1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 23 Jan 1999
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS.
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
11 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
12 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
14 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
16 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
17 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
20 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
21 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
23 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
24 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
25 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
27 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
28 is running in batch mode. For example,
30 (message "%s" (read t))
32 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
35 ** Faces and frame parameters.
37 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
38 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
39 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
40 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
41 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
42 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
43 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
45 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
46 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
47 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
48 `default' face and vice versa.
52 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
53 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
54 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
56 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
58 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
59 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
60 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
61 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
63 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
64 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
65 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
67 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
70 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
72 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
73 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
74 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
75 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
78 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
80 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
81 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
82 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
83 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
86 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
87 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
88 under Lisp changes, below.
90 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
92 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
93 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
96 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
97 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
98 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
99 customizing face `fringe'.
101 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
102 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
106 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
107 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
109 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
111 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
112 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
113 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
114 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
115 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
118 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
119 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
120 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
121 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
122 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
123 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
125 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
126 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
127 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
128 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
129 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
130 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
132 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
133 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
134 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
135 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
136 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
138 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
140 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
141 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
142 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
144 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
146 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
147 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
148 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
149 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
150 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
155 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
156 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
160 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
161 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
162 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
165 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
167 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
168 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
169 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
172 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
173 have to do anything to activate it.
175 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
177 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
178 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
179 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
180 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
182 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
184 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
186 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
188 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the Motif
191 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, like in
194 ** Hscrolling in C code.
196 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically.
200 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
201 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
203 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
205 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
206 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
207 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
208 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
209 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
211 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
213 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
216 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
217 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
219 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
221 - Mouse-1 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
222 toggles the read-only status.
224 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
226 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
228 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
229 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
232 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
234 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
235 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
236 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
237 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
238 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
239 attributes like overlines, strike-throught, box are ignored.
243 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
244 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
245 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
246 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
247 to enable sound support.
249 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
250 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
251 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
252 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
253 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
254 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
256 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
258 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
260 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
261 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
262 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
264 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
265 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
267 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
268 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
269 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
271 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
273 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
274 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
275 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
276 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
278 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
279 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
280 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
281 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
283 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
284 notably at the end of lines.
286 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
287 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
289 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
290 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
291 after each match to get the replacement text.
293 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
295 If a message is longer than one line, or mini-buffer contents are
296 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the mini-window unless it is
297 on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum mini-window size
298 by setting the following variable:
300 - User option: max-mini-window-height
302 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
303 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
304 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
308 ** Comint (subshell) changes
310 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
311 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
313 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
314 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
315 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
317 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
318 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
319 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
321 ** Changes to TeX mode
323 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
326 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
328 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
329 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
330 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
331 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
332 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
333 can be edited from that buffer.
335 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
336 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
337 `A' to use all marked entries).
339 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
340 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
342 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
343 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
344 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
347 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
348 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
349 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
350 in column 1 are always made leaves.
352 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
353 has the following new features:
355 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
356 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
357 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
358 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
360 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
361 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
362 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
363 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
364 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
369 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
370 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
371 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
373 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
374 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
375 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
376 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
380 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
381 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
382 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
384 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
385 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
388 ** New features in evaluation commands
390 The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
391 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
392 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
393 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
394 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
398 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
399 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
400 is, delete only empty directories.
402 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
403 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
404 copy directories recursively.
406 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
407 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
408 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
410 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
411 use the -f option when sending mail.
415 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
416 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
418 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
420 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
421 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
422 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
423 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
424 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
425 `secondary-selection'.
427 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
428 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
429 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
430 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
431 usual snappy response.
433 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
434 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
435 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
436 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
439 ** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
440 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
441 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
443 ** Shell script mode changes.
445 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
446 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
447 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
451 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
453 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
454 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
455 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
456 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
457 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
459 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
460 declarations when given the --declarations option.
462 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
463 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
465 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
468 *** In Fortran, procedure is no more tagged.
470 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
472 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
475 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
476 variables are tagged.
478 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
480 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
483 ** Changes in etags.el
485 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
486 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
488 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
489 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
490 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
491 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
493 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
495 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
496 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
498 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
500 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
501 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
502 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
504 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
505 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
507 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
508 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
510 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
511 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
512 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
514 ** New language environments `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
515 These correspond respectively to the ISO character sets 8859-14
516 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign). There is
517 currently no specific input method support for them.
519 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sqeuence-nos' to
520 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
521 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
523 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
525 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
527 ** New modes and packages
529 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
531 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
533 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
535 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
538 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
541 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
543 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
545 *** whitespace.el ???
547 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
548 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
549 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
550 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
551 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
552 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
553 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
555 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
557 Here is an example of columns:
560 dog pineapple car EXTRA
561 porcupine strawberry airplane
563 Doing the following settings:
565 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
566 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
567 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
568 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
571 Selecting the lines above and typing:
573 M-x delimit-columns-region
577 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
578 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
579 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
581 delim-col has the following options:
583 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
586 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
589 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
592 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
595 delim-col has the following commands:
597 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
598 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
600 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
601 were operated on recently. When enabled, a new "Open Recent" submenu
602 is displayed in the "Files" menu.
604 The recent files list is automatically saved across Emacs sessions.
606 To enable/disable recentf use M-x recentf-mode.
608 To enable recentf at Emacs startup use
609 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET.
611 To change the number of recent files displayed and others options use
612 M-x customize-group RET recentf RET.
614 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
617 ** Withdrawn packages
619 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
620 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
622 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el.
624 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
626 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
627 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
628 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
629 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
631 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
632 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
633 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
635 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
636 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
639 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
641 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
642 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
643 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
646 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
647 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
649 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
650 instead of being optional.
652 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
653 modify read-only text.
655 ** New functions and variables for locales.
657 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
658 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
659 time functions like strftime. The new variables
660 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
661 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
663 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
664 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
665 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
666 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
667 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
668 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
669 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
671 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
672 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
673 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
676 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
677 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
679 ** New function `propertize'
681 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
682 strings with text properties.
684 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
686 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
687 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
688 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
689 specified value of that property. Example:
691 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
694 ** push and pop macros.
696 A simple version of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
697 is now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
698 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
700 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
701 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
702 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
705 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
706 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
708 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
709 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
710 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
711 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
712 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
714 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
716 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
717 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
718 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
719 [:alpha:] matches letters.
720 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
721 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
722 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
723 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
724 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
725 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
726 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
727 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
728 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
729 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
730 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
733 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
735 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
737 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
739 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
740 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
744 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
745 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
746 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
750 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
751 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
753 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
755 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
756 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
757 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
758 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
759 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
761 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
763 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
764 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
765 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
769 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value', or t.
770 Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage collection if
771 their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere outside of the
772 hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
774 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
776 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
778 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
780 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
782 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
784 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
787 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
789 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
791 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
793 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
795 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
797 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
799 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
801 Returns the size of TABLE.
803 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
805 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
807 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
809 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
811 - Function: clrhash TABLE
815 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
817 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
820 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
822 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
823 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
825 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
827 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
829 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
831 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
832 arguments KEY and VALUE.
834 - Function: sxhash OBJ
836 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
838 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
840 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
841 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
842 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
843 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
844 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
846 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
848 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
849 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
850 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
852 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
853 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
855 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
856 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
858 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
861 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
862 'case-fold-string-hash))
864 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
867 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
869 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
870 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
871 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
874 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
876 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
877 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
880 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
881 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
882 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
883 is too short to reach that column.
886 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
887 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
888 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
889 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
891 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
892 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
893 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
896 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
897 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
900 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
901 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
904 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
905 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
906 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
907 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
908 temporary-file-directory instead.
911 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
912 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
913 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
914 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
917 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
918 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
921 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
923 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
924 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
925 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
928 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
930 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
931 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
932 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
933 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
934 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
935 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
937 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
938 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
939 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
940 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
943 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
945 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
946 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
947 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
950 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
951 string where arguments appear in the result string.
955 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
957 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
958 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
961 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
964 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
966 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
967 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
970 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
972 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
973 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
979 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
980 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
982 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
983 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
984 to enable sound support.
986 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
987 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
988 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
989 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
990 sound to play, before playing the sound.
992 The following sound properties are supported:
996 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
997 searched relative to `data-directory'.
1001 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
1002 0..1. This property is optional.
1004 Other properties are ignored.
1006 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
1008 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
1010 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1011 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1012 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1013 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1015 ** New face implementation.
1017 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
1018 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
1023 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
1025 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
1027 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
1028 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
1030 3. Font height in 1/10pt
1032 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
1034 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
1036 6. Foreground color.
1038 7. Background color.
