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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
8
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 23.
10
11 See files NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18, and NEWS.1-17
12 for changes in older Emacs versions.
13
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
16
17
18 Temporary note:
19 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
20 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
23
24 \f
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.2
26
27 ** New configure options for Emacs developers
28 These are not new features; only the configure flags are new.
29
30 *** --enable-profiling builds Emacs with profiling enabled.
31 This might not work on all platforms.
32
33 *** --enable-checking[=OPTIONS] builds emacs with extra runtime checks.
34
35 ---
36 ** `make install' now consistently ignores umask, creating a
37 world-readable install.
38
39 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.2
40
41 ** Command-line option -Q (--quick) now also disables loading X resources.
42 On Windows, this option causes Emacs to ignore Registry settings,
43 though environment variables set on the Registry are still honored.
44
45 *** The new variable `inhibit-x-resources' shows whether X resources
46 were loaded.
47
48 * Changes in Emacs 23.2
49
50 ** Unibyte sessions are now considered obsolete.
51 I.e. the use of the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE, or command line
52 arguments --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
53 is deprecated. Similarly for custom-izing enable-multibyte-characters, or
54 setting default-enable-multibyte-characters.
55
56 ** The default value of `trash-directory' has changed to nil, which
57 means that `move-file-to-trash' trashes files according to
58 freedesktop.org specifications, the same method used by the Gnome,
59 KDE, and XFCE desktops. (This change has no effect on Windows, which
60 uses `system-move-file-to-trash' for trashing.)
61
62 +++
63 ** Emacs frames can be maximized.
64 The command line arguments -mm/--maximized and the value maximized to the
65 frame parameter fullscreen makes the Emacs frame maximized.
66
67 +++
68 ** New frame parameter sticky makes Emacs frames sticky in virtual desktops.
69
70 ** The pointer now becomes invisible when typing.
71 Customize make-pointer-invisible to turn it off.
72
73 ** Killing a buffer with a running process now asks a confirmation.
74 You can remove this query in two ways: either removing
75 `process-kill-buffer-query-function' from `kill-buffer-query-functions' or
76 setting the appropriate process flag with `set-process-query-on-exit-flag'.
77
78 ** The variable `load-in-progress' won't get corrupted by binding it
79 with `let'. In certain situations, loading an Emacs Lisp file from
80 source while in the midst of loading another file (e.g., with
81 `require' or `autoload') could cause the value of `load-in-progress'
82 to be corrupted once the outer load completed. Most code doesn't care
83 about this, but some (like c-mode) may check it.
84
85 ** File-local variable changes
86
87 *** Specifying a minor mode as a local variables enables that mode,
88 unconditionally. The previous behavior, toggling the mode, was
89 neither reliable nor generally desirable.
90
91 *** New commands for adding and removing file-local variables:
92 `add-file-local-variable', `delete-file-local-variable',
93 `add-file-local-variable-prop-line', and
94 `delete-file-local-variable-prop-line'.
95
96 *** New commands for adding and removing directory-local variables,
97 and copying them to and from file-local variable lists:
98 `add-dir-local-variable', `delete-dir-local-variable',
99 `copy-dir-locals-to-file-locals',
100 `copy-dir-locals-to-file-locals-prop-line' and
101 `copy-file-locals-to-dir-locals'.
102
103 ** New coding system `utf-8-hfs' is available in
104 international/ucs-normalize.el. It is suitable for
105 default-file-name-coding-system on Mac OS X.
106
107 \f
108 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.2
109
110 ** Selection changes
111 +++
112 *** If `select-active-regions' is t, any active region automatically
113 becomes the primary selection (for interaction with other window
114 applications). If you enable this, you might want to bind
115 `mouse-yank-primary' to Mouse-2.
116
117 *** When `save-interprogram-paste-before-kill' is non-nil, emacs will
118 not clobber the the interprogram paste when something is killed in it
119 by saving the former in the `kill-ring' before the latter.
120
121 ** When `kill-do-not-save-duplicates' is non-nil, identical subsequent
122 kills are not duplicated in the `kill-ring'.
123
124 +++
125 ** The default value for `blink-matching-paren-distance' has been increased.
126
127 ** The new completion-style `initials' is available.
128 For instance, this can complete M-x lch to list-command-history.
129
130 \f
131 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.2
132
133 ** .calc.el and .abbrev_defs obey user-emacs-directory.
134
135 ** Calc graphing commands (`g f' etc.) now work on MS-Windows,
136 if you have the native Windows port of Gnuplot version 3.8 or later
137 installed.
138
139 ** Calendar and diary
140
141 *** Fancy diary display is now the default.
142 If you prefer the simple display, customize `diary-display-function'.
143
144 *** The diary's fancy display now enables view-mode.
145
146 ---
147 *** The command `calendar-current-date' accepts an optional argument
148 giving an offset from today.
149
150 ** Desktop
151 ---
152 *** The default value for `desktop-buffers-not-to-save' is nil.
153 This means Desktop will try restoring all buffers, when you restart
154 your Emacs session. Also, `desktop-buffers-not-to-save' is only
155 effective for buffers that have no associated file. If you want to
156 exempt buffers that do correspond to files, customize the value of
157 `desktop-files-not-to-save' instead.
158
159 ** FIXME mail-user-agent change
160 This probably affects a lot of documentation.
161
162 ** FIXME gdb-mi
163
164 ** Info
165
166 *** The new command `Info-virtual-index' bound to "I" displays a menu of
167 matched topics found in the index.
168
169 *** The new command `info-finder' replaces finder.el with a virtual Info
170 manual that generates an Info file which gives the same information
171 through a menu structure.
172
173 +++
174 ** New connection methods in Tramp.
175 The new connection method "rsyncc" has been introduced. On systems
176 which support GVFS-Fuse, Tramp offers also the new connection methods
177 "dav", "davs", "obex" and "synce".
178
179 ** nXML mode is now the default for editing XML files.
180
181 ** VC and related modes
182
183 *** FIXME: add info about the new VC functions: vc-root-diff and
184 vc-root-print-log once they stabilize.
185
186 *** When a file is not found, VC will not try to check it out of RCS anymore.
187
188 *** vc-git changes
189
190 **** The new variable vc-git-add-signoff can be used to add a
191 Signed-off-by line when committing.
192
193 **** vc-dir displays the stash status
194
195 *** log-edit-strip-single-file-name controls whether or not single filenames
196 are stripped when copying text from the ChangeLog to the *VC-Log* buffer.
197
198 ** Miscellaneous
199
200 *** The new command `async-shell-command' bound globally to `M-&' executes
201 the command asynchronously without the need to manually add ampersand to
202 the end of the command. Its output appears in the buffer `*Async Shell
203 Command*'.
204
205 +++
206 *** Autorevert Tail mode now works now for remote files.
207
208 ---
209 *** Elint now uses compilation-mode, and recognizes more built-in
210 functions and variables.
211
212 \f
213 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.2
214
215 ** js.el is a new major mode for JavaScript files.
216
217 \f
218 * Lisp changes in Emacs 23.2
219
220 ** eval-next-after-load is obsolete.
221 ** New hook `after-load-functions' run after loading an Elisp file.
222
223 ** You can control which binding is preferentially shown in menus and
224 docstrings by adding a `:advertised-binding' property to the corresponding
225 command's symbol. That property can hold a single binding or a list
226 of bindings.
227
228 ** New macro with-silent-modifications to tweak text properties without
229 affecting the buffer's modification state.
230 ** All the default-FOO variables that hold the default value of the FOO
231 variable, are now declared obsolete.
232
233 ** read-key is a function halfway between read-event and read-key-sequence.
234 It reads a single key, but obeys input and escape sequence decoding.
235
236 ** start-process-shell-command and start-file-process-shell-command
237 now only take a single `command' argument.
238
239 ** The variable `process-file-side-effects' shall be bound to nil, if
240 a `process-file' call does not change a remote file. By this, file
241 name handlers like Tramp can apply optimizations.
242
243 ** Hash tables have a new printed representation that is readable.
244 The feature `hashtable-print-readable' identifies this new
245 functionality.
246
247 ** Functions performing Unicode normalization are added. They are:
248 ucs-normalize-NFD-region, ucs-normalize-NFD-string,
249 ucs-normalize-NFC-region, ucs-normalize-NFC-string,
250 ucs-normalize-NFKD-region, ucs-normalize-NFKD-string,
251 ucs-normalize-NFKC-region, ucs-normalize-NFKC-string,
252 ucs-normalize-HFS-NFD-region, ucs-normalize-HFS-NFD-string,
253 ucs-normalize-HFS-NFC-region, ucs-normalize-HFS-NFC-string.
254
255 ** completion-annotate-function specifies how to compute annotations
256 for completions displayed in *Completions*.
257
258 +++
259 ** Face aliases can now be marked as obsolete, using the macro
260 `define-obsolete-face-alias'.
261
262 ---
263 ** Changing the file-names generated by byte-compilation by redefining
264 the function `byte-compile-dest-file' before loading bytecomp.el is obsolete.
265 Instead, customize byte-compile-dest-file-function.
266
267 ** Several obsolete functions removed.
268 The functions have been obsolete since Emacs 19, and are unlikely to
269 be in use:
270
271 time-stamp-month-dd-yyyy, time-stamp-dd/mm/yyyy, time-stamp-mon-dd-yyyy
272 time-stamp-dd-mon-yy, time-stamp-yy/mm/dd, time-stamp-yyyy/mm/dd,
273 time-stamp-yyyy-mm-dd, time-stamp-yymmdd, time-stamp-hh:mm:ss,
274 time-stamp-hhmm, baud-rate
275
276 * Changes in Emacs 23.2 on non-free operating systems
277
278 ---
279 ** On MS-Windows, `display-time' now displays the system load average
280 as well as the time, as it does on GNU and Unix.
281
282 \f
283 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.1
284
285 ** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+, rather than Lucid.
286 The configure option `--with-gtk' has been removed. Gtk is now the
287 default toolkit, but you can use --with-x-toolkit=gtk if necessary.
288
289 ** New font code.
290 Fonts are handled by new code capable of dealing with multiple font
291 backends. This uses the freetype and fontconfig libraries.
292
293 *** Emacs now accepts font names supplied in the fontconfig format
294 (e.g. "monospace-12:bold") and GTK format (e.g. "Monospace Bold 12").
295
296 *** Added support for local fonts (fonts installed on the machine
297 where Emacs is running).
298
299 *** Added support for the Xft library for antialiasing.
300
301 *** Added support for the otf library for complex text layout by
302 OpenType fonts.
303
304 *** Added support for the m17n library for text shaping.
305
306 ** Changes to image support
307
308 *** configure now checks for libgif before libungif when searching for
309 a GIF library.
310
311 *** Emacs now supports the SVG image format through librsvg2.
