1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2001-03-15
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
8 Temporary note: +++ indicates that the appropriate manual
9 has already been updated. --- means no change in the manuals
12 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.3
14 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
15 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
19 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
22 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
23 automatically at startup, if it exists. And it always offers to save
24 abbrevs (if you have changed them) when if offers to save modified
27 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
28 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
31 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
34 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
35 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
38 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
39 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
41 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
42 with a space, if they visit files.
44 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
45 filling can break lines. We provide two sample predicates,
46 fill-single-word-nobreak-p and fill-french-nobreak-p.
48 ** In Texinfo mode, when Font-Lock is enabled, updating one of the
49 `foo's in `@foo ... @end foo' updates the other one on the fly.
51 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
52 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry will always
53 start a new record regardless of when the last record is.
55 ** New user option `sgml-xml'.
56 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
57 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
58 When not customized, it becomes buffer-local when it can be inferred
59 from the file name or buffer contents.
61 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
62 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
63 instead of using default-major-mode.
65 ** Byte compiler warning and error messages have been brought more
66 in line with the output of other GNU tools.
68 ** Lisp-mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
70 ** perl-mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
72 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
73 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
76 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
77 much pure storage it will approximately need.
79 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
80 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
81 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
84 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
85 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
86 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
87 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
88 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
89 candidate is a directory.
91 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
92 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
93 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
95 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
97 ** When using M-x revert-buffer in a compilation buffer to rerun a
98 compilation, it is now made sure that the compilation buffer is reused
99 in case it has been renamed.
101 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
102 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
103 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
105 ** New modes and packages
108 *** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
110 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
111 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
112 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
113 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
116 *** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
118 The ELisp reference manual in Info format is built as part of the
119 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
122 *** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
123 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
124 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
127 *** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
128 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
130 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
131 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
132 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
135 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
136 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
139 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
142 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
143 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
145 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
148 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.3
150 ** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
151 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
154 ** If you set `query-replace-skip-read-only' non-nil,
155 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
156 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
158 ** In `replace-match', the replacement replacement text no longer
159 inherits properties from surrounding text.
161 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
163 - Function: buffer-local-value variable buffer
165 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
166 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
167 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
169 ** The default value of `paragraph-start' and `indent-line-function' has
170 been changed to reflect the one used in Text mode rather than the one
171 used in Indented Text mode.
173 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
174 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
177 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
178 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
179 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP@ VAL2 ...) so you can set
180 other properties than `face'.
181 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
182 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
184 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
185 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
186 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
188 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
189 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
190 and run any code associated with the provided feature.
192 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
193 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
196 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
197 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
198 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
200 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
201 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
202 accepts a float as UID parameter.
204 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
206 ** `define-derived-mode' now accepts nil as the parent.
208 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
210 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
212 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
214 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
215 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
217 ** Variable aliases have been implemented
219 - Macro: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR
221 This defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for symbol
222 BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR returns
223 the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR changes the
226 - Function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
228 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
229 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
230 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
232 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
233 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
235 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
236 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
238 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
239 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
241 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
242 have been moved from the CL package to the core.
246 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
247 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
250 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
252 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
253 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
254 charsets in this release.
256 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
258 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
260 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
261 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
264 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
265 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
266 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
267 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
268 necessary changes to unexec.
270 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
271 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
273 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
274 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
276 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
277 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
279 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
280 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
281 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
282 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
283 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
285 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
286 new display features described below.
289 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
291 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
293 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
294 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
295 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
296 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
299 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
301 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
302 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
303 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
304 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
307 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
308 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
309 under Lisp changes, below.
311 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
313 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
314 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
315 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
316 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
317 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
318 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
321 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
322 supported on character terminals.
324 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
325 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
326 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
327 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
329 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
333 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
334 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
335 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
336 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
339 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
341 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
342 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
343 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
344 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
346 - User option: max-mini-window-height
348 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
349 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
350 specifies a number of lines.
354 - User option: resize-mini-windows
356 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
357 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
358 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
361 Default is `grow-only'.
365 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
366 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
368 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
370 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
371 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
374 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
376 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
377 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
378 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
380 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
382 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
383 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
384 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
385 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
386 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
389 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
390 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
391 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
392 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
393 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
394 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
396 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
397 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
398 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
399 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
400 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
401 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
403 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
404 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
405 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
406 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
407 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
411 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
412 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
413 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
414 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
415 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
418 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
419 for specific modes (with copyright assignments). Contributions would
420 also be useful to touch up some of the PBM icons manually.