1040 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
1042 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
1044 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
1046 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
1048 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
1051 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
1052 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
1054 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
1055 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
1056 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
1057 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
1058 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
1059 attributes mentioned above.
1061 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
1062 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
1065 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
1066 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
1072 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
1073 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
1074 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
1075 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
1076 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
1077 results in a fully-specified face.
1080 *** Face realization.
1082 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
1083 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
1084 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
1085 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
1086 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
1087 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
1089 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
1090 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
1091 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
1092 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
1094 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
1095 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
1096 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
1097 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
1098 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
1100 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
1101 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
1102 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
1103 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
1104 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
1107 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
1108 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
1109 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
1110 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
1113 **** Clearing face caches.
1115 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
1116 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
1122 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
1123 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
1124 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
1126 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
1127 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
1128 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
1129 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
1130 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
1132 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
1133 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
1134 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
1136 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
1138 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
1139 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
1140 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
1141 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
1142 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
1143 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
1144 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
1146 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
1147 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
1153 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
1154 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
1157 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
1158 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
1159 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
1160 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
1161 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
1164 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
1166 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
1169 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
1171 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
1173 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
1174 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
1175 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
1177 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
1178 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
1179 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
1180 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
1181 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
1182 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
1183 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
1184 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
1185 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
1186 of the face font sort order.
1188 - Function: x-font-family-list
1190 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
1191 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
1192 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
1193 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
1195 - Variable: font-list-limit
1197 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
1198 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
1199 matching font. The default is currently 100.
1202 *** Setting face attributes.
1204 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
1205 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
1206 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
1209 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
1210 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
1212 The following attributes are recognized:
1216 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
1217 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
1218 and `?' are allowed.
1222 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
1223 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
1224 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
1225 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
1229 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
1234 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
1235 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
1236 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
1240 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
1241 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
1244 `:foreground', `:background'
1246 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
1250 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
1251 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
1252 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
1257 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
1258 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
1259 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
1264 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
1265 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
1266 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
1267 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
1271 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
1272 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
1273 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
1274 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
1275 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
1276 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
1277 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
1278 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
1279 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
1280 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
1281 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
1282 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
1283 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
1284 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
1285 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
1286 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
1291 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
1292 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
1296 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
1297 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
1298 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
1299 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
1300 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
1301 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
1303 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
1304 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
1308 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
1309 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
1310 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
1313 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
1314 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
1315 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
1317 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
1320 *** Face attributes and X resources
1322 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
1325 Face attribute X resource class
1326 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
1327 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
1328 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
1329 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
1330 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
1331 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
1332 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
1333 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
1334 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
1335 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
1336 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
1337 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
1338 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
1339 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
1340 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
1341 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
1342 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1343 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
1344 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
1345 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1348 *** Text property `face'.
1350 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
1351 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
1352 specification can be
1354 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
1356 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
1357 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
1358 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
1359 for face attribute names.
1361 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
1362 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
1363 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
1366 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
1368 The function `face-register-tty-color' can be used to define colors
1369 for use on TTY frames. It maps a color name to a color number on the
1370 terminal. Emacs defines a couple of default color mappings by
1371 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
1372 `tty-defined-colors'. The function `face-clear-tty-colors' can be
1373 used to clear the mapping table.
1376 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
1378 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
1380 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
1381 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
1382 Otherwise, it returns zero.
1384 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
1386 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
1387 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
1390 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
1391 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
1392 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
1393 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
1394 commands continue into the next field if repeated.
1396 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
1397 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
1398 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
1400 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
1402 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE
1404 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
1405 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1406 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
1407 constrained position if that is is different.
1409 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
1410 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
1411 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
1412 constrained to the field that has the same `field' text-property
1413 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1414 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
1417 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
1418 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
1419 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
1420 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
1421 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
1423 - Function: erase-field &optional POS
1425 Erases the field surrounding POS.
1426 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1427 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1429 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1431 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
1432 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1433 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1434 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at beginning of an
1435 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
1437 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1439 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
1440 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1441 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1442 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at end of a field,
1443 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
1445 - Function: field-string &optional POS
1447 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
1448 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1449 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1451 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
1453 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
1454 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1455 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1460 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
1461 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
1462 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
1463 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
1465 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
1466 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
1467 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
1468 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
1471 IMAGE is an image specification.
1473 *** Image specifications
1475 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
1476 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
1477 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
1478 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
1479 described below are ignored.
1481 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
1485 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, and specifies the percentage
1486 of the image's height to use for its ascent. Default is 50.
1490 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
1491 margin around the image. Default is 0.
1495 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
1500 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
1501 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
1502 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
1503 which is intended to display images "disabled."
1505 `:heuristic-mask BG'
1507 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
1508 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
1509 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
1510 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
1511 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
1512 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
1513 background of the image.
1517 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
1518 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
1519 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
1520 may be present in the image specification.
1522 *** Supported image types
1524 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
1526 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
1527 properties supported are
1531 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
1532 is the frame's foreground.
1536 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
1537 the frame's background color.
1539 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
1540 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
1541 instead of a `:file' property.
1545 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
1549 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
1555 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
1556 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
1558 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
1560 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
1563 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
1565 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
1566 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
1567 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
1568 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
1570 Additional image properties supported are:
1572 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
1574 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
1575 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
1578 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
1579 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
1583 DATA must be a string containing an XPM image. The contents of the
1584 string are of the same format as that of XPM files.
1586 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
1587 to display compressed images.
1589 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
1591 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
1592 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
1595 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
1597 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
1598 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1601 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
1603 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
1604 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1607 **** GIF, image type `gif'
1609 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
1610 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
1612 Additional image properties supported are:
1616 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
1617 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
1619 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
1620 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
1621 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
1624 (defun show-anim (file max)
1625 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
1626 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
1628 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
1631 (let ((img (create-image file nil :index idx)))
1634 (goto-char (point-min))
1635 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
1636 (insert-image img "x"))
1637 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
1639 **** PNG, image type `png'
1641 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
1642 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1645 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
1647 Additional image properties supported are:
1651 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
1652 integer. This is a required property.
1656 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
1657 must be a integer. This is an required property.
1661 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
1662 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
1663 files. This is an required property.
1665 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
1670 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
1671 which are supported in the current configuration.
1673 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
1674 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
1675 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
1678 *** Simplified image API, image.el
1680 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
1681 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
1682 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
1683 define an image based on available image types. The functions
1684 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
1690 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
1693 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
1694 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
1695 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
1696 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
1697 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
1698 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
1699 of the display margins.
1701 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
1702 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
1703 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
1704 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
1710 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
1711 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
1712 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
1713 that have a `help-echo' property.
1715 The value of the `help-echo' property must be a string. For tool-bar
1716 items, their key definition is used to determine the help to display.
1717 If their definition contains a property `:help FORM', FORM is
1718 evaluated to determine the help string. Otherwise, the caption of the
1719 tool-bar item is used.
1721 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
1722 help differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window causes the
1723 help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
1726 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
1728 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
1729 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
1731 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
1732 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
1733 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
1734 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
1737 (global-set-key [A-down]
1740 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1741 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
1742 (global-set-key [A-up]
1745 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1746 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
1749 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
1751 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
1752 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
1753 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
1754 is called with one argument, POS.
1756 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
1757 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
1758 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
1759 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
1760 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
1763 ** Tool bar support.
1765 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
1766 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
1767 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
1768 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
1769 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
1770 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
1772 *** Tool bar item definitions
1774 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
1775 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
1776 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
1778 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
1779 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
1780 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
1781 property (see below).
1783 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
1784 binding are currently ignored.
1786 The following properties are recognized:
1790 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
1795 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
1799 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
1800 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
1801 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
1803 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
1805 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
1806 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
1810 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
1811 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
1812 meaning of each of the four elements:
1814 Index Use when item is
1815 ----------------------------------------
1816 0 enabled and selected
1817 1 enabled and deselected
1818 2 disabled and selected
1819 3 disabled and deselected
1821 `:help HELP-STRING'.
1823 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
1824 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
1826 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
1828 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
1829 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
1830 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
1832 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
1833 raised when the mouse moves over them.
1835 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
1836 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
1837 pixels. Default is 1.
1839 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
1840 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
1842 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
1844 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
1847 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
1848 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
1849 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
1851 is the original tool bar item definition, then
1853 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
1855 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
1858 ** Mode line changes.
1861 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
1863 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
1864 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
1865 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
1867 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
1868 a `local-map' text property.
1870 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
1871 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
1873 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
1874 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
1875 `local-map' property.
1877 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
1878 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
1881 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
1882 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
1885 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
1886 variable mode-line-format to nil.
1889 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
1891 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
1892 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
1893 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
1894 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
1897 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
1900 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
1901 position in the header-line.