312
313 *** Emacs now supports multi-page TIFF images.
314
315 ** New NeXTSTEP-based port
316 This provides support for GNUstep (via the GNUstep libraries) and Mac
317 OS X (via the Cocoa libraries).
318
319 Specify --with-ns to configure for this. By default, a self-contained
320 app will be built (containing all lisp). To install/share lisp with
321 other emacsen (e.g. X11 build) use --disable-ns-self-contained. See
322 nextstep/README and nextstep/INSTALL in the Emacs source directory.
323
324 ** Mac OS X is no longer supported via Carbon.
325 Use the NeXTSTEP port, described above.
326
327 ** The new configuration option "--with-dbus" enables D-Bus language
328 bindings for Emacs.
329
330 ** Support for many obsolete platforms has been removed.
331 See the list at the end of etc/MACHINES for details.
332
333 *** Support for systems without alloca has been removed.
334
335 *** Support for Sun windows has been removed.
336
337 *** The `emacstool' utility has been removed.
338
339 ** The following platforms will be removed in a future Emacs version:
340 If you are still using Emacs on one of these platforms, please email
341 emacs-devel@gnu.org to inform the Emacs developers.
342
343 *** Old GNU/Linux systems based on libc version 5.
344
345 *** Old FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD systems based on the COFF
346 executable format.
347
348 *** Solaris versions 2.6 and below.
349
350 *** Solaris on IBM RS6000 machines.
351
352 *** UNIX System V (the original SysV, not later platforms based on it).
353
354 *** Unixware on non-x86 machines.
355
356 *** Platforms not supporting shared libraries (i.e., requiring the
357 NO_SHARED_LIBS compilation flag).
358
359 ** The configure options `--with-gcc', `--without-gcc' have been removed.
360 Configure will use gcc by default. Set the CC environment variable if
361 you need control over which C compiler is used.
362
363 ** The refcards are now shipped as PDF files.
364
365 ** The manuals are now licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License v1.3,
366 or any later version.
367
368 ** Emacs 23 comes with a new set of default icons.
369 Various resolutions are available as etc/images/icons/hicolor/*/apps/emacs.png.
370 The Emacs 22 icon is available as `emacs22.png' in the same location.
371 \f
372 * Changes in Emacs 23.1
373
374 ** Improved X Window System support
375
376 *** Emacs now supports using both X displays and ttys in one session.
377 With an Emacs server active (M-x server-start), `emacsclient -t'
378 creates a tty frame connected to the running emacs server. You can
379 use any number of different ttys. `emacsclient -c' creates a new X11
380 frame on the current $DISPLAY (or a tty frame if $DISPLAY is not set).
381 There may be problems if a display exits unexpectedly and Emacs is compiled
382 with Gtk+, see etc/PROBLEMS.
383
384 You can test for the presence of this feature in your Lisp code by
385 testing for the `multi-tty' feature.
386
387 *** Emacs starts in the background, as a daemon, when given the
388 --daemon command line argument. It disconnects from the terminal and
389 starts the server. Clients can connect and create graphical or
390 terminal frames using emacsclient.
391
392 **** emacsclient starts emacs in daemon mode and connects to it when
393 --alternate-editor="" is used (or when the evironment variable
394 ALTERNATE_EDITOR is set to "") and emacsclient cannot connect to an
395 emacs server.
396
397 *** The new command close-display-connection closes a connection to a
398 remote display. There are some bugs for Gtk+. See etc/PROBLEMS.
399
400 *** Emacs now supports the XEmbed specification.
401 You can embed Emacs in another application on X11. The new command line
402 option --parent-id is used to pass the parent window id to Emacs. See
403 http://standards.freedesktop.org/xembed-spec/xembed-spec-latest.html
404 for details about XEmbed.
405
406 *** Emacs can now set the frame opacity.
407 The opacity of a frame can be controlled by setting the `alpha' frame
408 parameter. This only takes effect on a compositing window manager for
409 the X Window System, such as Compiz, Beryl and Compiz Fusion, on Mac
410 OS X, or on Windows 2000 and later versions of Windows.
411
412 The alpha parameter should be an integer between 0 (transparent) and
413 100 (opaque), or a float number between 0.0 and 1.0. It can also be a
414 cons cell (ACTIVE . INACTIVE), where ACTIVE is the opacity of an
415 active frame and INACTIVE is the opacity of non-active frames.
416
417 The variable `frame-alpha-lower-limit' defines a lower bound for the
418 opacity; the default is 20.
419
420 ** Internationalization changes
421
422 *** The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.
423 (It has about four times the code space, which should be plenty).
424
425 The internal encoding used for buffers and strings is now
426 Unicode-based and called `utf-8-emacs' (`emacs-internal' is an alias
427 for this). This encoding is backward-compatible with Unicode's UTF-8
428 encoding. The internal encoding previously used by Emacs,
429 `emacs-mule', is still available for reading and writing files.
430
431 During byte-compilation, Emacs 23 uses `utf-8-emacs' to write files.
432 As a result, byte-compiled files containing non-ASCII characters can't
433 be read by earlier versions of Emacs. Files compiled by Emacs 20, 21,
434 or 22 are loaded correctly as `emacs-mule' (whether or not they
435 contain multibyte characters). This takes somewhat more time, so it
436 may be worth recompiling existing .elc files which don't need to be
437 shared with older Emacsen.
438
439 *** There are new coding systems/aliases; see M-x list-coding-systems.
440
441 *** There is a new charset implementation with many new charsets.
442 See M-x list-character-sets. New charsets can be defined conveniently
443 as tables of unicodes.
444
445 *** There are new language environments for Chinese-GBK,
446 Chinese-GB18030, Khmer, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu,
447 Sinhala, and TaiViet.
448
449 *** The minor modes unify-8859-on-encoding-mode and
450 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode are obsolete.
451
452 *** `ucs-insert' is bound to `C-x 8 RET' and in addition to hex numbers
453 accepts numbers in hash notation (e.g. #o21430 for octal, or #10r8984 for
454 decimal). It also accepts Unicode character names with completion.
455
456 *** The `cyrillic-translit' input method supports many new characters.
457 Common typographical characters available from Unicode were added to
458 `cyrillic-translit': punctuation marks, accented characters, fractions,
459 and others.
460
461 ** Emacs now supports serial port access on GNU/Linux, Unix, and
462 Windows. The new command `serial-term' starts an interactive terminal
463 on a serial port. The serial port can be configured at runtime with
464 the mode-line mouse menu.
465
466 ** Menu Bar changes
467
468 *** In the Options menu, the "Set Default Font" item applies the
469 selected font to the `default' face on all frames, not just the
470 current frame. Furthermore, if Emacs is compiled with both GTK and
471 Fontconfig support, the "Set Default Font" item uses the GTK font
472 selection dialog instead of an Emacs pop-up menu.
473
474 *** The font setting chosen by "Set Default Font" is saved if the
475 "Save Options" item is used.
476
477 *** The Tools menu contains a new Encryption/Decryption submenu.
478 This contains commands provided by EasyPG, the newly-included
479 interface to GnuPG (see New Modes and Packages).
480
481 *** In the Options menu, the "Truncate Long Lines in the Buffer" entry
482 has been replaced with a submenu offering three different ways to
483 handle long lines: truncation, continuation at the window edge, and
484 the new word wrapping behavior (see Editing Changes, below).
485
486 *** Improvements to menus for major and minor modes
487 More major and minor modes now have a mode specific menu, and existing
488 mode menus have been improved to include more functionality.
489
490 ** Mode-line changes
491
492 *** The mode-line displays a `@', instead of `-', if the
493 default-directory for the current buffer is on a remote machine.
494
495 *** The mode-line displays a mode menu when mouse-1 is clicked on a
496 minor mode, in the same way as it already did for major modes.
497
498 *** The `mode-line-emphasis' face is used to highlight certain
499 mode-line information (e.g. waiting for a VC command to finish).
500
501 *** The mode-line tooltips have been improved to provide more details.
502
503 *** The VC, line/colum number and minor mode indicators on the mode
504 line are now interactive: mouse-1 can be used on them to pop up a menu.
505
506 ** File deletion can make use of the Recycle Bin or system Trash folder.
507 Set `delete-by-moving-to-trash' non-nil to use this. Deleted files
508 and directories will then be sent to the Recycle Bin on Windows, and
509 to `trash-directory' on other systems.
510
511 ** Directory-local variables can now be defined.
512 By default, Emacs looks in .dir-locals.el for directory-local
513 variables. For more information, see `dir-locals-set-directory-class'
514 and `dir-locals-set-class-variables'.
515
516 ** Emacs can now use `auth-source' for authentication.
517 `smtpmail' and `url' (Tramp and Gnus also) use `auth-source' to obtain
518 login names and passwords. The match, if found, is reported
519 in *Messages* with the password blanked out.
520
521 ** `where-is-preferred-modifier' can specify your favorite modifier.
522
523 \f
524 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.1
525
526 ** The option `inhibit-startup-screen' (with aliases to old names
527 `inhibit-splash-screen' and `inhibit-startup-message') doesn't inhibit
528 display of the initial message in the *scratch* buffer. If you don't
529 want to display the initial message in the *scratch* buffer at startup,
530 you can set the option `initial-scratch-message' to nil.
531
532 ** New user option `initial-buffer-choice' specifies what to display
533 after starting Emacs: startup screen, *scratch* buffer, visiting a
534 file or directory.
535
536 ** New alias `argv' for `command-line-args-left'
537 This is a convenience alias, so that one can write `(pop argv)'
538 inside of --eval command line arguments in order to access
539 following arguments.
540
541 ** The abbrev file is no longer read at startup in batch mode.
542
543 ** Emacs now supports invocation by an X session manager.
544 It can save a session and restore it later. See the documentation of
545 the functions `emacs-session-save' and `emacs-session-restore'.
546 (Actually, this feature was introduced with Emacs 22, but it was not
547 documented.)
548 \f
549 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
550
551 ** In Dired, `dired-flag-garbage-files' is rebound from `&' to `%&'
552 on the regexp command prefix map.
553
554 ** In Dired-x, all command guesses for ! are now added to the default
555 list accessible by M-n instead of pushing all guesses temporarily into
556 the history list.
557
558 ** In Isearch mode, a special case of typing `C-w' at the beginning of
559 the minibuffer that toggles word search (i.e. using key sequences
560 `C-s RET C-w' or `C-s M-e C-w') is obsolete. You can use the global key
561 `M-s w' to start word search, or type `M-s w' in Isearch mode to
562 toggle word search. To start nonincremental word search you can now use
563 `M-s w RET' and `M-s w C-r RET' instead of `C-s RET C-w' and `C-r RET C-w'.