424 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
425 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
426 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
428 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
429 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
430 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
431 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
433 ** Automatic Hscrolling
435 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
436 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
439 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
440 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
441 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
442 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
443 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
445 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
446 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
447 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
448 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
449 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
450 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
452 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
453 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
454 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
455 customizing face `fringe'.
457 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
458 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
459 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
460 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
461 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
462 the window to be partially obscured.)
464 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
465 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
466 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
467 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
469 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
471 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
472 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
473 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
474 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
475 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
478 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
480 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
482 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
484 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
485 `*') toggles the status.
487 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
491 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
492 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
496 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
497 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
498 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
501 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
503 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
504 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
505 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
508 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
509 have to do anything to activate it.
511 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
513 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
514 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
516 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
517 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
518 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
519 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
520 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
521 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
522 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
523 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
525 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
526 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
527 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
528 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
529 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
530 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
532 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
533 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
535 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
536 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
539 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
540 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
541 beginning and end of the buffer.
543 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
544 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
547 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
548 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
550 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
551 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
554 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
555 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
558 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
560 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
561 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
562 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
564 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
565 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
566 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
568 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
571 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
573 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
574 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
575 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
576 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
577 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
580 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
581 all frames except the selected one.
583 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
584 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
586 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
587 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
588 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
589 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
590 `Info-use-header-line'.
592 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
593 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
594 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
596 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
598 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
599 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
602 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
603 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
604 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
605 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
607 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
609 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
610 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
611 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
612 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
614 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
615 point in a pop-up window.
617 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
618 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
619 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
621 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
622 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
624 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
625 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
626 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
627 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
629 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
631 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
632 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
634 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
635 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
636 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
638 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
639 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
642 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
643 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
644 file that is already visited under a different name.
646 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
647 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
649 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
650 and displays information about that.
652 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
653 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
655 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
656 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
657 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
658 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
659 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
660 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
662 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
663 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
665 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
666 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
667 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
668 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
669 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
670 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
671 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
673 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
674 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
676 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
677 system for keyboard input.
679 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
680 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
681 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
682 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
683 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
684 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
685 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
686 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
687 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
689 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
690 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
692 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
693 displays all characters in that character set.
695 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
696 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
698 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
699 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
700 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
702 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
703 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
704 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
705 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
706 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
707 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
710 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
711 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
714 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
715 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
716 Lisp Coding Convention".
718 new command old-binding
719 --- ------- -----------
720 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
721 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
722 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
724 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
725 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
726 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
728 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
729 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
730 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
731 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
732 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
733 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
735 ** There are new Leim input methods.
736 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
737 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
740 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
741 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
742 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
743 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
744 "`", you must type "=q".
746 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
747 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
748 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
749 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
750 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
753 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
754 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
755 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
756 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
758 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
759 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
760 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
761 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
763 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
764 on the display using several methods
766 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
767 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
768 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
770 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
771 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
773 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
775 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
776 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
778 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
779 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
780 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
781 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
783 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
784 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
785 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
787 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
788 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
790 ** New X resources recognized
792 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
793 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
794 is useful for debugging X problems.
798 emacs.synchronous: true
800 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
801 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
802 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
803 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
804 visual class names are
813 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
814 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
817 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
818 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
819 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
824 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
826 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
827 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
828 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
829 resource values are `true' or `on'.
833 emacs.privateColormap: true
835 ** Faces and frame parameters.
837 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
838 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
839 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
840 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
841 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
842 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
843 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
845 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
846 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
847 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
848 `default' face and vice versa.
852 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
854 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
856 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
857 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
858 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
859 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
861 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
862 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
863 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
865 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
868 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
870 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
871 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
872 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
873 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
875 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
877 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
879 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
881 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
884 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
887 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
889 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
890 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
891 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
893 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
894 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
896 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
897 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
898 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
900 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
902 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
903 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
904 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
905 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
907 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
908 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
909 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
910 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
912 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
913 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
914 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
917 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
919 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
920 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
921 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
923 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
924 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
925 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
926 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
927 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
928 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
930 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
932 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
933 notably at the end of lines.
