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