1904 ** Text property `display'
1906 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
1907 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
1908 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
1909 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
1911 *** Variable width and height spaces
1913 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
1914 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
1915 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
1916 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
1917 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
1918 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
1919 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
1921 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
1922 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
1923 properties described below.
1925 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
1926 characters having the `display' property.
1930 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
1931 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
1933 - :relative-width FACTOR
1935 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
1936 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
1937 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
1938 width of that character by FACTOR.
1942 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
1943 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
1945 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
1949 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
1952 - :relative-height FACTOR
1954 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
1955 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
1959 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
1960 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
1961 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
1964 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
1968 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
1969 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
1970 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
1971 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
1972 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
1973 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
1974 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
1975 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
1976 as display specification.
1978 *** Other display properties
1980 - :space-width FACTOR
1982 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
1983 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
1988 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
1990 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
1991 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
1992 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
1993 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
1994 a font is available counts as a step.
1996 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
1997 as tall as the frame's default font.
1999 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
2000 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
2002 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
2003 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
2007 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
2008 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
2009 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
2010 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
2011 `:height' subproperty.
2013 *** Conditional display properties
2015 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
2016 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
2017 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
2018 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
2019 the text having the `display' property.
2021 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
2025 ** New menu separator types.
2027 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
2028 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
2029 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
2030 to specify other menu separator types.
2032 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
2034 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
2037 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
2039 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
2041 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
2043 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
2045 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
2047 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
2049 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
2051 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
2053 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
2055 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
2056 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
2058 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
2060 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
2062 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
2064 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
2066 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
2068 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
2070 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
2072 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2074 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
2076 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
2078 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
2080 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2082 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
2084 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
2086 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
2087 the corresponding single-line separators.
2090 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
2092 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
2093 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
2094 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
2095 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
2096 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
2097 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
2098 default foreground is black.
2100 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
2101 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
2102 `ScrollBarBackground').
2104 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
2105 settings for scroll bar colors.
2108 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
2109 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
2112 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
2113 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
2114 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
2115 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
2116 the original window start.
2119 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
2120 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
2121 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
2124 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
2126 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
2127 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
2128 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
2129 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
2131 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
2132 fixed-width and fixed-height.
2134 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
2136 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
2137 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
2138 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
2139 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
2140 temporarily to nil, for example
2142 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
2143 (enlarge-window 10))
2145 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
2146 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
2148 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
2150 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
2151 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
2153 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
2155 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
2157 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
2158 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
2159 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
2161 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
2162 is the one that is used.
2164 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
2165 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
2166 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
2167 separate from the command's regular output.
2168 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
2169 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
2170 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
2173 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
2174 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
2175 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
2176 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
2178 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
2179 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
2180 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
2181 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
2183 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
2184 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
2185 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
2186 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
2188 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
2189 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
2190 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
2191 they never ignore case.
2193 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
2194 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
2195 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
2196 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
2197 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
2198 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
2199 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
2201 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
2202 the same format that was used in the file before.
2204 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
2205 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
2207 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
2208 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
2209 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
2211 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
2212 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
2213 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
2214 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
2215 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
2216 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
2217 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
2219 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
2220 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
2221 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
2222 format. You can now customize these variables.
2224 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
2225 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
2226 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
2227 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
2229 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
2230 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
2231 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
2233 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
2234 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
2235 doesn't have any effect.
2237 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
2240 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
2241 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
2242 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
2244 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
2245 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
2246 `auto-show-mode' command.
2248 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
2249 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
2250 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
2251 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
2252 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
2254 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
2255 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
2257 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
2258 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
2259 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
2261 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
2262 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
2263 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
2264 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
2266 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
2268 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
2269 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
2270 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
2271 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
2272 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
2274 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
2275 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
2277 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
2278 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
2279 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
2280 `?' on other systems.
2282 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
2283 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
2286 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
2287 current codepage when it starts.
2291 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
2292 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
2293 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
2294 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
2295 buffer-file-coding-system.
2297 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
2298 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
2301 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
2302 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
2303 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
2304 list of possible coding systems.
2308 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
2309 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
2310 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
2311 docstring for details.
2313 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
2314 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
2315 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
2316 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
2317 lineup functions use this feature currently.
2319 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
2320 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
2322 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
2323 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
2325 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
2326 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
2327 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
2328 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
2331 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
2332 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
2334 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
2335 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
2336 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
2337 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
2339 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
2340 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
2341 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
2342 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
2343 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
2345 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
2347 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
2349 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
2350 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
2352 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
2354 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
2355 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
2356 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
2357 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
2358 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
2362 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
2363 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
2364 Gnus manual for the full story.
2366 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
2367 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
2368 group, which is created automatically.
2370 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
2373 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
2375 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
2376 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
2378 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
2381 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
2383 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
2384 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
2386 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
2388 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
2389 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
2391 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
2392 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
2394 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
2395 control over simplification.
2397 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
2399 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
2402 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
2404 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
2406 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
2407 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
2408 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
2410 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
2411 `a' forces normal posting method.
2413 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
2416 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
2419 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
2420 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
2422 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
2425 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
2427 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
2429 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
2430 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
2432 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
2433 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
2435 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
2437 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
2440 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
2441 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
2443 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
2444 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
2446 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
2448 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
2450 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
2452 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
2454 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
2455 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
2456 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
2458 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
2459 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
2460 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
2461 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
2462 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
2464 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
2465 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
2466 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
2467 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
2469 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
2470 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
2471 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
2474 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
2476 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
2477 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
2479 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
2480 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
2481 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
2482 removed from the label.
2484 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
2485 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
2487 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
2488 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
2490 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
2491 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
2494 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
2496 ** New/deleted modes and packages
2498 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
2499 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
2501 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
2502 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
2503 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
2505 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
2506 changes with a special face.
2508 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
2509 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
2510 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
2512 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
2514 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
2515 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
2516 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
2517 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
2518 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
2520 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
2521 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
2522 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
2524 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
2525 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
2526 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
2527 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
2528 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
2529 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
2530 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
2531 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
2532 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
2534 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
2535 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
2536 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
2537 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
2538 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
2541 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
2542 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
2543 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
2544 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
2545 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
2546 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
2548 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
2549 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
2550 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
2551 was not documented clearly before.
2553 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
2554 This includes Tetris and Snake.
2556 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
2558 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
2559 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
2560 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
2561 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
2563 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
2564 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
2565 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
2567 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
2569 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
2570 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
2572 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
2573 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
2576 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
2577 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
2578 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
2579 file names and attributes are returned.
2581 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
2582 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
2583 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
2584 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
2587 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
2588 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
2590 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
2592 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
2593 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
2594 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
2597 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
2598 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
2601 The new function process-running-child-p
2602 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
2603 terminal to its own child process.
2605 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
2606 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
2607 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
2608 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
2610 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
2611 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
2613 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
2614 :included is an alias for :visible.
2616 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
2617 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
2618 to move or copy menu entries.
2620 ** Multibyte editing changes
2622 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
2623 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
2624 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
2625 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
2626 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
2627 (setq char (sref str idx)
2628 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
2629 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
2631 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
2632 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
2633 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
2635 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
2636 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
2637 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
2639 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
2641 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
2642 across the boundary.
2644 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
2645 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
2646 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
2647 contains 8-bit characters.
2648 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
2649 contains invalid characters.
2651 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
2652 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
2653 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
2654 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
2657 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
2658 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
2659 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
2660 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
2662 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
2663 compose Thai characters in a string.
2665 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
2666 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
2667 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
2668 menus should always use the third argument.
2670 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
2671 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
2672 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
2673 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
2675 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
2676 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
2677 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
2678 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
2680 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
2681 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
2682 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
2685 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
2687 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
2688 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
2689 requested feature cannot be loaded.
2691 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
2692 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
2693 means to clear out that attribute.
2695 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
2696 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
2698 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
2699 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
2700 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
2701 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
2703 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
2704 the gap of the current buffer.
2706 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
2707 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
2710 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
2711 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
2712 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
2713 it back in after any modifications have been made.
2715 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
2717 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
2718 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
2719 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
2720 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
2721 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
2723 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
2724 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
2725 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
2726 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
2727 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
2729 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
2730 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
2731 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
2733 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
2734 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
2735 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
2736 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
2737 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
2740 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
2741 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
2742 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
2743 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
2745 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
2747 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
2748 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
2749 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
2750 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
2752 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
2753 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
2754 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
2755 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
2756 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
2757 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
2758 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
2761 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
2764 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
2765 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
2766 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
2767 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
2768 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
2770 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
2771 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
2772 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
2773 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
2775 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
2776 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
2777 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
2778 something that most users not do.