564
565 ** In Info, `Info-search' is unbound from `M-s' to allow using `M-s w'
566 for word search as well as other search commands from the global prefix
567 key `M-s'. `Info-search' is still bound to `s', and also incremental
568 search commands `C-s', `C-M-s', `C-r', `C-M-r' are available for searching
569 through multiple Info nodes, together with their nonincremental versions
570 `C-s RET', `C-r RET', `C-M-s RET', `C-M-r RET', `M-s w RET'.
571
572 ** In Text mode, `center-line' and `center-paragraph' are rebound from
573 `M-s' and `M-S' to global keys `M-o M-s' and `M-o M-S' on the global
574 prefix map `M-o', which is intended for such formatting commands.
575
576 ** The following input methods were removed in Emacs 22.2, but this was
577 not advertised: danish-alt-postfix, esperanto-alt-postfix,
578 finnish-alt-postfix, german-alt-postfix, icelandic-alt-postfix,
579 norwegian-alt-postfix, scandinavian-alt-postfix, spanish-alt-postfix,
580 and swedish-alt-postfix. Use the versions without "alt-", which are
581 identical.
582
583 \f
584 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
585
586 ** The C-n and C-p line-motion commands now move by screen lines,
587 taking continued lines and variable-width characters into account.
588 Setting `line-move-visual' to nil reverts this to the previous
589 behavior (i.e., motion by logical lines based on buffer contents
590 alone).
591
592 ** C-x C-c now invokes `save-buffers-kill-terminal', and C-z now
593 invokes `suspend-frame'. These changes are for compatibility with the
594 new multi-tty support (see `Improved X Window System support' above).
595
596 ** Mark changes
597
598 *** Transient Mark mode is now on by default.
599
600 *** mark-even-if-inactive now defaults to t
601
602 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, C-SPC C-SPC pushes a mark without
603 activating it.
604
605 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-q now fills the region if the
606 region is active. Otherwise, it fills the current paragraph.
607
608 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-$ now checks spelling of the
609 region if the region is active. Otherwise, it checks spelling of the
610 word at point.
611
612 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, TAB now indents the region if the
613 region is active.
614
615 *** The variable `use-empty-active-region' controls whether an empty
616 active region in Transient Mark mode should make commands operate on
617 that empty region.
618
619 ** Temporarily active regions
620
621 *** The new variable shift-select-mode, non-nil by default, controls
622 shift-selection. When Shift Select mode is on, shift-translated
623 motion keys (e.g. S-left and S-down) activate and extend a temporary
624 region, similar to mouse-selection.
625
626 *** Temporarily active regions, created using shift-selection or
627 mouse-selection, are not necessarily deactivated in the next command.
628 They are only deactivated after point motion commands that are not
629 shift-translated, or after commands that would ordinarily deactivate
630 the mark in Transient Mark mode (e.g., any command that modifies the
631 buffer).
632
633 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
634
635 *** Emacs may ask for confirmation before opening a non-existent file
636 or buffer. By default, Emacs requests confirmation if you type RET
637 immediately after TAB, and the resulting input is not an existing file
638 or buffer; this usually happens when the minibuffer input did not
639 complete far enough and you entered RET by mistake. In that case,
640 Emacs puts the message "[Confirm]" in the minibuffer; type RET again
641 to create the file or buffer.
642
643 The new variable confirm-nonexistent-file-or-buffer determines whether
644 Emacs asks for confirmation. The default value is `after-completion'.
645 If you change it to t, Emacs always asks for confirmation; if you
646 change it to nil, Emacs never asks for confirmation.
647
648 *** The rules for performing completion have been changed.
649 When generating completion alternatives, Emacs now takes the
650 minibuffer text after point, if any, into account: this text is
651 treated as a substring of the remaining part of the completion
652 alternative (i.e., the part not matched by the minibuffer text before
653 point). If no completion alternatives are found this way, Emacs
654 attempts to perform partial-completion. If still no completion
655 alternatives are found, we fall back on the Emacs 22 rules for
656 performing completion.
657
658 The new variable `completion-styles' can be customized to choose your
659 favorite completion style.
660
661 *** When M-n in the minibuffer reaches the end of the list of defaults,
662 it adds the completion list to the end, so next M-n continues putting
663 completion items to the minibuffer. The same principle applies to
664 incremental search commands as well: C-s or C-M-s starts searching
665 the default values and after the end of defaults they continue
666 searching minibuffer completion items.
667
668 *** Minibuffer input of shell commands now comes with completion.
669
670 *** In the `C-x d' (Dired) prompt, typing M-n gives the visited file
671 name of the current buffer.
672
673 *** In the M-! (shell-command) prompt, M-n provides some default commands.
674 These are guessed using the file extension of the current file, based
675 on the file-handlers specified in the operating system's `mailcap'
676 file. The ! command in Dired (dired-do-shell-command) works
677 similarly, using the file displayed on the current line.
678
679 *** A list of regexp default values is available via M-n for `occur',
680 `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many'. This list includes the active
681 region in transient-mark-mode, the word under the cursor, the last Isearch
682 regexp, the last Isearch string and the last replacement regexp.
683
684 *** When enable-recursive-minibuffers is non-nil, operations which use
685 switch-to-buffer (such as C-x b and C-x C-f) do not fail any more when
686 used in a minibuffer or a dedicated window. Instead, they fallback on
687 using pop-to-buffer, which will use some other window. This change
688 has no effect when enable-recursive-minibuffers is nil (the default).
689
690 *** Isearch started in the minibuffer searches in the minibuffer history.
691 Reverse Isearch commands (C-r, C-M-r) search in previous minibuffer
692 history elements, and forward Isearch commands (C-s, C-M-s) search in
693 next history elements. When the reverse search reaches the first history
694 element, it wraps to the last history element, and the forward search
695 wraps to the first history element. When the search is terminated, the
696 history element containing the search string becomes the current.
697
698 *** The variable read-file-name-completion-ignore-case overrides
699 completion-ignore-case for file name completion.
700
701 *** The variable read-buffer-completion-ignore-case overrides
702 completion-ignore-case for buffer name completion.
703
704 *** The new command `minibuffer-force-complete' chooses one of the
705 possible completions, rather than stopping at the common prefix.
706
707 *** If `completion-auto-help' is `lazy', Emacs shows the completions
708 buffer only on the second attempt to complete. This was already
709 supported in `partial-completion-mode'.
710
711 ** Face changes
712
713 *** S-down-mouse-1 now pops up a menu for changing the font and text
714 size of the default face in the current buffer. The face is changed
715 via face remapping (see Lisp changes, below).
716
717 *** New commands to change the default face size in the current buffer.
718 To increase it, type `C-x C-+' or `C-x C-='. To decrease it, type
719 `C-x C--'. To restore the default (global) face size, type `C-x C-0'.
720 These work via Text Scale mode, a new minor mode.
721
722 The final key in the above commands may be repeated without the
723 leading `C-x', e.g. `C-x C-= C-= C-=' increases the face height by
724 three steps. Each step scales the height of the default face by the
725 value of the variable `text-scale-mode-step'.
726
727 *** The commands buffer-face-mode and buffer-face-set can be used to
728 remap the default face in the current buffer. See "Buffer Face mode",
729 under New Modes and Packages.
730
731 ** Primary selection changes
732
733 *** You can disable kill ring commands from accessing the primary
734 selection by setting `x-select-enable-primary' to nil.
735
736 ** Continuation lines can now be wrapped at word boundaries
737 (word-wrapping). This is controlled by the new per-buffer variable
738 `word-wrap'. Word wrapping does not take place if continuation lines
739 are not shown, e.g. if truncate-lines is non-nil. The most convenient
740 way to enable word-wrapping is using the new minor mode Visual Line
741 mode; in addition to setting `word-wrap' to t, this rebinds some
742 editing commands to work on screen lines rather than text lines. See
743 New Modes and Packages, below.
744
745 ** Window management changes
746
747 *** truncate-partial-width-windows now accepts integer values, which
748 specify a minimum window width for partial-width windows, below which
749 lines are truncated. The default has been changed to 50.
750
751 *** The new command balance-windows-area balances windows both
752 vertically and horizontally.
753
754 *** pop-to-buffer now always sets input focus when the popped-to window
755 is on a different frame.
756
757 ** Miscellaneous changes:
758
759 *** C-l is bound to the new command recenter-top-bottom, rather than recenter.
760 This moves the current line to window center, top and bottom on
761 successive invocations.
762
763 *** scroll-preserve-screen-position also preserves the column position.
764
765 *** If `yank-pop-change-selection' is t, rotating the kill ring also
766 updates the selection or clipboard to the current yank, just as M-w
767 would do so with the text it copies to the kill ring.
768
769 *** C-M-% now shows replacement as it would look in the buffer, with
770 `\N' and `\&' substituted according to the match. Old behavior can be
771 restored by customizing `query-replace-show-replacement'.
772
773 *** The command shell prompts for the default directory, when it is
774 called with a prefix and the default directory is a remote file name.
775 This is because some file name handlers (like ange-ftp) are not able to
776 run processes remotely.
777
778 *** The new command kill-matching-buffers kills buffers whose name
779 matches a regexp.
780
781 *** The value of comment-style now defaults to `indent'.
782 Thefore, comment-start markers are inserted at the current indentation
783 of the region to comment, rather than the leftmost column.
784
785 *** The new commands `pp-macroexpand-expression' and
786 `pp-macroexpand-last-sexp' pretty-print macro expansions.
787
788 *** The new command `set-file-modes' allows to set file's mode bits.
789 The mode bits can be specified in symbolic notation, like with GNU
790 Coreutils, in addition to an octal number. `chmod' is a new
791 convenience alias for this function.
792
793 *** `next-error-recenter' specifies how next-error should recenter the
794 visited source file. Its value can be a number (for example, 0 for
795 top line, -1 for bottom line), or nil for no recentering.
796
797 *** When typing in a password in the echo area, C-y yanks the current
798 kill into the password.
799
800 *** Tooltip frame parameters `font' and `color' in `tooltip-frame-parameters'
801 are ignored. Customize the `tooltip' face instead.
802
803 *** `mkdir' is a new convenience alias for `make-directory'.
804 \f
805 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
806
807 ** Auto Composition Mode is a minor mode that composes characters
808 automatically when they are displayed. It is globally on by default.
809 It uses `auto-composition-function' (default `auto-compose-chars').
810
811 ** Bubbles, a new game, is similar to SameGame.
812
813 ** Buffer Face mode is a minor mode for remapping the default face in
814 the current buffer. The variable `buffer-face-mode-face' specifies
815 the face to remap to. The command `buffer-face-set' prompts for a
816 face name, sets `buffer-face-mode-face' to it, and enables
817 buffer-face-mode. See "Face changes", under Editing Changes, for a
818 description of face remapping.
819
820 ** butterfly flips the desired bit on the drive platter.
