410 *** New command `isearch-occur' bound to `M-s o' in isearch mode
411 runs `occur' with the current search string.
413 *** isearch can now search through multiple ChangeLog files.
414 When running isearch in a ChangeLog file, if the search fails,
415 then another C-s tries searching the previous ChangeLog,
416 if there is one (e.g. go from ChangeLog to ChangeLog.12).
418 This is enabled if isearch-buffers-multi is non-nil.
420 *** The part of an isearch that failed to match is highlighted in `isearch-fail'
423 ** smerge-refine highlights word-level details of changes in conflict.
424 It's used automatically as you move through conflicts, see smerge-auto-refine.
428 *** diff-refine-hunk highlights word-level details of changes in a diff hunk.
429 It's used automatically as you move through hunks, see
430 diff-auto-refine. It is bound to `C-c C-b'.
432 *** diff-add-change-log-entries-other-window iterates through the diff
433 buffer and tries to create ChangeLog entries for each change.
434 It is bound to `C-x 4 A'.
436 ** archive-mode has basic support to browse Rar archives.
438 ** talk.el has been extended for multiple tty support.
440 ** compilation-auto-jump-to-first-error tells `compile' to jump to
441 the first error encountered during compilations.
443 ** In the `copyright' package, you can specify your copyright holders' names.
444 Only copyright lines with holders matching copyright-names-regexp will be
445 considered for update.
447 ** eldoc highlights the function argument under point
448 with the face `eldoc-highlight-function-argument'.
450 ** hide-ifdef-mode permits to shadow ifdef-blocks instead of hiding them.
451 See option `hide-ifdef-shadow' and function `hide-ifdef-toggle-shadowing'.
454 ** defcustom accepts new keyword arguments, `:safe' and `:risky', which
455 set a variable's `safe-local-variable' and `risky-local-variable' property.
458 *** The --members option is now the default.
460 Use --no-members if you want the old default behaviour of not tagging
461 struct members in C, members variables in C++ and variables in PHP.
464 *** Clicking on the VC mode-line entry now pops the VC menu.
466 *** The VC mode-line entry now has a tooltip that explains the VC file status.
468 *** VC now supports applying VC operations to a set of files at a time.
470 This enables VC to work much more effectively with changeset-oriented
471 version-control systems such as Subversion, GNU Arch, Mercurial, and
472 Bzr. VC will now pass a multiple-file commit to these systems
473 as a single changeset.
475 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type V to toggle the annotation visibility.
477 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type f to show the file revision on
480 *** vc-git supports the "git grep" command.
482 ** log-edit now has a command bound to C-c C-d to show the diff for
485 ** sgml-electric-tag-pair-mode lets you simultaneously edit matched tag pairs.
487 ** The appearance of superscript and subscript in TeX is more customizable.
488 See the documentation of the variables: tex-fontify-script,
489 tex-font-script-display, tex-suscript-height-ratio, and
490 tex-suscript-height-minimum.
494 *** New command `bibtex-initialize' (re)initializes BibTeX buffers.
496 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' options `whitespace', `braces', and
497 `string', disabled by default.
499 *** New variable `bibtex-cite-matcher-alist' contains rules to
500 identify cited keys in BibTeX entries, used by `bibtex-find-crossref'.
502 *** Command `bibtex-url' allows multiple URLs per entry.
507 *** New connection methods.
508 The new methods "plinkx", "plink2", "psftp", "sftp" and "fish" have
509 been introduced. There are also new so-called gateway methods
510 "tunnel" and "socks".
512 *** Multihop syntax has been removed.
513 The pseudo-method "multi" has been removed. Instead of, multi hops
514 can be specified by the new variable `tramp-default-proxies-alist'.
516 *** More default settings.
517 Default values can be set via the variables `tramp-default-user',
518 `tramp-default-user-alist' and `tramp-default-host'.
520 *** Connection information is cached.
521 In order to reduce connection setup, information about used
522 connections are kept persistent in a file. The name of this file is
523 defined in the variable `tramp-persistency-file-name'.
525 *** Control of remote processes.
526 Running processes on a remote host can be controlled by settings in
527 `tramp-remote-path' and `tramp-remote-process-environment'.
529 *** Success of remote copy is checked.
530 When the variable `file-precious-flag' is set, the success of a remote
531 file copy is checked via the file's checksum.