2780 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
2781 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
2782 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
2785 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
2788 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
2789 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
2790 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
2791 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
2794 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
2795 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
2796 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
2797 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
2798 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
2801 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
2802 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
2803 to be confused by TeX commands.
2805 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
2806 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
2807 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
2808 of various alternative replacements and actions.
2810 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
2811 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
2812 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
2813 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
2814 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
2816 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
2817 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
2819 ** Changes in input method usage.
2821 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
2822 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
2825 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
2827 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
2828 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
2830 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
2831 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
2833 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
2835 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
2837 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
2838 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
2840 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
2841 given in the following case:
2842 o When you are using a complex input method.
2843 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
2845 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
2846 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
2847 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
2848 setting it to t is helpful.
2850 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
2852 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
2854 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
2855 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
2856 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
2857 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
2860 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
2861 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
2862 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
2865 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
2867 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
2869 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
2870 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
2872 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
2873 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
2874 its owner and group.
2876 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
2877 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
2879 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
2880 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
2882 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
2883 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
2884 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
2885 by the left edge of the rectangle.
2887 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
2888 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
2889 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
2890 for writing keyboard macros.
2892 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
2893 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
2894 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
2895 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
2896 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
2899 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
2901 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
2902 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
2905 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
2906 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
2907 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
2908 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
2910 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
2911 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
2912 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
2914 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
2915 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
2916 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
2917 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
2919 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
2920 failure if the command produces no output.
2922 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
2923 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
2926 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
2927 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
2928 function and variable names.
2930 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
2931 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
2932 file-coding-system-alist.
2934 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
2935 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
2936 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
2937 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
2938 according to the current fontset.
2940 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
2942 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
2943 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
2944 nonascii-insert-offset.
2946 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
2947 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
2948 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
2949 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
2951 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
2952 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
2954 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
2955 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
2957 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
2958 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
2961 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
2962 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
2964 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
2965 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
2966 all variables that have documentation.
2968 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
2969 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
2970 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
2971 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
2972 it should show; the default is 20.
2974 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
2975 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
2978 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
2979 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
2980 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
2981 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
2982 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
2983 Newly added options are included as well.
2985 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
2986 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
2987 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
2989 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
2992 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
2993 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
2995 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
2996 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
2999 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
3000 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
3003 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
3004 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
3005 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
3006 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
3009 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
3011 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
3012 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
3013 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
3015 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
3016 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
3017 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
3020 ** All you need to do, to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
3021 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
3023 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
3024 read and post multi-lingual articles.
3026 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
3027 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
3028 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
3029 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
3030 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
3031 made invisible again.
3033 ** Mail reading and sending changes
3035 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
3036 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
3037 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
3040 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
3041 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
3042 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
3043 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
3044 rmail-default-body-file.
3046 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
3047 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
3048 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
3050 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
3051 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
3052 is evaluated to insert the signature.
3054 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
3055 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
3056 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
3057 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
3058 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
3059 especially interested in trying feedmail.
3061 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
3062 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
3063 provided by feedmail are:
3065 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
3066 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
3067 there is also a queue for draft messages
3069 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
3070 be prompted for confirmation
3072 **** does smart filling of address headers
3074 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
3075 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
3076 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
3078 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
3079 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
3080 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
3081 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
3085 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
3086 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
3088 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
3089 run Dired on the directory name at point.
3091 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
3092 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
3093 for a specified regexp.
3097 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
3100 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
3101 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
3104 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
3105 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
3106 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
3107 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
3109 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
3110 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
3111 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
3112 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
3113 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
3115 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
3116 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
3117 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
3118 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
3119 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
3121 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
3122 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
3123 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
3124 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
3126 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
3127 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
3128 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
3130 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
3131 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
3132 session to resolve them.
3134 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
3135 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
3136 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
3139 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
3140 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
3141 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
3142 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
3143 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
3144 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
3147 ** Changes in Font Lock
3149 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
3150 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
3151 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
3152 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
3153 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
3155 ** Frame name display changes
3157 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
3158 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
3159 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
3160 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
3162 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
3163 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
3166 ** Comint (subshell) changes
3168 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
3169 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
3170 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
3172 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
3174 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
3175 that is, the line after the last line you got.
3176 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
3178 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
3179 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
3182 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
3183 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
3184 previously sent input.
3186 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
3187 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
3188 as the search string.
3190 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
3191 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
3195 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
3196 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
3197 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
3200 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
3201 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
3202 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
3203 style is still the default however.
3205 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
3207 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
3208 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
3209 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
3211 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
3212 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
3214 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
3215 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
3217 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
3218 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
3220 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
3221 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
3223 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
3224 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
3225 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
3226 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
3228 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
3230 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
3231 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
3232 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
3234 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
3235 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
3236 expanding dynamically.
3238 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
3239 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
3241 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
3242 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
3243 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
3244 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
3246 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
3248 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
3250 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
3251 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
3252 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
3253 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
3254 against the first word in the title.
3256 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
3257 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
3258 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
3259 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
3260 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
3261 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
3263 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
3264 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
3265 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
3266 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
3268 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
3270 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
3271 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
3272 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
3273 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
3274 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
3275 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
3277 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
3278 Editing group once the package is loaded.
3280 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
3281 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
3282 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
3284 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
3285 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
3289 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
3290 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
3291 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
3293 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
3294 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
3295 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
3296 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
3299 o URLs are automatically skipped
3300 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
3302 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
3304 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3306 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
3307 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
3308 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
3309 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
3311 *** New recursive parser.
3313 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
3314 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
3315 recursive parser scans the individual files.
3317 *** Parsing only part of a document.
3319 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
3320 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
3321 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
3323 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
3325 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
3327 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
3329 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
3331 *** Using multiple selection buffers
3333 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
3334 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
3336 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
3338 *** References to external documents.
3340 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
3341 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
3342 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
3343 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
3344 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
3345 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
3346 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
3348 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
3350 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
3351 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
3353 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
3354 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
3356 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
3358 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
3359 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
3361 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
3363 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
3364 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
3365 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
3366 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
3367 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
3368 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
3371 *** Support for the varioref package
3373 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
3377 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
3378 and citations are created. These hooks are
3379 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
3380 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
3382 *** Citations outside LaTeX
3384 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
3385 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
3387 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
3389 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
3390 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
3393 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
3395 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
3396 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
3397 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
3398 directories that contain the same file name.
3400 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
3401 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
3402 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
3403 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
3404 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
3405 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
3406 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
3409 ** New modes and packages
3411 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
3412 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
3413 it, but some do not.
3415 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
3418 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
3419 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
3422 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
3424 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
3425 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
3426 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
3427 established system of notation similar to Chess.
3429 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
3430 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
3431 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
3433 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
3434 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
3435 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
3436 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
3437 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
3440 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
3441 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
3443 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
3444 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
3445 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
3446 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
3448 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
3450 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
3451 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
3452 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
3453 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
3454 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
3455 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
3456 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
3457 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
3458 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
3459 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
3460 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
3462 Platform-specific modes:
3464 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
3465 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
3466 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
3467 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
3468 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
3469 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
3470 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
3471 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
3472 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
3474 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3476 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
3477 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
3478 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
3479 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
3481 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
3482 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
3483 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
3485 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
3486 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
3487 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
3488 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
3490 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
3491 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
3492 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
3495 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
3496 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
3497 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
3498 current input method for reading this one event.
3500 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
3501 now control whether to output certain characters as
3502 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
3503 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
3504 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
3505 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
3507 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3509 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
3510 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
3512 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
3513 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
3514 always increases point by 1.
3516 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
3517 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
3519 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
3521 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
3522 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
3523 default value changed. For example,
3525 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
3530 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
3533 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
3534 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
3535 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
3536 `:version' in the top level group.
3538 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
3540 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
3541 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
3543 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
3544 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
3545 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
3548 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
3549 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
3552 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
3553 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
3554 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
3556 ** Frame-local variables.
3558 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
3559 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
3560 local bindings for that variable.
3562 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
3563 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
3564 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
3567 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
3568 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
3569 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
3570 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
3572 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
3573 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
3574 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
3575 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
3577 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
3578 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
3579 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
3580 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
3581 See the documentation in sregex.el.
3583 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
3584 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
3585 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
3586 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
3588 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
3589 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
3591 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
3592 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
3593 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
3595 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
3596 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
3597 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
3598 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
3600 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
3601 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
3604 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
3605 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
3606 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
3607 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
3608 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
3610 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
3611 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
3612 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
3613 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
3615 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
3616 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
3617 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
3618 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
3619 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
3621 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
3622 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
3623 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
3624 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
3626 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
3627 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
3628 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
3630 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
3631 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
3632 was directed to display this buffer.