821 See http://xkcd.com/378/
822
823 ** bug-reference.el provides clickable links to bug reports.
824
825 ** dbus.el provides D-Bus language bindings.
826 D-Bus is an inter-process communication mechanism for applications
827 residing on the same host. See the manual for details.
828
829 ** DocView mode allows viewing of PDF, PostScript and DVI documents.
830 One can also search for a regular expression in the document. For
831 details, see the commentary in doc-view.el.
832
833 PDF and DVI files are now opened in Doc View mode by default.
834
835 In Postcript mode, C-c C-c launches Doc View minor mode for viewing
836 the postscript file.
837
838 ** EasyPG provides an interface to the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG).
839 It includes a GnuPG keyring browser, cryptographic operations on
840 regions and files, and automatic encryption of *.gpg files. For
841 details, see the EasyPG Assistant User's Manual.
842
843 ** json.el is a library for parsing and generating JSON
844 (JavaScript Object Notation), a lightweight data-interchange format.
845
846 ** linum.el is a new minor mode to display line numbers for the
847 current buffer.
848
849 ** mairix.el is an interface to mairix, a free tool for indexing and
850 searching locally stored mail. It allows you to query mairix and
851 display the search results with Rmail, Gnus and VM. Note that there
852 is an existing Gnus back end, nnmairix.el, which should be used with
853 Maildir/MH setups.
854
855 ** minibuffer-depth-indicate-mode shows the minibuffer depth in the prompt.
856
857 ** nXML Mode
858 This is a new mode for editing XML documents. It allows a schema to
859 be associated with the XML document being edited, using Relax NG as
860 the schema language. The schema is used to provide two key features:
861
862 *** Continuous validation. nXML validates as you type, highlighting
863 any invalid parts of your document.
864
865 *** Completion. nXML can assist you in entering an element name,
866 attribute name or data value by using information about what is
867 allowed by the schema in that context.
868
869 ** proced.el provides a Dired-like interface for operating on
870 processes. Proced makes an Emacs buffer containing a listing of the
871 current processes. You can use the normal Emacs commands to move
872 around in this buffer, and special Proced commands to operate on the
873 processes listed. It is currently only functional on GNU/Linux,
874 MS-Windows and Solaris.
875
876 ** Remember Mode is a mode for jotting down things to remember.
877 Notes can be saved to a Diary file. For details, see the Remember
878 Manual.
879
880 ** RST mode is a major mode for editing reStructuredText files.
881
882 ** Ruby mode is a major mode for Ruby files.
883
884 ** Visual Line mode provides support for editing by visual lines.
885 It turns on word-wrapping in the current buffer, and rebinds C-a, C-e,
886 and C-k to commands that operate by visual lines instead of logical
887 lines. This is a more reliable replacement for longlines-mode.
888 This can also be turned on using the menu bar, via
889 Options -> Line Wrapping in this Buffer -> Word Wrap
890
891 ** xesam.el is an implementation of Xesam, an interface to (desktop)
892 search engines like Beagle, Strigi, and Tracker. The Xesam API
893 requires D-Bus for communication.
894
895 ** zeroconf.el offers service discovery and service publishing
896 interfaces according to the zeroconf specification. It communicates
897 with Avahi, a zeroconf implementation, via D-Bus messages on systems
898 which have installed this software.
899
900 ** There is a new `whitespace' package.
901 (The pre-existing one has been renamed to `old-whitespace'.)
902 Now, besides reporting bogus blanks, the whitespace package has a
903 minor mode and a global minor mode to visualize blanks (TAB, (HARD)
904 SPACE and NEWLINE). The visualization is made via faces and/or display
905 table. It can also indicate lines that extend beyond a given column,
906 trailing blanks, and empty lines at the start or end of a buffer.
907 See `whitespace-style' for more details. The `whitespace-action' option
908 specifies what to do when a buffer is visited, killed, or written.
909
910 \f
911 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
912
913 ** Abbrev has been rewritten in Elisp and extended with more flexibility.
914
915 *** New functions: abbrev-get, abbrev-put, abbrev-table-get, abbrev-table-put,
916 abbrev-table-p, abbrev-insert, abbrev-table-menu.
917
918 *** Special hook `abbrev-expand-functions' obsoletes `pre-abbrev-expand-hook'.
919
920 *** `make-abbrev-table', `define-abbrev', `define-abbrev-table' all take
921 extra arguments for arbitrary properties.
922
923 *** New variable `abbrev-minor-mode-table-alist'.
924
925 *** `local-abbrev-table' can hold a list of abbrev-tables.
926
927 *** Abbrevs have now the following special properties:
928 `:count', `:system', `:enable-function', `:case-fixed'.
929
930 *** Abbrev-tables have now the following special properties:
931 `:parents', `:case-fixed', `:enable-function', `:regexp',
932 `abbrev-table-modiff'.
933
934 ** Apropos
935
936 *** `apropos-library' describes the elements defined in a given library.
937
938 *** Set `apropos-compact-layout' is you want a more compact (but wider) layout.
939
940 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse Rar archives.
941 Note, however, that the free version of the unrar command only handles
942 versions 1 and 2 of the Rar format.
943
944 ** BibTeX mode
945
946 *** New command `bibtex-initialize' (re)initializes BibTeX buffers.
947
948 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' options `whitespace', `braces', and
949 `string', disabled by default.
950
951 *** New variable `bibtex-cite-matcher-alist' contains rules to
952 identify cited keys in BibTeX entries, used by `bibtex-find-crossref'.
953
954 *** Command `bibtex-url' allows multiple URLs per entry.
955
956 ** Calendar and diary
957
958 *** There is a new date style, `iso', essentially year/month/day.
959 The variable `european-calendar-style' is obsolete - use `calendar-date-style'.
960 Similarly, the commands `american-calendar' and `european-calendar'
961 should be replaced by `calendar-set-date-style'.
962
963 *** The calendar namespace has been rationalized.
964 All functions and variables now begin with a `calendar-', `diary-', or
965 `holiday-' prefix. The various calendar systems have secondary
966 prefixes, eg `calendar-french-'. The old names you are likely to use
967 directly still exist, for the time being, as aliases, but please start
968 using the new names.
969
970 *** The whitespace in the calendar layout can be customized.
971 See the variables:
972 calendar-left-margin, calendar-intermonth-spacing, calendar-column-width,
973 calendar-day-header-width, and calendar-day-digit-width.
974
975 *** Text (e.g. ISO weeks) can be displayed between the calendar months.
976 See the variables calendar-intermonth-header and calendar-intermonth-text.
977
978 *** The function `holiday-chinese' computes holidays on the Chinese calendar.
979 It has been used to add items to the list `holiday-oriental-holidays'.
980
981 *** `diary-remind' accepts a negative number -DAYS as a shorthand for
982 the list (1 2 ... DAYS).
983
984 ** Change Log mode
985
986 *** The new command C-c C-f (change-log-find-file) finds the file
987 associated with the current log entry.
988
989 *** The new command C-c C-c (change-log-goto-source) goes to the
990 source code associated with a log entry.
991
992 ** Compile and grep modes
993
994 *** The mode-line entry for the *compilation* and *grep* buffer is color coded.
995 It has different colors for to show that: (a) the command is still
996 running, (b) successful completion, (c) error.
997
998 *** compilation-auto-jump-to-first-error tells `compile' to jump to
999 the first error encountered during compilations.
1000
1001 *** compilation-scroll-output accepts a new value, `first-error', which
1002 says to stop auto scrolling at the first error that occurs.
1003
1004 *** The `cc' alias for C++ files in `grep-file-aliases' has been
1005 improved. `hh' can be used to match C++ header files and `cchh' both
1006 C++ sources and headers.
1007
1008 ** Copyright
1009
1010 *** You can specify your copyright holders' names.
1011 Only copyright lines with holders matching `copyright-names-regexp' are
1012 considered for update.
1013
1014 *** Copyrights can be at the end of the buffer.
1015 This is controlled by `copyright-at-end-flag' (used by, e.g., change-log-mode).
1016
1017 ** Custom
1018
1019 *** defcustom accepts new keyword arguments, `:safe' and `:risky', which
1020 set a variable's `safe-local-variable' and `risky-local-variable' property.
1021
1022 ** Diff mode
1023
1024 *** diff-refine-hunk highlights word-level details of changes in a diff hunk.
1025 It's used automatically as you move through hunks, see
1026 diff-auto-refine-mode. It is bound to `C-c C-b'.
1027
1028 *** diff-add-change-log-entries-other-window iterates through the diff
1029 buffer and tries to create ChangeLog entries for each change.
1030 It is bound to `C-x 4 A'.
1031
1032 *** Turning on `whitespace-mode' in a diff buffer will show trailing
1033 whitespace problems in the modified lines.
1034
1035 ** Dired
1036
1037 *** In Dired, C-x C-q now runs the command wdired-change-to-wdired-mode,
1038 and C-x C-q in wdired-mode exits it with asking a question about
1039 saving changes.
1040
1041 *** `&' runs the command `dired-do-async-shell-command' that executes
1042 the command asynchronously without the need to manually add ampersand
1043 to the end of the command. Its output appears in the buffer `*Async Shell
1044 Command*'.
1045
1046 *** `M-s f C-s' and `M-s f M-C-s' run Isearch that matches only at file names.
1047 When a new user option `dired-isearch-filenames' is t, then even ordinary
1048 Isearch started with `C-s' and `C-M-s' matches only at file names in the
1049 Dired buffer. When `dired-isearch-filenames' is `dwim' then activation of
1050 file name Isearch depends on the position of point - if point is on a file
1051 name initially, then Isearch matches only file names, otherwise it matches
1052 everywhere in the Dired buffer. You can toggle file names matching on or
1053 off by typing `M-s f' in Isearch mode.
1054
1055 *** `M-s a C-s' and `M-s a M-C-s' run multi-file Isearch on the marked files.
1056 They visit the first marked file in the sequence and display the usual Isearch
1057 prompt for a string or a regexp where all Isearch commands are available.
1058
1059 *** `Q' in Dired provides two new keys for multi-file replacement.
1060 The upper case key `Y' replaces all remaining matches in all remaining files
1061 with no more questions. The upper case key `N' stops doing replacements
1062 in the current file and skips to the next file. These multi-file keys
1063 are available for all commands that use `tags-query-replace'
1064 including `dired-do-query-replace-regexp', `vc-dir-query-replace-regexp',
1065 `reftex-query-replace-document'.
1066
1067 ** Fortran
1068
1069 *** The line length of fixed-form Fortran is not fixed at 72 any more.
1070 Customize the variable `fortran-line-length' to change it.
1071
1072 *** In Fortran mode, M-; is now bound to the standard comment-dwim,
1073 rather than fortran-indent-comment.
1074
1075 *** (The increasingly misnamed) F90 mode supports Fortran 2003 syntax.