533 ** Miscellaneous programming mode changes
535 *** The file etc/emacs.py now supports both Python 2 and 3, meaning
536 that either version can be used as inferior Python by python.el.
538 *** Python mode now has `pdbtrack' functionality. When using pdb to
539 debug a Python program, pdbtrack notices the pdb prompt and displays
540 the source file and line that the program is stopped at, much the same
541 way as gud-mode does for debugging C programs with gdb.
543 *** The variable `fortran-line-length' can change the fixed-form line-length.
545 *** In Fortran mode, M-; is now bound to the standard comment-dwim,
546 rather than fortran-indent-comment.
549 *** (The increasingly misnamed) F90 mode supports Fortran 2003 syntax.
553 *** The Gnus package has been updated
555 *** In Emacs 23, Gnus uses Emacs' new internal coding system `utf-8-emacs' for
556 saving articles drafts and ~/.newsrc.eld. These file may not be read
557 correctly in Emacs 22 and below. If you want to Gnus across different Emacs
558 versions, you may set `mm-auto-save-coding-system' to `emacs-mule'.
560 *** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
562 See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "No Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
566 *** comint-mode uses `start-file-process' now (see Lisp Changes).
567 If `default-directory' is a remote file name, subprocesses are started
568 on the corresponding remote system.
570 *** C-x C-q in dired-mode now runs the command wdired-change-to-wdired-mode,
571 and C-x C-q in wdired-mode exits it with asking a question about
574 *** The new command `eshell/info' runs info in an eshell buffer.
576 *** The pcmpl-unix package supports hostname completion for ssh and scp.
578 *** WoMan tries to add locale-specific manual page directories to the
579 search path. This can be disabled by setting `woman-locale' to nil.
581 *** The new variable `ffap-rfc-directories' specifies a list of local
582 directories in which `ffap-rfc' will first search for RFCs.
584 *** net-utils has an `iwconfig' command, similar to the existing `ifconfig'.
585 It is used to configure wireless interfaces.
588 * Changes in Emacs 23.1 on non-free operating systems
591 ** IPv6 is supported on MS-Windows.
592 Emacs now supports IPv6 on Windows XP and later, and earlier versions
593 of Windows with third party IPv6 stacks installed. Previously IPv6 was
594 supported on other platforms, but not on Windows due to using the winsock
595 1.1 header file, even though Emacs was linking to the winsock 2 library.
597 ** Busy cursor (hourglass) now displays on MS-Windows.
598 When Emacs is busy, an hourglass mouse cursor is displayed on Windows.
599 Previously only X supported the busy cursor.
601 ** More keys available on MS-Windows.
602 Keys normally associated with IMEs, and some exotic keys not normally found
603 on standard keyboards have been given names so they can be bound to functions
604 inside Emacs. If there are keys on your keyboard that have not been exposed
605 to Emacs in the past, try C-h k to see if they are available now.
607 Emacs can now bind functions to the extra buttons for media player and
608 browser control present on some keyboards. These buttons are disabled
609 by default, since enabling them prevents their system-wide use when
610 Emacs has focus. To enable them, set the variable
611 w32-pass-multimedia-buttons to nil. See the doc string of that variable
612 for the list of extra keys that are available.
614 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
616 ** The multibyteness of process filters is determined by the coding-system
617 used for decoding. The functions `process-filter-multibyte-p' and
618 `set-process-filter-multibyte' are obsolete.
620 ** The behavior of map-char-table has changed. It may call the
621 specified function with a cons (FROM . TO) as a key if characters in
622 that range have the same value.
624 ** The value of the function `charset-id' is now always 0.
626 ** The functions `register-char-codings' and `coding-system-spec'
629 ** The cpXXX coding systems are now supported automatically. The
630 functions cp-...-codepage, which you had to use in Emacs 22 to enable
631 support for these coding systems, have been deleted.
634 ** The function `dired-call-process' has been removed.
636 ** The variable `byte-compile-warnings' can now be a list starting with `not',
637 meaning to disable the specified warnings. The meaning of this list
638 may therefore be the reverse of what you expect (of course, this is
639 only an issue if you make use of the new `not' syntax). Rather than
640 checking/manipulating elements directly, use the new functions
641 `byte-compile-warning-enabled-p', `byte-compile-disable-warning', and
642 `byte-compile-enable-warning.'