3634 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
3635 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
3636 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
3637 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
3638 set-window-configuration.
3640 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
3641 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
3642 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
3643 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
3645 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
3646 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
3647 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
3649 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
3650 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
3651 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
3653 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
3654 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
3656 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
3657 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
3659 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
3660 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
3661 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
3663 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
3664 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
3665 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
3666 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
3670 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
3671 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
3674 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
3675 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
3676 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
3677 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
3678 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
3680 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
3682 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
3683 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
3684 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
3685 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
3688 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
3689 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
3690 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
3691 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
3692 The supported properties include
3694 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3696 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3697 item should appear in the menu.
3699 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
3700 which will be REAL-BINDING.
3701 It should return a binding to use instead.
3703 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
3704 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
3705 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
3706 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
3707 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
3710 This means that the command normally has no
3711 keyboard equivalent.
3712 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
3713 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
3714 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
3715 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
3716 value says whether this button is currently selected.
3718 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
3719 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
3721 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
3725 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
3726 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
3727 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
3728 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
3730 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
3732 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3733 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
3734 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
3735 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
3736 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
3737 forward, away from the user.
3739 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3741 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
3742 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
3743 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
3744 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
3745 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
3747 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
3749 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3750 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
3751 that were dragged and dropped.
3753 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3755 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
3757 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
3758 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
3759 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
3761 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
3762 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
3763 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
3765 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
3766 in Emacs 19 and before.
3768 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
3769 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
3771 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
3772 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
3773 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
3774 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
3776 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
3777 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
3778 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
3779 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
3780 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
3782 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
3783 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
3784 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
3785 consistent with the new representation.
3787 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
3788 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
3789 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
3790 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3792 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
3793 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
3794 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
3796 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
3797 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
3798 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3800 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
3801 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
3802 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
3804 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3805 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
3807 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3808 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
3810 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
3811 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
3812 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
3813 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
3815 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
3816 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
3818 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
3819 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
3820 buffer or string being searched.
3822 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
3823 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
3824 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
3825 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
3826 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
3827 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
3828 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
3830 *** Structure of coding system changed.
3832 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
3833 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
3834 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
3835 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
3836 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
3837 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
3838 define-coding-system-alias.
3840 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
3841 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
3842 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
3843 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
3844 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
3845 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
3846 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
3849 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
3850 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
3851 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
3852 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
3854 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
3855 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
3856 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
3857 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
3859 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
3860 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
3861 This function requires a user interaction.
3863 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
3864 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
3865 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
3866 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
3867 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
3868 select-safe-coding-system.
3870 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
3871 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
3872 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
3875 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
3876 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
3877 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
3879 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
3880 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
3881 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
3882 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
3884 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
3885 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
3886 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
3889 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
3890 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
3892 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
3893 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
3894 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
3895 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
3896 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
3897 range of characters.
3899 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
3900 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
3902 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
3903 in the current buffer at position POS.
3905 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
3906 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
3907 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
3908 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
3909 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
3910 binding input-method-function to nil.
3912 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
3913 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
3914 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
3915 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
3916 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
3918 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
3919 subsequent events of a key sequence.
3921 *** You can customize any language environment by using
3922 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
3924 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
3925 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
3926 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
3927 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
3928 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
3930 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
3932 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
3933 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
3934 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
3937 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
3938 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
3940 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
3941 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
3942 in your .emacs file.)
3944 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
3945 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
3947 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
3948 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
3950 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
3951 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
3954 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
3955 delete the character before point, as usual.
3957 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
3958 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
3959 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
3961 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
3962 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
3963 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
3964 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
3965 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
3968 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
3969 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
3970 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
3971 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
3972 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
3974 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
3975 and is an alias for it.
3977 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
3978 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
3980 ** Scrolling changes
3982 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
3983 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
3985 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
3986 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
3989 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
3990 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
3991 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
3992 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
3994 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
3995 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
3996 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
3997 recenters the window.
3999 ** International character set support (MULE)
4001 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
4002 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
4003 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
4004 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
4005 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
4006 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
4008 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
4009 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
4010 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
4011 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
4012 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
4014 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
4015 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
4016 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
4017 language, to make it possible to type them.
4019 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
4020 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
4022 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
4023 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
4025 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
4027 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
4029 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
4030 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
4031 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
4032 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
4033 characters for their work until they want to change.
4037 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
4038 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
4039 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
4040 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
4041 support several input methods.
4043 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
4044 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
4047 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
4048 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
4049 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
4050 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
4051 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
4054 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
4055 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
4056 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
4057 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
4058 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
4060 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
4061 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
4062 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
4063 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
4065 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
4066 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
4067 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
4068 the first guess is wrong.
4070 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
4071 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
4073 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
4074 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
4075 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
4076 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
4078 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
4079 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
4080 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
4081 translate automatically to and from either one.
4083 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
4085 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
4086 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
4087 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
4090 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
4091 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
4092 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
4093 multibyte characters in that buffer.
4095 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
4096 character conversion as well.
4098 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
4100 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
4101 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
4102 requires using many fonts.
4104 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
4105 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
4107 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
4108 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
4109 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
4110 you would use a font.
4112 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
4113 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
4114 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
4116 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
4117 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
4118 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
4119 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
4120 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
4122 *** Defining fontsets.
4124 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
4125 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
4126 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
4128 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
4129 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
4130 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
4131 standard fontset are created automatically.
4133 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
4134 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
4135 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
4136 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
4137 name is `fontset-startup'.
4139 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
4140 The resource value should have this form:
4141 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
4142 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
4143 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
4144 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
4145 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
4146 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
4147 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
4148 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
4149 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
4151 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
4152 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
4153 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
4155 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
4156 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
4158 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
4159 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
4160 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
4161 Here is the substitution rule:
4162 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
4163 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
4164 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
4165 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
4166 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
4168 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
4169 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
4170 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
4172 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
4173 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
4174 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
4175 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
4178 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
4179 defaults for a particular choice of language.
4181 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
4182 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
4183 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
4184 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
4185 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
4186 system for new files that you create.
4188 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
4189 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
4190 whole Emacs session.
4192 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
4193 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
4194 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
4196 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
4197 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
4198 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
4199 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
4200 coding systems that Emacs supports.
4202 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
4203 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
4204 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
4205 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
4206 is used for *the immediately following command*.
4208 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
4209 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
4211 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
4212 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
4214 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
4215 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
4217 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
4218 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
4219 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
4220 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
4223 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
4224 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
4225 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
4226 translated into that character code.
4228 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
4229 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
4231 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
4233 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
4234 the coding system for keyboard input.
4236 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
4237 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
4238 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
4240 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
4242 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
4243 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
4244 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
4245 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
4246 designed to work with terminals.
4248 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
4249 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
4250 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
4251 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
4252 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
4253 in the corresponding buffer.
4255 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
4257 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
4258 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
4259 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
4261 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
4262 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
4263 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
4266 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
4267 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
4269 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
4270 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
4271 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
4272 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
4274 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
4275 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
4276 related information.
4278 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
4279 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
4282 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
4283 information about the support for a particular language.
4284 You specify the language as an argument.
4286 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
4287 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
4290 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
4291 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
4292 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
4293 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
4295 A alternativnyj (Russian)
4297 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
4298 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
4299 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
4300 E euc-japan (Japanese)
4301 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4302 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
4303 K euc-korea (Korean)
4306 S shift_jis (Japanese)
4309 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
4310 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4311 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
4315 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
4316 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
4317 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
4318 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
4320 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
4321 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
4323 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
4324 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
4325 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
4326 Rmail files themselves.
4328 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
4329 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
4331 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
4334 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
4335 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
4336 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
4337 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
4338 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
4340 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
4341 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
4342 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
4345 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
4346 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
4347 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
4348 without any conversion.
4350 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
4351 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
4352 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
4353 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
4355 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
4356 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
4358 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
4359 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
4361 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
4362 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
4364 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
4365 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
4366 in the buffer before point.
4368 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
4369 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
4372 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
4373 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
4375 ** File locking works with NFS now.
4377 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
4378 in the same directory as FILENAME.
4380 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
4381 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
4382 can become a bottleneck.
4384 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
4385 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
4386 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
4387 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
4388 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
4389 so useful that the change is worth while.
4391 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
4392 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
4393 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
4394 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
4396 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
4397 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
4400 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
4401 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
4402 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
4404 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
4405 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
4406 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
4408 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
4409 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
4410 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
4412 ** Changes in View mode.
4414 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
4415 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
4417 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
4418 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
4420 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
4423 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
4424 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
4426 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
4427 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
4428 not just the selected window.