1076
1077 ** Gnus
1078
1079 *** The Gnus package has been updated
1080 There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements; see the file
1081 GNUS-NEWS or the node "No Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
1082
1083 *** In Emacs 23, Gnus uses Emacs' new internal coding system `utf-8-emacs' for
1084 saving articles drafts and ~/.newsrc.eld. These file may not be read
1085 correctly in Emacs 22 and below. If you want to Gnus across different Emacs
1086 versions, you may set `mm-auto-save-coding-system' to `emacs-mule'.
1087
1088 *** Passwords are consistently loaded through `auth-source'
1089 Gnus can use `auth-source' for POP and IMAP passwords. Also see that
1090 `smtpmail' and `url' support `auth-source' for SMTP and HTTP/HTTPS/RSS
1091 authentication respectively.
1092
1093 ** Help mode
1094
1095 *** New macro `with-help-window' should set up help windows better
1096 than `with-output-to-temp-buffer' with `print-help-return-message'.
1097
1098 *** New option `help-window-select' permits to customize whether help
1099 window shall be automatically selected when invoking help.
1100
1101 *** New variable `help-window-point-marker' permits one to specify a new
1102 position for point in help window (for example in `view-lossage').
1103
1104 ** Isearch
1105
1106 *** New command `isearch-forward-word' bound globally to `M-s w' starts
1107 incremental word search. New command `isearch-toggle-word' bound to the
1108 same key `M-s w' in Isearch mode toggles word searching on or off
1109 while Isearch is active.
1110
1111 *** New command `isearch-highlight-regexp' bound to `M-s h r' in Isearch
1112 mode runs `highlight-regexp' (`hi-lock-face-buffer') with the current
1113 search string as its regexp argument. The same key `M-s h r' and
1114 other keys on the `M-s h' prefix are bound globally to the command
1115 `highlight-regexp' and other hi-lock commands.
1116
1117 *** New command `isearch-occur' bound to `M-s o' in Isearch mode
1118 runs `occur' with the current search string. The same key `M-s o'
1119 is bound globally to the command `occur'.
1120
1121 *** Isearch can now search through multiple ChangeLog files.
1122 When running Isearch in a ChangeLog file, if the search fails,
1123 then another C-s tries searching the previous ChangeLog,
1124 if there is one (e.g. going from ChangeLog to ChangeLog.12).
1125 This is enabled if multi-isearch-search is non-nil.
1126
1127 *** Two new commands to start Isearch on a list of marked buffers
1128 for buff-menu.el and ibuffer.el are bound to the keys `M-s a C-s' and
1129 `M-s a M-C-s'.
1130
1131 *** The part of an Isearch that failed to match is highlighted in
1132 `isearch-fail' face.
1133
1134 *** `C-h C-h' in Isearch mode displays isearch-specific Help screen,
1135 `C-h b' displays all Isearch key bindings, `C-h k' displays the full
1136 documentation of the given Isearch key sequence, `C-h m' displays
1137 documentation of Isearch mode. All the rest Help commands exit Isearch mode
1138 and execute their global definitions.
1139
1140 *** When started in the minibuffer, Isearch searches in the minibuffer
1141 history. See `Minibuffer changes', above.
1142
1143 ** MH-E
1144
1145 *** Upgraded to MH-E version 8.2. See MH-E-NEWS for details.
1146
1147 ** Python
1148 *** The file etc/emacs.py now supports both Python 2 and 3, meaning
1149 that either version can be used as inferior Python by python.el.
1150
1151 *** Python mode now has `pdbtrack' functionality. When using pdb to
1152 debug a Python program, pdbtrack notices the pdb prompt and displays
1153 the source file and line that the program is stopped at, much the same
1154 way as gud-mode does for debugging C programs with gdb.
1155
1156 ** Recentf
1157
1158 *** The default value of `recentf-keep' prevents from checking of
1159 remote files, if there is no established connection to the
1160 corresponding remote host.
1161
1162 ** Rmail
1163
1164 *** Rmail no longer converts the messages to Babyl format.
1165 Instead, it uses UNIX mbox format, both on disk and in Rmail buffers,
1166 and does conversion and decoding when a message is displayed.
1167
1168 The first time you visit an Rmail file in Babyl format, Rmail
1169 automatically converts it to mbox format. This is a one-time
1170 conversion, but it can take a few minutes, depending on how fast is
1171 your machine and on the size of the file. You should find the rest of
1172 Rmail usage unaltered.
1173
1174 However, M-x set-rmail-inbox-list now lasts only for one session
1175 because there is no way to save the list of inbox files in an
1176 mbox-format file.
1177
1178 Also, whereas with Babyl format M-x find-file would switch to Rmail
1179 mode, with mbox format this is no longer the case (there being no way
1180 to add an "-*- rmail-*-" cookie to an mbox file). Use C-u M-x rmail
1181 instead.
1182
1183 If you have written any extensions to Rmail, they are likely to need
1184 updating. Conceptually, the Rmail buffer that you see is no longer
1185 just a narrowed portion of the whole. So you cannot access the whole
1186 of a message (or message collection) by a simple save-restriction and
1187 widen. Instead, there are two buffers: the rmail-buffer, and the
1188 rmail-view-buffer. The former is the buffer that you see, the latter
1189 is invisible. Most of the time, the invisible `view' buffer contains
1190 the full contents of the Rmail file, and the Rmail buffer contains a
1191 decoded copy of the current message (with only a subset of the
1192 headers). In this state, Rmail is said to be `swapped'.
1193
1194 You may find the following functions useful:
1195
1196 `rmail-get-header' and `rmail-set-header' get or set the value of a
1197 message header, whether or not it is currently visible.
1198
1199 `rmail-apply-in-message' is a general purpose function that calls a
1200 function (with arguments) which you specify on the full text of a given
1201 message. To further narrow to just the headers, search forward for "\n\n".
1202
1203 *** The new command `rmail-mime' displays MIME messages.
1204 It is bound to `v' in Rmail buffers and summaries. It displays plain
1205 text and multipart messages in a temporary buffer, and offers buttons
1206 to save attachments.
1207
1208 *** The command `rmail-redecode-body' no longer accepts the optional arg RAW.
1209 Since Rmail now holds messages in their original undecoded form in a
1210 separate buffer, `rmail-redecode-body' no longer encodes the original
1211 message, and therefore there should be no need to avoid encoding it.
1212
1213 *** The o command is now `rmail-output'. It is an all-purpose command
1214 for copying messages from Rmail and appending them to files. It
1215 handles Babyl-format files as well as mbox-format files, and it
1216 handles both kinds properly when they are visited in Emacs. It always
1217 copies the full headers of the message.
1218
1219 *** The C-o command is now `rmail-output-as-seen'. It uses
1220 the message as displayed, appending it to an mbox file.
1221
1222 *** The modified status of the Rmail buffer is reported in the mode-line.
1223 Previously, this information was hidden.
1224
1225 ** TeX modes
1226
1227 *** New option latex-indent-within-escaped-parens
1228 permits to customize indentation of LaTeX environments delimited
1229 by escaped parens.
1230
1231 ** T-mouse Mode
1232
1233 *** If the gpm mouse server is running and t-mouse-mode is enabled,
1234 Emacs uses a Unix socket in a GNU/Linux console to talk to server,
1235 rather than faking events using the client program mev. This C level
1236 approach provides mouse highlighting and help echoing in the
1237 minibuffer.
1238
1239 ** Tramp
1240
1241 *** New connection methods.
1242 The new methods "plinkx", "plink2", "psftp", "sftp" and "fish" have
1243 been introduced. There are also new so-called gateway methods
1244 "tunnel" and "socks".
1245
1246 *** IPv6 addresses.
1247 IPv6 addresses are supported now as host names. They must be embedded
1248 in square brackets, like in "/ssh:[::1]:".
1249
1250 *** Multihop syntax has been removed.
1251 The pseudo-method "multi" has been removed. Instead, multi hops
1252 can be specified by the new variable `tramp-default-proxies-alist'.
1253
1254 *** More default settings.
1255 Default values can be set via the variables `tramp-default-user',
1256 `tramp-default-user-alist' and `tramp-default-host'.
1257
1258 *** Connection information is cached.
1259 In order to reduce connection setup, information about used
1260 connections is kept persistently in a file. The name of this file is
1261 defined in the variable `tramp-persistency-file-name'.
1262
1263 *** Control of remote processes.
1264 Running processes on a remote host can be controlled by settings in
1265 `tramp-remote-path' and `tramp-remote-process-environment'.
1266
1267 *** Success of remote copy is checked.
1268 When the variable `file-precious-flag' is set, the success of a remote
1269 file copy is checked via the file's checksum.
1270
1271 *** Passwords can be read from an authentification file.
1272 Tramp uses the package `auth-source' to read passwords from a file, if
1273 necessary.
1274
1275 ** VC and related modes
1276
1277 *** VC now supports applying VC operations to a set of files at a time.
1278 This enables VC to work much more effectively with changeset-oriented
1279 version-control systems such as Subversion, GNU Arch, Mercurial, Git
1280 and Bzr. VC will now pass a multiple-file commit to these systems as
1281 a single changeset.
1282
1283 *** vc-dir is a new command that displays file names and their VC
1284 status. It allows to apply various VC operations to a file, a
1285 directory or a set of files/directories.
1286
1287 *** VC switches are no longer appended, rather the first non-nil value is used.
1288 (This was for the most part true in Emacs 22, but was not advertised).
1289 This is because there is an increasing variety of VC systems, and they
1290 do not all accept the same "common" options. For example, a CVS diff
1291 command used to append the values of `vc-cvs-diff-switches',
1292 `vc-diff-switches', and `diff-switches'. Now the first non-nil value
1293 from that sequence is used. The special value `t' means "no switches".
1294
1295 *** Clicking on the VC mode-line entry now pops the VC menu.
1296
1297 *** The VC mode-line entry now has a tooltip that explains the VC file status.
1298
1299 *** In VC Annotate mode, the key bindings have changed to use lower
1300 case keys instead of the upper case keys used in the past.
1301
1302 *** In VC Annotate mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
1303 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
1304 by typing the D key. Using the "Show changeset diff of revision at
1305 line" menu entry does the same thing.
1306
1307 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type v to toggle the annotation visibility.
1308
1309 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type f to show the file revision on
1310 the current line.
1311
1312 *** Asynchronous VC commands display [Waiting...] in the mode-line
1313 of the corresponding buffer as long as the asynchronous process is
1314 active.
1315
1316 *** Log entries can be modified using the key "e" in log-view.
1317 For now only CVS, RCS, SCCS and SVN support this functionality.
1318 This is done by the `modify-change-comment' backend function.
1319
1320 *** In log-view-mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
1321 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
1322 by typing the D key or using the "Changeset Diff" menu entry.
