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