4430 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
4431 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
4432 turns View mode on or off.
4434 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
4435 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
4436 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
4438 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
4439 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
4441 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
4442 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
4443 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
4444 which version to compare with.
4446 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
4447 blocks if a match is inside the block.
4449 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
4450 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
4451 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
4452 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
4454 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
4455 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
4456 blocks, all of them or none.
4458 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
4459 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
4462 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
4463 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
4464 However, the mode will not be changed if
4465 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
4466 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
4467 not suitable for ordinary files, or
4468 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
4470 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
4472 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
4473 these commands do not change the major mode.
4475 ** M-x occur changes.
4477 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
4478 it performs a case-sensitive search.
4480 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
4481 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
4482 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
4484 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
4485 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
4486 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
4487 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
4488 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
4490 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
4491 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
4492 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
4493 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
4495 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
4496 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
4497 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
4499 ** Outline mode changes.
4501 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
4503 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
4505 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
4506 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
4507 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
4510 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
4511 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
4514 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
4515 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
4517 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
4519 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
4520 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
4521 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
4522 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
4524 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
4525 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
4526 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
4528 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
4529 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
4532 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
4533 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
4534 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
4535 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
4537 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
4538 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
4539 can be. The default value is 30.
4541 ** Changes in Mail mode.
4543 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
4544 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
4545 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
4546 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
4547 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
4550 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
4551 compose-mail-other-frame.
4553 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
4554 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
4555 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
4556 buffer that shows the original message.
4558 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
4559 with separator lines around the contents.
4561 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
4562 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
4563 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
4564 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
4566 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
4568 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
4569 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
4570 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
4571 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
4573 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
4574 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
4577 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
4578 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
4581 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
4582 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
4583 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
4584 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
4586 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
4587 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
4588 be taken to be magic.
4590 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
4591 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
4592 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
4594 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
4595 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
4597 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
4598 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
4600 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
4602 new key dired.el binding old key
4603 ------- ---------------- -------
4604 * c dired-change-marks c
4606 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
4607 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
4608 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
4610 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
4611 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
4612 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
4613 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
4614 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
4615 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
4619 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
4620 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
4621 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
4622 each time you run it.
4624 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
4625 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
4627 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
4628 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
4629 means to move in the opposite direction.
4631 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
4632 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
4634 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
4635 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
4636 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
4637 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
4642 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
4644 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
4647 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
4648 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
4650 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
4653 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
4655 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
4657 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
4659 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
4660 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
4661 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
4663 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
4665 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
4667 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
4668 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
4670 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
4671 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
4672 used to pick articles.
4674 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
4675 another have been added.
4677 `M-x gnus-change-server'
4679 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
4680 generating lines in buffers.
4682 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
4685 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
4687 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
4689 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
4691 *** Scores can be decayed.
4693 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
4695 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
4696 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
4698 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
4701 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
4703 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
4704 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
4706 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
4708 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
4709 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
4711 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
4712 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
4714 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
4717 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
4718 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
4720 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
4722 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
4724 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
4726 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
4728 Use the `Y c' command.
4730 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
4732 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
4734 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
4736 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
4737 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
4739 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
4741 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
4743 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
4744 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
4746 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
4748 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
4749 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
4750 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
4751 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
4754 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
4755 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
4756 particular news group. This can be done by:
4758 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
4760 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
4761 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
4762 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
4763 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
4764 for reading and posting).
4766 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
4767 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
4768 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
4769 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
4772 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
4773 default. Here are some of these default settings:
4775 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
4776 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
4777 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
4778 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
4779 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
4781 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
4782 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
4786 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
4787 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
4788 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
4789 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
4790 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
4793 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
4794 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
4795 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
4796 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
4797 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
4798 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
4800 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
4801 of the current buffer.
4803 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
4804 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
4805 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
4807 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
4808 style that the Python developers like.
4810 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
4811 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
4812 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
4816 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
4817 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
4818 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
4820 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
4821 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
4824 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
4825 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
4827 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
4828 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
4829 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
4830 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
4832 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
4833 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
4835 ** Calendar changes.
4837 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
4838 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
4839 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
4843 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
4845 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
4847 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
4848 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
4849 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
4850 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
4851 It defaults to `letter'.
4852 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
4854 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
4855 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
4856 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
4858 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
4859 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
4862 *** Horizontal layout
4864 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
4865 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
4866 All are measured in points.
4870 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
4871 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
4872 All are measured in points.
4876 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
4877 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
4878 margin above the text.
4880 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
4881 framing box is printed around the header.
4883 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
4884 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
4886 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
4887 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
4888 `ps-header-font-size'.
4892 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
4893 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
4894 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
4895 elements to this alist.
4897 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
4898 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
4900 ** hideshow changes.
4902 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
4905 *** Support for java-mode added.
4907 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
4908 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
4910 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
4911 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
4912 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
4914 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
4915 robust and a lot faster.
4917 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
4919 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
4920 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
4921 documentation for more details.
4923 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
4925 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
4926 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
4927 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
4928 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
4929 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
4931 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
4932 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
4933 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
4934 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
4940 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
4941 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
4942 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
4943 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
4944 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
4945 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
4947 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
4949 *** Maximum decoration
4951 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
4952 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
4953 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
4954 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
4955 to get the old behavior.
4959 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
4961 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
4962 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
4964 *** Configurable support
4966 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
4967 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
4968 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
4969 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
4970 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
4971 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
4972 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
4974 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
4975 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
4976 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
4978 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
4980 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
4981 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
4984 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
4986 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
4992 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
4993 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
4994 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
4995 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
4997 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
4999 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
5000 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
5001 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
5003 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
5005 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
5006 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
5007 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
5008 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
5009 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
5010 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
5011 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
5013 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
5014 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
5015 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
5016 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
5017 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
5018 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
5020 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
5022 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
5023 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
5024 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
5025 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
5027 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
5030 ** Ada mode changes.
5032 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
5033 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
5034 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
5035 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
5038 *** There are two new commands:
5039 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
5040 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
5042 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
5043 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
5044 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
5046 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
5047 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
5048 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
5050 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
5051 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
5052 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
5053 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
5055 ** Scheme mode changes.
5057 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
5058 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
5059 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
5060 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
5063 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
5064 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
5065 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
5066 variables as buffer-local variables.
5068 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
5071 ** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
5072 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
5075 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
5076 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
5077 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
5079 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
5080 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
5083 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
5084 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
5086 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
5087 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
5090 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
5091 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
5092 these register values no longer become completely useless.
5093 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
5094 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
5095 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
5097 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
5098 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
5099 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
5100 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
5102 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
5103 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
5104 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
5105 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
5106 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
5108 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
5109 since it applies only to the current frame.
5111 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
5112 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
5113 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
5115 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
5116 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
5117 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
5118 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
5119 instead of just the file you are editing.
5123 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
5124 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
5125 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
5126 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
5127 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
5130 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
5131 knows which kind of label is needed.
5133 C-c ) reftex-reference
5134 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
5135 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
5137 C-c [ reftex-citation
5138 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
5139 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
5141 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
5142 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
5145 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
5146 can quickly jump to every section.
5148 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
5149 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
5150 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
5151 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
5152 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
5154 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
5156 *** Info documentation is now available.
5158 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
5159 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
5161 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
5162 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
5164 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
5165 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
5167 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
5168 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
5169 appropriate functions.
5171 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
5172 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
5174 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
5177 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
5178 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
5180 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
5183 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
5184 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
5185 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
5187 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
5188 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
5189 prefixed with `ALT'.
5191 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
5192 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
5193 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
5196 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
5197 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
5198 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
5200 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
5201 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
5203 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
5204 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
5205 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
5207 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
5209 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
5211 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
5214 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
5215 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
5218 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
5221 *** Added support for imenu.
5223 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
5224 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
5225 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
5226 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
5228 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
5229 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
5231 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
5233 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
5234 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
5235 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
5238 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
5239 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
5241 ** browse-url changes
5243 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
5244 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
5245 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
5246 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
5247 customization variables.
5249 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
5251 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
5252 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
5253 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
5257 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
5258 pops up the Info file for this command.
5260 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
5261 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
5262 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
5265 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
5266 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
5267 files in the same directory.
5269 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
5270 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
5271 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
5275 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
5276 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
5278 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
5279 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
5280 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
5281 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
5282 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
5283 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
5284 color when Viper is in insert state.
5285 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
5286 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
5287 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
5291 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
5292 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
5293 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
5294 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
5295 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
5297 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
5299 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
5300 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
5302 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
5303 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
5304 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
5306 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
5307 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
5308 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
5309 methods and protocols.
5311 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
5312 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
5313 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
5316 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
5317 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
5318 at least M times and as many as N times.