1323
1324 *** In Log Edit mode, C-c C-d now shows the diff for the files involved.
1325
1326 *** vc-git supports the "git grep" command.
1327
1328 *** VC Support for Meta-CVS has been removed for lack of a maintainer able
1329 to update it to the new VC.
1330
1331 ** Miscellaneous
1332
1333 *** comint-mode uses `start-file-process' now (see Lisp Changes).
1334 If `default-directory' is a remote file name, subprocesses are started
1335 on the corresponding remote system.
1336
1337 *** Eldoc highlights the function argument under point
1338 with the face `eldoc-highlight-function-argument'.
1339
1340 *** In Etags, the --members option is now the default.
1341 Use --no-members if you want the old default behavior of not tagging
1342 struct members in C, members variables in C++ and variables in PHP.
1343
1344 *** The `gdb' command only works with the graphical interface now.
1345 Use `gud-gdb' if you want the (old) text command mode.
1346
1347 *** goto-address.el provides two new minor modes, goto-address-mode and
1348 goto-address-prog-mode, which buttonize URLS and email addresses.
1349
1350 *** The new command `eshell/info' runs info in an eshell buffer.
1351
1352 *** The new variable `ffap-rfc-directories' specifies a list of local
1353 directories in which `ffap-rfc' will first search for RFCs.
1354
1355 *** hide-ifdef-mode allows shadowing ifdef-blocks instead of hiding them.
1356 See option `hide-ifdef-shadow' and function `hide-ifdef-toggle-shadowing'.
1357
1358 *** `icomplete-prospects-height' now supercedes `icomplete-prospects-length'.
1359
1360 *** Info displays breadcrumbs in the header of the page.
1361 See Info-breadcrumbs-depth to control it.
1362
1363 *** net-utils has an `iwconfig' command, similar to the existing `ifconfig'.
1364 It is used to configure wireless interfaces.
1365
1366 *** The pcmpl-unix package supports hostname completion for ssh and scp.
1367
1368 *** sgml-electric-tag-pair-mode lets you simultaneously edit matched tag pairs.
1369
1370 *** smerge-refine highlights word-level details of changes in conflict.
1371 It's used automatically as you move through conflicts, see
1372 smerge-auto-refine-mode.
1373
1374 *** talk.el has been extended for multiple tty support.
1375
1376 *** A new command `display-time-world' has been added to the Time
1377 package. It creates a buffer with an updating time display using
1378 several time zones.
1379
1380 *** The appearance of superscript and subscript in TeX is more customizable.
1381 See the documentation of the variables: tex-fontify-script,
1382 tex-font-script-display, tex-suscript-height-ratio, and
1383 tex-suscript-height-minimum.
1384
1385 *** view-remove-frame-by-deleting is now by default t
1386 since users found iconification of view-mode frames distracting.
1387
1388 *** WoMan tries to add locale-specific manual page directories to the
1389 search path. This can be disabled by setting `woman-locale' to nil.
1390
1391 \f
1392 * Changes in Emacs 23.1 on non-free operating systems
1393
1394 ** Case is now considered significant in completion on MS-Windows.
1395 The default value of `completion-ignore-case' is now nil on
1396 MS-Windows, the same as it is for other operating systems. The
1397 variable doesn't apply to reading a file name -- in that case Emacs
1398 heeds `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' instead.
1399
1400 ** IPv6 is supported on MS-Windows.
1401 Emacs now supports IPv6 on Windows XP and later, and earlier versions
1402 of Windows with third party IPv6 stacks installed. In Emacs 22, IPv6 was
1403 supported on other platforms, but not on Windows due to using the winsock
1404 1.1 header file, even though Emacs was linking to the winsock 2 library.
1405
1406 ** Busy cursor (hourglass) now displays on MS-Windows.
1407 When Emacs is busy, an hourglass mouse cursor is displayed on Windows.
1408 In Emacs 22 only X supported the busy cursor.
1409
1410 ** Battery status is available on MS-Windows
1411 Emacs can now display the battery status in the mode-line when enabled with
1412 display-battery-mode or from the Options menu. More verbose battery
1413 information is also available with the command `battery'. In Emacs 22
1414 battery status was supported only on GNU/Linux and Mac.
1415
1416 ** More keys available on MS-Windows.
1417 Keys normally associated with IMEs, and some exotic keys not normally found
1418 on standard keyboards have been given names so they can be bound to functions
1419 inside Emacs. If there are keys on your keyboard that have not been exposed
1420 to Emacs in the past, try C-h k to see if they are available now.
1421
1422 Emacs can now bind functions to the extra buttons for media player and
1423 browser control present on some keyboards. These buttons are disabled
1424 by default, since enabling them prevents their system-wide use when
1425 Emacs has focus. To enable them, set the variable
1426 w32-pass-multimedia-buttons to nil. See the doc string of that variable
1427 for the list of extra keys that are available.
1428
1429 ** BDF fonts no longer supported on MS-Windows.
1430 The font backend was completely rewritten for this release. The focus
1431 on Windows has been getting acceptable performance and full unicode
1432 support, including complex script shaping for native Windows fonts. A
1433 rewrite of the BDF font support has not happened due to lack of time
1434 and developers. If demand still exists for such a backend even with
1435 the improved language support for native Windows fonts, future
1436 development in this direction will most likely be based on the
1437 freetype library, giving access to a wider range of font formats.
1438
1439 \f
1440 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1441
1442 ** Variables cannot be both buffer-local and frame-local any more.
1443
1444 ** `functionp' returns nil for special forms.
1445 I.e., it only returns t for objects that can be passed to `funcall'.
1446
1447 ** The behavior of map-char-table has changed. It may call the
1448 specified function with a cons (FROM . TO) as a key if characters in
1449 that range have the same value.
1450
1451 ** Process changes
1452
1453 *** The function `dired-call-process' has been removed.
1454
1455 *** The multibyteness of process filters is now determined by the
1456 coding-system used for decoding. The functions
1457 `process-filter-multibyte-p' and `set-process-filter-multibyte' are
1458 obsolete.
1459
1460 ** The variable `byte-compile-warnings' can now be a list starting with `not',
1461 meaning to disable the specified warnings. The meaning of this list
1462 may therefore be the reverse of what you expect (of course, this is
1463 only an issue if you make use of the new `not' syntax). Rather than
1464 checking/manipulating elements directly, use the new functions
1465 `byte-compile-warning-enabled-p', `byte-compile-disable-warning', and
1466 `byte-compile-enable-warning.'
1467
1468 ** `mode-name' is no longer guaranteed to be a string.
1469 Use `(format-mode-line mode-name)' to ensure a string value.
1470
1471 ** The function x-font-family-list has been removed.
1472 Use the new function font-family-list (see Lisp Changes, below).
1473
1474 ** Internationalization changes
1475
1476 *** The value of the function `charset-id' is now always 0.
1477
1478 *** The functions `register-char-codings' and `coding-system-spec'
1479 have been removed.
1480
1481 *** The cpXXX coding systems are now supported automatically.
1482 The functions cp-...-codepage, which you had to use in Emacs 22 to
1483 enable support for these coding systems, have been deleted.
1484
1485 *** The following features have been removed. They were used for
1486 displaying various scripts with specific fonts, and are no longer
1487 needed now that OpenType font support is available:
1488
1489 **** `devanagari' and `devan-util', and all associated devanagari-* and
1490 dev-* functions and variables (formerly used for Devanagari script).
1491
1492 **** `kannada' and `knd-util', and all associated kannada-* and knd-*
1493 functions and variables (formerly used for Kannada script).
1494
1495 **** `malayalam' and `mlm-util', and all associated malayalam-* and
1496 mlm-* functions and variables (formerly used for Malayalam script).
1497
1498 **** `tamil' and `tml-util, and all associated tamil-* and tml-*
1499 functions and variables (formerly used for Tamil script).
1500
1501 *** The meaning of NAME argument of `set-fontset-font' is changed.
1502 Previously nil is accepted as the default fontset. Now, nil is for
1503 the fontset of the selected frame and t is for the default fontset.
1504
1505 *** The meaning of FONTSET argument of `print-fontset' is changed.
1506 Now, nil is for the fontset of the selected frame and t is for the
1507 default fontset.
1508
1509 ** If a function in write-region-annotate-functions returns with a
1510 different buffer current, Emacs no longer kills that buffer
1511 automatically. This behavior existed in previous versions of Emacs,
1512 but was undocumented. To kill a buffer after write-region, give the
1513 variable `write-region-post-annotation-function' a buffer-local value
1514 of `kill-buffer'.
1515
1516 ** The variable temp-file-name-pattern has been removed.
1517 This variable was only used by call-process-region, which now uses
1518 temporary-file-directory instead.
1519
1520 ** The COUNT and SYSTEM-FLAG arguments to define-abbrev have been
1521 removed. The function now takes extra arguments for specifying
1522 arbitrary abbrev properties.
1523
1524 ** end-of-defun-function is now guaranteed to work only when called
1525 from the start of a defun. It must now leave point exactly at the end
1526 of defun, since `end-of-defun' now itself moves forward over
1527 whitespace after calling it.
1528
1529 \f
1530 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1531
1532 ** The new variable `generate-autoload-cookie' controls the magic comment
1533 string used by `update-file-autoloads' to find autoloaded forms. The
1534 variable `generated-autoload-file' similarly controls the name of the
1535 file where `update-file-autoloads' writes the calls to `autoload'.
1536 The default values are ";;;###autoload" and `loaddefs.el',
1537 respectively.
1538
1539 ** New primitives `list-system-processes' and `process-attributes'
1540 let Lisp programs access the processes that are running on the local
1541 machine. See the doc strings of these functions for more details.
1542 Not all platforms support accessing this information; on those that
1543 don't, these primitives will return nil.
1544
1545 ** New variable `user-emacs-directory'.
1546 Use this instead of "~/.emacs.d".
1547
1548 ** If a local hook function has a non-nil `permanent-local-hook'
1549 property, `kill-all-local-variables' does not remove it from the local
1550 value of the hook variable; it remains even if you change major modes.
1551
1552 ** `frame-inherited-parameters' lets new frames inherit parameters from
1553 the selected frame.
1554
1555 ** New keymap `input-decode-map' overrides like key-translation-map, but
1556 applies before function-key-map. Also it is terminal-local contrary to
1557 key-translation-map. Terminal-specific key-sequences are generally added to
1558 this map rather than to function-key-map now.
1559
1560 ** `ignore-errors' is now a standard macro (does not require the CL package).
1561
1562 ** `interprogram-paste-function' can now return one string or a list
1563 of strings. In the latter case, Emacs puts the second and following
1564 strings on the kill ring.
1565
1566 ** In `condition-case', a handler can specify "let the debugger run first".