644 ** `mode-name' is no longer guaranteed to be a string.
645 Use `(format-mode-line mode-name)' to ensure a string value.
647 ** The following features have been removed. They were used for
648 displaying various scripts with specific fonts, and are no longer
649 needed now that OpenType font support is available:
651 *** `devanagari' and `devan-util', and all associated devanagari-* and
652 dev-* functions and variables (formerly used for Devanagari script).
654 *** `kannada' and `knd-util', and all associated kannada-* and knd-*
655 functions and variables (formerly used for Kannada script).
657 *** `malayalam' and `mlm-util', and all associated malayalam-* and
658 mlm-* functions and variables (formerly used for Malayalam script).
660 *** `tamil' and `tml-util, and all associated tamil-* and tml-*
661 functions and variables (formerly used for Tamil script).
664 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
666 ** The `read-shell-command' function does what its name says, with completion.
667 It uses the minibuffer-local-shell-command-map for that.
669 ** The `buffer-swap-text' function can swap the text between two buffers.
670 This can be useful for modes such as tar-mode, archive-mode, RMAIL.
672 ** `clear-image-cache' can be told to flush only images of a specific file.
674 ** clone-indirect-buffer now runs the clone-indirect-buffer-hook.
676 ** `beginning-of-defun-function' now takes one argument, the count
677 given to `beginning-of-defun'.
679 ** The variable `inhibit-changing-match-data', if non-nil, prevents the
680 search and match primitives from changing the match data.
683 ** New function `match-substitute-replacement' returns the result of
684 `replace-match' without actually using it in the buffer.
686 ** If a local hook function has a non-nil `permanent-local-hook'
687 property, then `kill-all-local-variables' does not remove it from
688 the local value of the hook variable. This means it remains
689 even if you change major modes.
692 ** A list of default values can be specified for the DEFAULT argument of
693 functions `read-from-minibuffer', `read-string', `read-command',
694 `read-variable', `read-buffer', `completing-read'. Elements of this list
695 are available for inserting into the minibuffer by typing `M-n'.
696 For empty input these functions return the first element of this list.
698 ** `custom-note-var-changed' tells Custom to treat the change in a certain
699 variable as having been made within Custom.
701 ** `frame-inherited-parameters' lets new frames inherit parameters from
704 ** Commands should use `use-region-p' to test whether there is
705 an active region that they should operate on.
707 ** `region-active-p' returns non-nil when Transient Mark mode
708 is enabled and there is an active region. This is NOT the best function
709 to use to test whether a command should operate on the region instead
710 of the usual behavior -- for that, use `use-region-p'.
712 ** New keymap `input-decode-map' overrides like key-translation-map, but
713 applies before function-key-map. Also it is terminal-local contrary to
714 key-translation-map. Terminal-specific key-sequences are generally added to
715 this map rather than to function-key-map now.
717 ** The new macro `declare-function' suppresses compiler warnings about
718 undefined functions. The new `check-declare' package verifies that such
719 statements are accurate (i.e. the functions are actually defined in
720 the specified files).
722 ** The new function `read-color' reads a color name using the minibuffer.
724 ** `interprogram-paste-function' can now return one string or a list
725 of strings. In the latter case, Emacs puts the second and following
726 strings on the kill ring.
728 ** Character code, representation, and charset changes.
730 The character code space is now 0x0..0x3FFFFF with no gap.
731 Characters of code 0x0..0x10FFFF are Unicode characters of the same code points.
732 Characters of code 0x3FFF80..0x3FFFFF are raw 8-bit bytes.
734 Generic characters no longer exist.
736 In buffer and string, characters are represented by UTF-8 byte
737 sequence in a multibyte buffer/string.
739 The concept of a charset has changed. A single character may belong to
740 multiple charsets (e.g. a-grave, U+00E0, belongs to charsets unicode,
741 iso-8859-1, iso-8859-3, etc).
743 *** The new function `characterp' returns t if and only if the argument
744 is a character. This replaces `char-valid-p', which is now obsolete.
746 *** The new function `max-char' returns the maximum character code
747 (currently it is #x3FFFFF).
749 *** The functions `encode-char' and `decode-char' now accept any character sets.
751 *** The function `define-charset' now accepts a completely different
752 form of arguments (old-style arguments still work).
754 *** The new function `define-charset-alias' defines an alias of a charset.