5320 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
5321 in files has changed slightly.
5323 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
5324 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
5325 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
5326 with old time-stamp-format values.
5328 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
5329 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
5330 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
5333 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
5334 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
5335 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
5336 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
5337 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
5338 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
5340 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
5341 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
5342 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
5344 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
5345 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
5346 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
5347 recommended now will continue to work then.
5349 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
5352 ** There are some additional major modes:
5354 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
5355 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
5356 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
5358 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
5359 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
5362 ** New Lisp packages include:
5364 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
5366 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
5367 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
5369 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
5371 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
5374 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
5375 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
5378 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
5379 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
5380 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
5381 strings or comments.
5383 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
5384 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
5385 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
5386 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
5389 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
5390 can visit them by short forms of their names.
5392 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
5393 Emacs Lisp function at point.
5395 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
5397 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
5398 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
5400 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
5402 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
5404 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
5406 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
5407 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
5409 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
5410 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
5411 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
5412 original place after inserting the copy.
5414 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
5417 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
5418 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
5419 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
5421 Enable mouse-drag with:
5422 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
5424 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
5426 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
5427 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
5429 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
5430 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
5434 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
5435 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
5436 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
5437 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
5438 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
5439 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
5440 instance) and vice versa.
5442 To use this package load it using
5443 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
5444 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
5445 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
5446 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
5447 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
5448 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
5450 *** Interface to ph.
5452 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
5454 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
5455 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
5458 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
5460 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
5461 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
5462 while the real cursor does not move.
5464 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
5465 for visiting your favorite web sites.
5467 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
5468 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
5472 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
5473 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
5474 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
5475 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
5477 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
5479 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
5481 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
5483 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
5484 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
5485 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
5486 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
5487 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
5489 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
5490 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
5491 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
5492 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
5493 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
5494 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
5496 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
5498 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
5499 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
5500 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
5501 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
5503 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
5504 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
5506 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
5507 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
5510 ** Basic Lisp changes
5512 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
5513 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
5515 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
5516 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
5519 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
5521 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
5523 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
5524 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
5526 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
5527 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
5530 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
5532 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
5534 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
5536 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
5537 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
5538 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
5541 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
5542 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
5543 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
5545 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
5546 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
5547 adding one of these suffixes.
5549 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
5550 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
5551 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
5553 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
5554 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
5556 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
5558 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
5559 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
5561 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
5562 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
5564 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
5566 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
5567 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
5569 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
5570 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
5571 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
5572 works using `save-current-buffer'.
5574 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
5575 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
5578 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
5579 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
5580 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
5583 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
5584 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
5587 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
5589 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
5590 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
5591 Then it returns that string.
5593 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
5595 (with-output-to-string
5596 (princ "The buffer is ")
5597 (princ (buffer-name)))
5599 returns "The buffer is foo".
5601 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
5604 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
5605 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
5606 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
5608 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
5609 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
5611 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
5612 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
5613 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
5614 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
5615 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
5616 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
5618 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
5619 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
5620 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
5623 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
5624 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
5625 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
5626 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
5627 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
5629 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
5630 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
5631 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
5632 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
5634 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
5635 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
5637 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
5639 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
5640 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
5641 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
5642 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
5645 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
5646 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
5649 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
5651 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
5652 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
5653 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
5654 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
5655 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
5657 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
5659 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
5660 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
5661 more than the number of characters.
5663 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
5664 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
5665 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
5666 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
5667 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
5668 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
5670 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
5671 and returns a string containing those characters.
5673 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
5674 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
5675 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
5676 character, sref signals an error.
5678 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
5679 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
5680 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5682 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
5683 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
5684 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5686 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
5687 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
5688 to a vector of the characters in it.
5690 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
5691 of a string. You call it as follows:
5693 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
5695 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
5696 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
5697 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
5698 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
5699 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
5701 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
5702 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5704 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
5705 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5707 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
5708 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
5709 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
5710 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
5712 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
5714 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
5716 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
5717 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
5718 are not included in the resulting value.
5720 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
5721 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
5722 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
5723 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
5725 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
5726 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
5727 character extends across that column), then the padding character
5728 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
5729 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
5730 column START-COLUMN.
5732 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
5733 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
5734 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
5735 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
5736 changed text, before the change.
5738 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
5739 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
5740 one character set for each script, not for each language.
5742 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
5744 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
5746 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
5747 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
5749 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
5750 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
5751 which identify the character within that character set.
5753 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
5754 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
5755 opposite of split-char.
5757 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
5758 of all the characters between BEG and END.
5760 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
5761 of all the characters in a string.
5763 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
5764 and specifying coding systems.
5766 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
5767 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
5768 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
5769 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
5770 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
5771 as what to do about code conversion.)
5773 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
5774 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
5776 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5777 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5778 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
5780 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5781 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
5782 to match against a file name.
5784 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5785 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5786 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5787 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5788 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5789 specifies the coding system for encoding.
5791 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5792 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5794 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
5795 the coding system to use for network sockets.
5797 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5798 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
5799 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
5802 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5803 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5804 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5805 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5806 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5807 specifies the coding system for encoding.
5809 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5810 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5812 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5813 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5814 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
5815 start the subprocess.
5817 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
5818 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
5819 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
5820 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
5821 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
5823 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
5824 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
5827 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
5828 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
5829 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
5830 connection permanently or until overridden.
5832 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
5833 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
5834 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
5835 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
5836 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
5837 system for one operation at a time.
5839 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
5840 files, subprocesses or network connections.
5842 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
5843 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
5844 The value is a cons cell,
5845 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
5846 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
5847 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
5848 input to the subprocess.
5850 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
5851 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
5853 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
5854 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
5855 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
5857 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
5858 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
5859 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
5860 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
5863 Thus, instead of writing
5865 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
5866 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
5868 you would now write this:
5870 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
5871 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
5875 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
5876 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
5877 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
5878 for a description of them.
5880 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
5881 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
5883 (defgroup ispell nil
5884 "Spell checking using Ispell."
5887 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
5888 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
5889 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
5890 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
5891 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
5893 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
5894 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
5895 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
5896 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
5897 first-level subgroups.
5899 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
5901 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
5902 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
5906 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
5907 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
5908 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
5909 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
5910 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
5911 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
5913 ** Text property changes
5915 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
5918 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
5919 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
5920 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
5921 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
5922 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
5924 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
5925 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
5926 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
5927 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
5929 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
5930 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
5931 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
5933 ** Changes in invisibility features
5935 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
5936 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
5937 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
5938 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
5939 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
5940 make the overlay visible.
5942 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
5943 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
5944 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
5945 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
5946 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
5947 t when it should hide it.
5949 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
5951 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
5952 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
5953 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
5954 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
5955 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
5956 Here is an example of how to do this:
5958 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
5959 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5960 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
5961 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5964 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
5967 ;; When done with the overlays:
5968 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5970 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5972 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
5974 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
5975 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
5976 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
5977 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
5979 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
5980 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
5981 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
5983 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
5984 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
5986 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
5987 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
5989 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
5990 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
5991 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
5993 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
5994 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
5995 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
5996 determine the syntax type of the character.
5998 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
5999 of the current buffer.
6001 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
6002 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
6003 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
6005 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
6006 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
6007 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
6008 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
6009 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
6011 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
6014 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
6015 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
6016 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
6018 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
6019 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
6020 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
6021 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
6022 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
6024 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
6025 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
6026 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
6028 ** Changes in face features
6030 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
6031 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
6033 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
6034 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
6036 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
6037 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
6039 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
6040 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
6042 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
6043 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
6044 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
6045 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
6048 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
6049 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
6051 ** Changes in file-handling functions
6053 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
6054 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
6055 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
6056 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
6058 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
6061 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
6062 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
6064 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
6065 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
6067 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
6068 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
6070 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
6071 character code conversion as well as other things.
6073 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
6074 (formerly it did not).
6076 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
6077 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
6079 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
6080 instead of constant strings.
6082 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
6083 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
6084 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
6086 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
6087 in the same way as before.
6089 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
6090 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
6091 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
6093 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
6094 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
6095 else, and returns nil.
6097 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
6098 directory cannot be listed.
6100 ** Changes in minibuffer input
6102 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
6103 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
6104 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
6105 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
6108 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
6109 It is available through the history command M-n.
6111 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
6112 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
6113 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
6114 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
6115 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
6117 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
6118 argument in this way.
6120 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
6121 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
6122 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
6124 ** Echo area features
6126 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
6127 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
6128 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
6129 after the echo area is cleared.