1567 You do this by writing `debug' in the list of conditions to be handled,
1568 like this:
1569
1570 (condition-case nil
1571 (foo bar)
1572 ((debug error) nil))
1573
1574 ** clone-indirect-buffer now runs the clone-indirect-buffer-hook.
1575
1576 ** `beginning-of-defun-function' now takes one argument, the count given to
1577 `beginning-of-defun'. (N.B. `end-of-defun-function' doesn't take any
1578 arguments.)
1579
1580 ** `file-remote-p' has new optional parameters IDENTIFICATION and CONNECTED.
1581 IDENTIFICATION specifies which part of the remote identifier has to be
1582 returned. With CONNECTED passed non-nil, it is checked whether a
1583 remote connection has been established already.
1584
1585 ** The new macro `declare-function' suppresses compiler warnings about
1586 undefined functions.
1587
1588 ** Changes to interactive function handling
1589
1590 *** The new interactive spec code ^ says to first call
1591 handle-shift-selection if shift-select-mode is non-nil, before reading
1592 the command arguments. This is used for shift-selection (see above).
1593
1594 *** Built-in functions can now have an interactive specification that
1595 is not a prompt string. If the `intspec' parameter of a `DEFUN'
1596 starts with a `(', the string is evaluated as a Lisp form.
1597
1598 *** The interactive-form of a function can be added post-facto via the
1599 `interactive-form' symbol property. Mostly useful to add complex
1600 interactive forms to subroutines.
1601
1602 ** Region changes
1603
1604 *** Commands should use `use-region-p' to test whether there is
1605 an active region that they should operate on.
1606
1607 *** `region-active-p' returns non-nil when Transient Mark mode is
1608 enabled and the mark is active. Most commands that act specially on
1609 the active region in Transient Mark mode should use `use-region-p'
1610 instead of `region-active-p', because `use-region-p' obeys the new
1611 user option `use-empty-active-region' (see Editing Changes, above).
1612
1613 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to (only . OLDVAL), that
1614 means to activate transient-mark-mode temporarily, until the next
1615 unshifted point motion command or mark deactivation. Afterwards,
1616 reset transient-mark-mode to the value OLDVAL. The values `only' and
1617 `identity', introduced in Emacs 22, are now deprecated.
1618
1619 ** Emacs session information
1620
1621 *** The new variables `before-init-time' and `after-init-time' record the
1622 value of `current-time' before and after Emacs loads the init files.
1623
1624 *** The new function `emacs-uptime' returns the uptime of an Emacs instance.
1625
1626 *** The new function `emacs-init-time' returns the duration of the
1627 Emacs initialization.
1628
1629 ** Changes affecting display-buffer
1630
1631 *** display-buffer tries to be smarter when splitting windows.
1632 The new option split-window-preferred-function lets you specify your own
1633 function to pop up new windows. Its default value split-window-sensibly
1634 can split a window either vertically or horizontally, whichever seems
1635 more suitable in the current configuration. You can tune the behavior
1636 of split-window-sensibly by customizing split-height-threshold and the
1637 new option split-width-threshold. Both options now take the value nil
1638 to inhibit splitting in one direction. Setting split-width-threshold to
1639 nil inhibits horizontal splitting and gets you the behavior of Emacs 22
1640 in this respect. In any case, display-buffer may now split the largest
1641 window vertically even when it is not as wide as the containing frame.
1642
1643 *** If pop-up-frames has the value `graphic-only', display-buffer only
1644 makes a separate frame on graphic displays.
1645
1646 *** select-frame and set-frame-selected-window have a new optional
1647 argument NORECORD. If non-nil, this will avoid messing with the order
1648 of recently selected windows and the buffer list.
1649
1650 ** Window parameters can now be defined.
1651 These are analogous to frame parameters, but are associated with
1652 individual windows.
1653
1654 *** The new functions window-parameters, window-parameter, and
1655 set-window-parameter are used to query and set window parameters.
1656
1657 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
1658
1659 *** A list of default values can be specified for the DEFAULT argument of
1660 functions `read-from-minibuffer', `read-string', `read-command',
1661 `read-variable', `read-buffer', `completing-read'. Elements of this list
1662 are available for inserting into the minibuffer by typing `M-n'.
1663 For empty input these functions return the first element of this list.
1664
1665 *** New function `read-regexp' uses the regexp history and some useful
1666 regexp defaults (string at point, last Isearch/replacement regexp/string)
1667 via M-n when reading a regexp in the minibuffer.
1668
1669 *** minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map is now named
1670 minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map.
1671
1672 *** The `require-match' argument to `completing-read' accepts the new
1673 values `confirm-only' and `confirm-after-completion'.
1674
1675 ** Search and replacement changes
1676
1677 *** The regexp form \(?<num>:<regexp>\) specifies the group number explicitly.
1678
1679 *** New function `match-substitute-replacement' returns the result of
1680 `replace-match' without actually using it in the buffer.
1681
1682 *** The new variable `replace-search-function' determines the function
1683 to use for searching in query-replace and replace-string. The
1684 function it specifies is called by `perform-replace' when its 4th
1685 argument is nil.
1686
1687 *** The new variable `replace-re-search-function' determines the
1688 function to use for searching in `query-replace-regexp',
1689 `replace-regexp', `query-replace-regexp-eval', and
1690 `map-query-replace-regexp'. The function it specifies is called by
1691 `perform-replace' when its 4th argument is non-nil.
1692
1693 *** New keymap `search-map' bound to `M-s' provides global bindings
1694 for search related commands.
1695
1696 *** New keymap `multi-query-replace-map' contains additonal keys bound
1697 to `automatic-all' and `exit-current' for multi-buffer interactive replacement.
1698
1699 *** The variable `inhibit-changing-match-data', if non-nil, prevents
1700 the search and match primitives from changing the match data.
1701
1702 *** New functions `word-search-forward-lax' and `word-search-backward-lax'.
1703 These are like `word-search-forward and `word-search-backward', except
1704 that the end of the search string need not match a word boundary,
1705 unless it ends in whitespace.
1706
1707 ** File handling changes
1708
1709 *** set-file-modes is now interactive and can take the mode value in
1710 symbolic notation thanks to auxiliary functions.
1711
1712 *** file-local-variables-alist stores an alist of file-local
1713 variables defined in the current buffer.
1714
1715 ** Face-remapping
1716
1717 *** Each face can be remapped to a different face definition using the
1718 variable `face-remapping-alist'. This is an alist that maps faces to
1719 replacement definitions (which can be face names, lists of face names,
1720 or attribute/value plists. If this variable is buffer-local, the
1721 remapping occurs only in that buffer.
1722
1723 *** text-scale-mode remaps the default face to a larger or smaller
1724 size in the current buffer. This feature is used by the Buffer Face
1725 menu and the new `C-x C-+', `C-x C--', and `C-x C-0' commands (see
1726 Editing Changes, above).
1727
1728 *** New functions:
1729
1730 **** `face-remap-add-relative' adds a face remapping entry to the
1731 current buffer.
1732
1733 **** ``face-remap-remove-relative' removes a face remapping entry from
1734 the current buffer.
1735
1736 **** `face-remap-reset-base' restores a face to its global definition.
1737
1738 **** `face-remap-set-base' sets the base remapping of a face.
1739
1740 ** Process changes
1741
1742 *** The new function `start-file-process' is similar to `start-process',
1743 but obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
1744 `default-directory'. The functions `start-file-process-shell-command'
1745 and `process-file-shell-command' are also new; they call internally
1746 `start-file-process' and `process-file', respectively.
1747
1748 *** The new function `process-lines' executes an external program and
1749 returns its output as a list of lines.
1750
1751 ** Character code, representation, and charset changes.
1752
1753 *** In multibyte buffers and strings, characters are represented by
1754 UTF-8 byte sequences. The character code space is now 0x0..0x3FFFFF
1755 with no gap; code points 0x0..0x10FFFF are Unicode characters of the
1756 same code points, while code points 0x3FFF80..0x3FFFFF are raw 8-bit
1757 bytes.
1758
1759 *** Generic characters no longer exist.
1760
1761 *** The concept of a charset has changed. A single character may
1762 belong to multiple charsets (e.g. a-grave, U+00E0, belongs to charsets
1763 unicode, iso-8859-1, iso-8859-3, etc).
1764
1765 **** The dimension of a charset is now 1, 2, 3, or 4, and the size of
1766 each dimension is no longer limited to 94 or 96.
1767
1768 **** A dynamic charset priority list is used to infer the charset of
1769 characters for display.
1770
1771 *** The functions `split-char' and `make-char' now accept up to 4
1772 positional codes instead of just 2.
1773
1774 *** The functions `encode-char' and `decode-char' now accept any character sets.
1775
1776 *** The function `define-charset' now accepts a completely different
1777 form of arguments (old-style arguments still work).
1778
1779 *** The value of the function `char-charset' depends on the current
1780 priorities of charsets.
1781
1782 *** The function get-char-code-property now accepts many Unicode base
1783 character properties. They are `name', `general-category',
1784 `canonical-combining-class', `bidi-class', `decomposition',
1785 `decimal-digit-value', `digit-value', `numeric-value', `mirrored',
1786 `old-name', `iso-10646-comment', `uppercase', `lowercase', and
1787 `titlecase'.
1788
1789 *** The functions `modify-syntax-entry' and `modify-category-entry' now
1790 accept a cons of characters as the first argument, and modify all
1791 entries in that range of characters.
1792
1793 *** Use of `translation-table-for-input' for character code unification
1794 is now obsolete, since Emacs 23.1 and later uses Unicode as basis for
1795 internal representation of characters.
1796
1797 *** New functions:
1798
1799 **** `characterp' returns t if and only if the argument is a character.
1800 This replaces `char-valid-p', which is now obsolete.
1801
1802 **** `max-char' returns the maximum character code (currently #x3FFFFF).
1803
1804 **** `define-charset-alias' defines an alias of a charset.
1805
1806 **** `set-charset-priority' sets priorities of charsets.
1807
1808 **** `charset-priority-list' returns a prioritized list of charsets.
1809
1810 **** `unibyte-string' makes a unibyte string from bytes.
1811
1812 **** `define-char-code-property' defines a character code property.
1813
1814 **** `char-code-property-description' returns the description string of
1815 a character code property.
1816
1817 *** New variables:
1818
1819 **** `find-word-boundary-function-table' is a char-table of functions to
1820 search for a word boundary.
1821
1822 **** `char-script-table' is a char-table of script names.
1823
1824 **** `char-width-table' is a char-table of character widths.
1825
1826 **** `print-charset-text-property' controls how to handle `charset' text
1827 property on printing a string.
1828
1829 **** `printable-chars' is a char-table of printable characters.
1830
1831 ** Code conversion changes
1832
1833 *** The new function `define-coding-system' should be used to define a
1834 coding system instead of `make-coding-system' (which is now obsolete).