756 *** The value of the function `char-charset' depends on the current
757 priorities of charsets.
759 *** The new function `charset-priority-list' returns the list of
760 charsets ordered by priority.
762 *** The new function `set-charset-priority' sets priorities of charsets.
764 *** The new function `unibyte-charset' returns the current unibyte
765 charset. The unibyte charset determines how unibyte/multibyte
768 *** The new function `set-unibyte-charset' sets the unibyte charset.
770 *** The new function `unibyte-string' make a unibyte string from bytes.
772 *** The new function `define-char-code-property' defines a character
775 *** The new function `char-code-property-description' returns the
776 description string of a character code property.
778 *** The function get-char-code-property now accepts many Unicode base
779 character properties. They are `name', `general-category',
780 `canonical-combining-class', `bidi-class', `decomposition',
781 `decimal-digit-value', `digit-value', `numeric-value', `mirrored',
782 `old-name', `iso-10646-comment', `uppercase', `lowercase', and
785 *** The new variable `find-word-boundary-function-table' is a
786 char-table of functions to search for a word boundary.
788 *** The new variable `char-script-table' is a char-table of script names.
790 *** The new variable `char-width-table' is a char-table of character widths.
792 *** The new variable `print-charset-text-property' controls how to
793 handle `charset' text property on printing a string.
795 *** The new variable `printable-chars' is a char-table defining if a
796 character is printable or not.
798 *** The functions `modify-syntax-entry' and `modify-category-entry' now
799 accepts a cons of characters as the first argument, and modify all
800 entries in that range of characters.
802 ** Code conversion changes
804 *** The new function `define-coding-system' should be used to define a
805 coding system instead of `make-coding-system' (which is now obsolete).
807 *** The functions `encode-coding-region' and `decode-coding-region'
808 have an optional 4th argument to specify where the result of
809 conversion should go.
811 *** The functions `encode-coding-string' and `decode-coding-string'
812 have an optional 4th argument specifying a buffer to store the result
815 *** The new function `with-coding-priority' executes the body part with
816 the specified coding system priority order.
818 *** The new function `check-coding-systems-region' checks if the text
819 in the region is encodable by the specified coding systems.
821 *** The new function `coding-system-aliases' returns a list of aliases
824 *** The new function `coding-system-charset-list' returns a list of
825 charsets supported by a coding system.
827 *** The new function `coding-system-priority-list' returns a list of
828 coding systems ordered by their priorities.
830 *** The new function `set-coding-system-priority' sets priorities of
833 *** The functions `set-coding-priority' and `make-coding-system' are obsolete.
835 ** There is a new input method, Robin, different from Quail.
836 It has three functionalities:
837 i) a simple input method (converts an ASCII sequence into a string).
838 ii) converts an existing buffer substring into another string
839 iii) reverse conversion (each character produced by a
840 robin rule can hold the original ASCII sequence as a char-code-property)
842 *** The new function `robin-define-package' defines a Robin package.
844 *** The new function `robin-modify-package' modifies an existing Robin package.
846 *** The new function `robin-use-package' starts using a Robin package
849 ** Changes related to the new font backend
851 Which font backends to use can be specified by the X resource "FontBackend".
852 For instance, to use both X core fonts and Xft fonts:
854 Emacs.FontBackend: x,xft
856 If this resource is not set, Emacs tries to use all font backends
857 available on your graphic device.
859 *** New frame parameter `font-backend' specifies a list of
860 font-backends supported by the frame's graphic device. On X, they are
861 currently `x' and `xft'.
863 *** New function `fontp' checks if the argument is a font-spec or font-entity.
865 *** New function `font-spec' creates a new font-spec object.
867 *** New function `font-get' returns a font property value.
869 *** New function `font-put' sets a font property value.
871 *** New function `list-fonts' returns a list of font-entities matching
872 the given specification.
874 *** New function `list-families' returns a list of family names of
877 *** New function `font-font' returns a font-entity best matching with
878 the given specification.
880 *** New function `font-xlfd-name' returns an XLFD name of a given font
881 (font-spec, font-entity, or font-object).
883 *** New function `clear-font-cache' clears all font caches.
885 *** The function `set-fontset-font' now accepts a script name as the
886 second argument, and has an optional 5th argument to control how to
889 ** Changes related to multiple tty support
891 *** $TERM is now set to `dumb' for subprocesses. If you want to know the
892 $TERM inherited by Emacs you will have to look inside initial-environment.