6131 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
6132 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
6134 ** Keyboard input features
6136 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
6137 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
6139 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
6140 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
6143 ** Frame-related changes
6145 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
6146 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
6147 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
6149 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
6150 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
6151 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
6153 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6154 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
6155 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
6156 in the selected frame.
6158 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
6159 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
6160 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
6162 ** X Windows features
6164 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
6165 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
6166 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
6168 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
6169 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
6171 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
6172 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
6173 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
6175 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
6176 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
6178 ** Subprocess features
6180 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
6181 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
6184 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
6185 and returns the output from the command as a string.
6187 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
6188 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
6190 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
6191 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
6193 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
6194 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
6195 goes after the other menu items.
6197 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
6198 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
6199 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
6202 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
6203 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
6205 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
6206 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
6209 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
6210 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
6211 but its hook is still run.
6213 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
6214 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
6216 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
6217 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
6218 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
6220 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
6221 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
6222 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
6225 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
6226 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
6228 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
6229 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
6230 functions like display-time.
6232 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
6233 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
6235 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
6236 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
6237 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
6239 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
6240 if there is an error in compilation.
6242 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
6243 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
6244 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
6245 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
6247 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
6248 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
6249 the *scratch* buffer.
6251 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
6252 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
6253 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
6254 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
6256 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
6257 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
6258 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
6260 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
6261 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
6262 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
6263 and compose-mail-other-frame.
6265 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
6266 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
6267 full name of the specified user will be returned.
6269 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
6270 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
6271 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
6272 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
6273 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
6276 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
6277 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
6278 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
6279 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
6281 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
6282 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
6283 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
6284 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
6286 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
6288 ** imenu.el changes.
6290 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
6291 item from menu created by imenu.
6293 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
6294 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
6295 select one of those items.
6297 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
6299 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
6301 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
6302 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
6304 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
6305 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
6306 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
6308 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
6310 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
6311 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
6313 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6314 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
6315 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
6316 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
6317 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
6320 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
6321 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
6323 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
6324 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
6325 as in previous Emacs versions.
6327 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
6328 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
6329 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
6332 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
6333 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
6334 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
6335 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
6338 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
6339 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
6340 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
6341 line and then executing the macro.
6343 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
6345 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
6346 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
6347 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
6352 *** Font Lock support modes
6354 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
6355 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
6356 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
6357 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
6358 Font Lock mode is enabled.
6360 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
6362 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
6368 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
6369 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
6370 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
6371 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
6372 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
6373 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
6374 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
6376 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
6378 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
6380 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
6382 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6384 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
6387 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
6392 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
6393 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
6394 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
6395 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
6397 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
6398 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
6400 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
6401 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
6404 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
6405 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
6407 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
6409 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
6411 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
6413 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
6416 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
6418 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
6420 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
6422 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
6424 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
6427 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
6429 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
6431 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
6433 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
6435 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
6437 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
6439 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
6441 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
6444 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
6446 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
6449 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
6451 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
6452 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
6454 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
6456 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
6458 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
6460 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
6462 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
6465 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
6467 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
6468 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
6470 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
6471 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
6472 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
6474 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
6475 articles with the `*' command.
6477 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
6479 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
6481 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
6483 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
6485 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
6486 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
6488 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
6491 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
6493 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
6495 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
6497 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
6499 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
6501 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
6503 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
6505 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
6507 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
6509 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
6510 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
6512 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
6515 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
6517 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
6518 buffer to allow easier treatment.
6520 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
6522 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
6524 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
6526 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
6529 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
6531 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
6533 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
6534 cited text to hide is now customizable.
6536 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
6538 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
6540 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
6542 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
6544 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
6546 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
6549 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
6551 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
6552 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
6553 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
6556 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
6559 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
6562 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
6563 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
6566 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
6567 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
6568 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
6569 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
6570 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
6573 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
6575 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
6577 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
6578 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
6579 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
6580 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
6581 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
6583 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
6584 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
6585 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
6587 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
6589 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
6590 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
6591 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
6592 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
6593 chapter of the manual for details.
6595 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
6596 customization variables take effect.
6598 ** Marking with the mouse.
6600 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
6601 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
6602 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
6604 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
6606 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
6608 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
6609 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
6611 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
6612 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
6613 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
6614 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
6615 applications, these problems are significant.
6617 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
6618 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
6619 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
6620 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
6621 other DOS application as a subprocess.
6623 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
6624 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
6626 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
6627 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
6628 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
6629 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
6630 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
6631 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
6633 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
6635 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
6636 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
6637 minibuffer contains.
6639 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
6641 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
6642 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
6643 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
6644 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
6646 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
6647 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
6648 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
6649 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
6651 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
6652 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
6654 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
6655 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
6656 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
6658 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
6659 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
6660 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
6661 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
6663 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
6665 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
6666 to replace the characters it "deletes".
6668 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
6670 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
6671 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
6672 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
6673 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
6674 immediately after the selected one.
6676 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
6677 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
6679 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
6681 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
6682 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
6683 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
6684 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
6687 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
6688 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
6691 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
6692 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
6693 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
6694 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
6695 now that the bug is fixed.
6697 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
6699 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
6700 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
6701 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
6702 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
6704 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
6705 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
6706 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
6707 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
6709 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
6710 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
6711 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
6713 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
6714 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
6715 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
6716 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
6719 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
6720 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
6722 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
6723 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
6724 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
6725 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
6727 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
6728 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
6729 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
6730 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
6731 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
6732 `mail-directory-stream'.)
6734 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
6735 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
6736 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
6737 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
6739 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
6740 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
6741 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
6743 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
6744 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
6745 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
6746 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
6747 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
6748 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
6749 to a limitation in font-lock).
6751 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
6753 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
6754 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
6755 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
6758 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
6759 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
6761 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6763 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
6765 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
6767 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
6769 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
6770 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
6771 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
6772 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
6773 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
6774 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
6776 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
6779 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
6780 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
6782 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
6787 *** Global Font Lock mode
6789 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
6790 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
6791 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
6792 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
6793 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
6795 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
6797 (global-font-lock-mode t)
6801 *** Local Refontification
6803 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
6804 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
6805 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
6806 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
6808 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
6809 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
6810 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
6811 above and below point.
6813 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
6817 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
6818 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
6819 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
6820 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
6821 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
6824 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
6826 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
6827 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
6829 ** hide-show changes.
6831 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
6832 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
6835 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
6836 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
6838 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
6839 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
6840 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
6844 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
6845 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
6847 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
6848 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
6850 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
6852 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
6853 pressing both mouse buttons.
6855 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
6856 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
6859 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
6862 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
6864 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
6865 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
6867 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
6869 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
6871 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
6873 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
6875 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
6877 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
6879 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
6880 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
6881 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
6882 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
6883 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
6885 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
6887 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
6888 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
6889 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
6892 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
6895 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
6897 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
6898 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
6900 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
6901 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
6903 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
6904 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
6905 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
6907 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
6908 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
6911 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6913 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
6914 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
6915 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
6917 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
6918 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
6919 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
6921 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
6922 up if too much time passes.
6924 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
6926 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
6927 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
6928 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
6931 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
6932 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
6933 call looks like this:
6935 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6937 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
6938 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
6939 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
6942 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
6943 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
6946 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
6947 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
6948 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
6949 each time Emacs becomes idle.
6951 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
6952 idle for SECS seconds.
6954 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
6955 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
6956 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
6959 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
6960 there is no answer within a certain time.
6962 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
6964 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
6965 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
6966 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
6968 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
6969 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
6970 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
6971 arguments in between are ignored.
6973 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
6974 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
6976 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
6977 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
6978 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
6979 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
6982 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
6983 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
6984 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
6985 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
6986 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
6987 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
6989 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
6990 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
6991 systems with limited file name syntax.
6993 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
6994 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
6995 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
6998 (defvar save-completions-file-name
6999 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
7000 "*The filename to save completions to.")
7002 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
7003 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
7004 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
7005 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
7006 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
7008 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
7009 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
7010 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
7012 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
7013 marker from its buffer position.
7015 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
7016 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
7017 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
7019 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
7020 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
7021 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
7022 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
7023 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
7024 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
7026 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
7027 errors that happen often during editing.
7029 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
7030 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
7031 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
7033 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
7034 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
7036 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
7037 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
7038 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
7039 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
7040 and not get-buffer-window.
7042 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
7043 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
7044 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
7046 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
7047 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
7048 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
7049 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
7050 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
7051 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
7052 over and over for the same text.
7054 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
7056 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
7057 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
7059 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
7062 in addition to the normal
7066 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
7067 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
7068 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
7070 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
7072 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
7073 Copyright information:
7075 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7077 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7078 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7079 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7080 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7082 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7083 of this document, or of portions of it,
7084 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7085 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7089 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"