1835
1836 *** The functions `encode-coding-region' and `decode-coding-region'
1837 have an optional 4th argument to specify where the result of
1838 conversion should go.
1839
1840 *** The functions `encode-coding-string' and `decode-coding-string'
1841 have an optional 4th argument specifying a buffer to store the result
1842 of conversion.
1843
1844 *** The new variable `inhibit-null-byte-detection' controls whether to
1845 consider text with null bytes as binary data. By default, it is
1846 `nil', and Emacs uses `no-conversion' for any text containing null
1847 bytes.
1848
1849 *** The functions `set-coding-priority' and `make-coding-system' are obsolete.
1850
1851 *** New functions:
1852
1853 **** `with-coding-priority' executes Lisp code using the specified
1854 coding system priority order.
1855
1856 **** `check-coding-systems-region' checks if the text in the region is
1857 encodable by the specified coding systems.
1858
1859 **** `coding-system-aliases' returns a list of aliases of a coding system.
1860
1861 **** `coding-system-charset-list' returns a list of charsets supported
1862 by a coding system.
1863
1864 **** `coding-system-priority-list' returns a list of coding systems
1865 ordered by their priorities.
1866
1867 **** `set-coding-system-priority' sets priorities of coding systems.
1868
1869 **** `coding-system-from-name' returns a coding system matching with
1870 the argument name.
1871
1872
1873 ** There is a new input method, Robin, different from Quail.
1874 It has three functionalities:
1875 i) a simple input method (converts an ASCII sequence into a string).
1876 ii) converts an existing buffer substring into another string
1877 iii) reverse conversion (each character produced by a
1878 robin rule can hold the original ASCII sequence as a char-code-property)
1879
1880 *** The new function `robin-define-package' defines a Robin package.
1881
1882 *** The new function `robin-modify-package' modifies an existing Robin package.
1883
1884 *** The new function `robin-use-package' starts using a Robin package
1885 as an input method.
1886
1887 *** The new function `string-to-unibyte' is like `string-as-unibyte'
1888 but signals an error if STRING contains a non-ASCII, non-eight-bit
1889 character.
1890
1891 ** Changes related to the new font backend
1892
1893 *** Which font backends to use can be specified by the X resource
1894 "FontBackend". For instance, to use both X core fonts and Xft fonts:
1895
1896 Emacs.FontBackend: x,xft
1897
1898 If this resource is not set, Emacs tries to use all font backends
1899 available on your graphic device.
1900
1901 *** New frame parameter `font-backend' specifies a list of
1902 font-backends supported by the frame's graphic device. On X, they are
1903 currently `x' and `xft'.
1904
1905 *** The function `set-fontset-font' now accepts a script name as the
1906 second argument, and has an optional 5th argument to control how to
1907 set the font.
1908
1909 *** New functions:
1910
1911 **** `fontp' checks if the argument is a font-spec or font-entity.
1912
1913 **** `font-spec' creates a new font-spec object.
1914
1915 **** `font-get' returns a font property value.
1916
1917 **** `font-put' sets a font property value.
1918
1919 **** `font-face-attributes' returns a plist of face attributes set by a font.
1920
1921 **** `list-fonts' returns a list of font-entities matching a font spec.
1922
1923 **** `find-font' returns the font-entity best matching the given font spec.
1924
1925 **** `font-family-list' returns a list of family names of available fonts.
1926
1927 **** `font-xlfd-name' returns an XLFD name of a given font spec, font
1928 entity, or font object.
1929
1930 **** `clear-font-cache' clears all font caches.
1931
1932 ** Changes related to multiple-terminal (multi-tty) support
1933
1934 *** $TERM is now set to `dumb' for subprocesses. If you want to know the
1935 $TERM inherited by Emacs you will have to look inside initial-environment.
1936
1937 *** $DISPLAY is now dynamically inherited from the frame's `display'.
1938
1939 *** The `window-system' variable is now frame-local. The new
1940 `initial-window-system' variable contains the `window-system' value
1941 for the first frame. `window-system' is also now a function that
1942 takes a frame argument.
1943
1944 *** The `keyboard-translate-table' variable and the terminal and
1945 keyboard coding systems are now terminal-local.
1946
1947 *** You can specify a terminal device (`tty' parameter) and a terminal
1948 type (`tty-type' parameter) to `make-terminal-frame'.
1949
1950 *** The function `make-frame-on-display' now works during a tty
1951 session.
1952
1953 *** A new `terminal' data type.
1954 The functions `get-device-terminal', `terminal-parameters',
1955 `terminal-parameter', `set-terminal-parameter' use this data type.
1956
1957 *** Function key sequences are now mapped using `local-function-key-map',
1958 a new variable. This inherits from the global variable function-key-map,
1959 which is not used directly any more.
1960
1961 *** New hooks:
1962
1963 **** before-hack-local-variables-hook is called after setting new
1964 variable file-local-variables-alist, and before actually applying the
1965 file-local variables.
1966
1967 **** `suspend-tty-functions' and `resume-tty-functions' are called
1968 after a tty frame has been suspended or resumed, respectively. The
1969 functions are called with the terminal id of the frame being
1970 suspended/resumed as a parameter.
1971
1972 **** The special hook `delete-terminal-functions' is called before
1973 deleting a terminal.
1974
1975 *** New functions:
1976
1977 **** `delete-terminal'
1978
1979 **** `suspend-tty'
1980
1981 **** `resume-tty'.
1982
1983 *** `initial-environment' holds the environment inherited from Emacs's parent.
1984
1985 ** Redisplay changes
1986
1987 *** For underlined characters, the distance between the underline and
1988 the baseline is controlled by a new variable, `underline-minimum-offset'.
1989
1990 *** You can now pass the value of the `invisible' property to
1991 invisible-p to check whether it would cause the text to be invisible.
1992 This is convenient when checking invisibility of text with no buffer
1993 position (e.g. in before/after-strings).
1994
1995 *** `clear-image-cache' can be told to flush only images of a specific file.
1996
1997 *** `vertical-motion' can now be given a goal column.
1998 It now accepts a cons cell (COLS . LINES) in its first argument, which
1999 says to stop, where possible, at a pixel x-position equal to COLS
2000 times the default column width.
2001
2002 *** redisplay-end-trigger-functions, set-window-redisplay-end-trigger,
2003 and window-redisplay-end-trigger are obsolete. Use `jit-lock-register'
2004 instead.
2005
2006 *** The new variables `wrap-prefix' and `line-prefix' specify display
2007 specs which are appended at display-time to every continuation line
2008 and non-continuation line, respectively. In addition, Emacs
2009 recognizes the `wrap-prefix' and `line-prefix' text or overlay
2010 properties; these have the same effects as the variables of the same
2011 name, but take precedence.
2012
2013 ** The Lisp interpreter now treats non-breaking space as whitespace.
2014
2015 ** Miscellaneous new functions
2016
2017 *** `apply-partially' performs a "curried" application of a function.
2018
2019 *** `buffer-swap-text' swaps text between two buffers. This can be
2020 useful for modes such as tar-mode, archive-mode, RMAIL.
2021
2022 *** `combine-and-quote-strings' produces a single string from a list of strings
2023 sticking a separator string in between each pair, and quoting those
2024 strings that include the separator as their substring. Useful for
2025 consing shell command lines from the individual arguments.
2026
2027 *** `custom-note-var-changed' tells Custom to treat the change in a
2028 certain variable as having been made within Custom.
2029
2030 *** `face-all-attributes' returns an alist describing all the basic
2031 attributes of a given face.
2032
2033 *** `format-seconds' converts a number of seconds into a readable
2034 string of days, hours, etc.
2035
2036 *** `image-refresh' refreshes all images associated with a given image
2037 specification.
2038
2039 *** `locate-user-emacs-file' helps packages to select the appropriate
2040 place to save user-specific files. It defaults to `user-emacs-directory'
2041 unless the file already exists at $HOME.
2042
2043 *** `read-color' reads a color name using the minibuffer.
2044
2045 *** `read-shell-command' does what its name says, with completion. It
2046 uses the minibuffer-local-shell-command-map for that.
2047
2048 *** `split-string-and-unquote' splits a string into a list of substrings
2049 on the boundaries of a given delimiter, and unquotes the substrings that
2050 are quoted. Useful for taking apart shell commands.
2051
2052 *** The two new functions `looking-at-p' and `string-match-p' can do
2053 the same matching as `looking-at' and `string-match' without changing
2054 the match data.
2055
2056 *** The two new functions `make-serial-process' and
2057 `serial-process-configure' provide a Lisp interface to the new serial
2058 port support (see Emacs changes, above).
2059
2060 ** Miscellaneous new variables
2061
2062 *** `auto-save-include-big-deletions', if non-nil, means auto-save is
2063 not turned off automatically after a big deletion.
2064
2065 *** `read-circle', if nil, disables the reading of recursive Lisp
2066 structures using the #N= and #N# syntax.
2067
2068 *** `this-command-keys-shift-translated' is non-nil if the key
2069 sequence invoking the current command was found by shift-translation.
2070
2071 *** `window-point-insertion-type' determines the insertion-type of the
2072 marker used for window-point.
2073
2074 *** bookmark provides `bookmark-make-record-function' so special major
2075 modes like Info can teach bookmark.el how to save and restore the
2076 relevant data.
2077
2078 *** `fill-forward-paragraph-function' specifies which function the
2079 filling code should use to find paragraph boundaries.
2080
2081 \f
2082 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 23.1
2083
2084 ** The new package avl-tree.el deals with the AVL tree data structure.
2085
2086 ** The new package check-declare.el verifies the accuracy of
2087 declare-function macros (see Lisp Changes, above).
2088
2089 ** find-cmd.el can build `find' commands using lisp syntax.
2090
2091 ** The package misearch.el has been added. It allows Isearch to search
2092 through multiple buffers. A variable `multi-isearch-next-buffer-function'
2093 defines the function to call to get the next buffer to search in the series
2094 of multiple buffers. Top-level commands `multi-isearch-buffers',
2095 `multi-isearch-buffers-regexp', `multi-isearch-files' and
2096 `multi-isearch-files-regexp' accept a single argument that specifies
2097 a list of buffers/files to search for a string/regexp.
2098
2099 ** The new major mode `special-mode' is intended as a parent for
2100 major modes such as those that set the "'mode-class 'special" property.
2101
2102 \f
2103 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
2104 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
2105
2106 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2107 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2108 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2109 (at your option) any later version.
2110
2111 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2112 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2113 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2114 GNU General Public License for more details.
2115
2116 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2117 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2118
2119 \f
2120 Local variables:
2121 mode: outline
2122 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
2123 end:
2124
2125 arch-tag: e759449d-88b3-4de4-9900-3a6c3dfa23e2