894 *** $DISPLAY is now dynamically inherited from the frame's `display'.
896 *** The `window-system' variable has been made frame-local. The new
897 `initial-window-system' variable contains the `window-system' value
900 *** You can specify a terminal device (`tty' parameter) and a terminal
901 type (`tty-type' parameter) to `make-terminal-frame'.
903 *** The new function `make-frame-on-tty' allows you to create a new
904 frame on another tty device interactively.
906 *** The function `make-frame-on-display' now works during a tty
907 session, and `make-frame-on-tty' works during a graphical session.
909 *** New functions: `delete-tty', `suspend-tty', `resume-tty'.
911 *** A new data type for terminals with functions: `get-device-terminal',
912 `terminal-parameters', `terminal-parameter', `set-terminal-parameter'.
914 *** New hooks: `suspend-tty-functions' and `resume-tty-functions'
915 are called after a tty frame has been suspended or resumed,
916 respectively. The functions are called with the terminal id of the frame
917 being suspended/resumed as a parameter.
919 *** New function: `environment'.
921 *** New variable: `local-function-key-map'.
922 This in addition to the global function-key-map variable that
923 already existed. The global variable is not used directly any more;
924 instead, the local-function-key-map is initialized so as to inherit from
927 *** `initial-environment' holds the environment inherited from Emacs's parent.
929 *** The `keyboard-translate-table' variable and the terminal and
930 keyboard coding systems have been made terminal-local.
932 *** In addition to the global function-key-map, Emacs has terminal-local
933 local-function-key-map variables, and uses them instead of the
934 global keymaps to set up translations and function key sequences
935 relevant to a specific terminal device.
938 ** You can now also pass the value of the `invisible' property to invisible-p
939 to check whether it would cause the text to be invisible. Convenient when
940 checking invisibility of text which has no buffer position
941 (e.g. in before/after-strings).
943 ** Non-breaking space now acts as whitespace.
946 ** In `condition-case', a handler can specify "let the debugger run first".
948 You do this by writing `debug' in the list of conditions to be handled,
955 ** The `require-match' argument to `completing-read' accepts a new value
959 ** The regexp form \(?<num>:<regexp>\) specifies the group number explicitly.
961 ** New function `window-full-width-p' returns t if a window is as wide
964 ** The new function `split-string-and-unquote' does (what?)
966 ** The new function `combine-and-quote-strings' does (what?)
968 ** The new function `image-refresh' refreshes all images associated
969 with a given image specification.
972 ** New variable `user-emacs-directory'.
973 Use this instead of "~/.emacs.d".
976 ** The new function `start-file-process' is similar to `start-process',
977 but obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
978 `default-directory'. The functions `start-file-process-shell-command'
979 and `process-file-shell-command' are also new; they call internally
980 `start-file-process' and `process-file', respectively.
982 ** The new function `process-lines' executes an external program and
983 returns its output as a list of lines.
986 ** `file-remote-p' has new optional parameters IDENTIFICATION and CONNECTED.
987 IDENTIFICATION specifies which part of the remote identifier has to be
988 returned. With CONNECTED passed non-nil, it is checked whether a
989 remote connection has been established already.
991 ** The two new functions `looking-at-p' and `string-match-p' can do
992 the same matching as `looking-at' and `string-match' without changing
995 ** The interactive-form of a function can be added post-facto via the
996 `interactive-form' symbol property. Mostly useful to add complex interactive
997 forms to subroutines.
999 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 23.1
1001 ** The package isearch-multi.el has been added. It implements a new mode
1002 `isearch-buffers-minor-mode' that allows isearch to search through
1003 multiple buffers. In this mode a new variable
1004 `isearch-buffers-next-buffer-function' defines the function to call
1005 to get the next buffer to search in the series of multiple buffers.
1007 ** The new package avl-tree.el deals with the AVL tree data structure.
1010 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1011 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
1013 GNU Emacs is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
1014 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1015 the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
1018 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1019 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1020 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1021 GNU General Public License for more details.
1023 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1024 along with GNU Emacs; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the
1025 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor,
1026 Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
1031 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
1034 arch-tag: e759449d-88b3-4de4-9900-3a6c3dfa23e2