935 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
936 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
938 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
940 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
941 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
943 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
944 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
945 after each match to get the replacement text.
947 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
948 you edit the replacement string.
950 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
951 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
952 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
954 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
956 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
957 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
959 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
960 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
961 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
962 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
965 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
966 read mail from the menu etc.
968 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
969 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
970 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
971 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
973 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
974 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
976 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
977 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
978 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
979 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
980 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
985 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
986 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
987 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
988 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
989 earlier versions of Emacs.
991 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
992 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
995 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
996 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
997 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
998 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
1001 ** New features in evaluation commands
1003 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
1004 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
1005 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
1006 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
1007 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
1009 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
1010 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
1011 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
1012 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
1015 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
1016 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
1018 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
1019 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
1021 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
1022 code when called with a prefix argument.
1026 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
1027 current user setups (although it's believed that these
1028 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
1029 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
1030 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
1031 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
1034 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
1035 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
1036 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
1039 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
1040 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
1041 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
1042 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
1044 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
1045 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
1047 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
1048 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
1050 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
1051 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
1052 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
1053 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
1055 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
1056 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
1057 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
1058 earlier statement. An example:
1060 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
1062 res += a[i]->offset;
1065 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
1066 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
1067 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
1068 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
1071 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
1074 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
1075 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
1076 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
1077 documentation or other natural language text.
1079 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
1080 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
1081 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
1082 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
1083 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
1084 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
1085 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
1087 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
1088 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
1089 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
1090 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
1092 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
1093 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
1094 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
1095 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
1098 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
1099 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
1100 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
1101 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
1102 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
1103 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
1104 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
1105 is reported afterwards.
1107 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
1108 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
1109 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
1111 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
1112 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
1113 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
1114 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
1115 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
1116 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
1119 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
1120 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
1121 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
1122 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
1123 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
1126 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
1127 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
1128 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
1129 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
1130 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
1131 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
1133 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
1134 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
1135 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
1136 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
1137 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
1138 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
1139 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
1140 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
1142 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
1143 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
1144 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
1145 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
1148 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
1149 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
1150 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
1151 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
1152 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
1153 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
1154 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
1155 function documentation for more info.
1157 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
1158 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
1159 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
1160 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
1161 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
1162 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
1163 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
1164 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
1166 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
1168 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
1169 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
1171 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
1172 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
1173 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
1174 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
1175 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
1178 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
1179 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
1180 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
1183 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
1184 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
1185 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
1186 chapter about this in the manual.
1188 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
1189 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
1190 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
1191 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
1192 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
1194 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
1195 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
1196 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
1198 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
1199 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1201 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
1202 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
1203 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
1206 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
1207 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
1208 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
1209 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
1212 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
1213 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
1214 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
1215 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
1216 they were before the filling.
1218 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
1219 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
1220 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
1223 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
1224 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
1225 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
1226 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1229 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1230 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1231 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1232 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1233 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1235 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1236 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1237 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1239 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1241 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1242 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1243 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1244 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1246 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1247 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1248 the column specified by comment-column.
1250 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1251 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1252 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1253 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1254 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1255 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1257 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1258 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1261 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1263 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1264 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1265 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1266 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1269 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1273 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
1274 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
1275 is, delete only empty directories.
1277 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
1278 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
1279 copy directories recursively.
1281 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
1282 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
1283 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
1285 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
1286 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
1289 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
1290 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
1291 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
1292 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
1293 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
1295 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
1298 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
1299 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
1300 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
1301 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
1305 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
1306 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
1307 internationalization and mail-fetching.
1309 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
1310 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
1312 If you used procmail like in
1314 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
1315 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
1316 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
1317 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
1319 this now has changed to
1322 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
1325 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
1326 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
1328 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
1329 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
1330 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
1331 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
1333 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
1334 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
1335 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
1337 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
1338 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
1339 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
1340 now just a compatibility layer.
1342 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
1345 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
1346 called to position point.
1348 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
1349 summary buffers and NOV files.
1351 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
1352 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
1354 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
1355 subtly different manner.
1357 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
1358 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
1359 ever-changing layouts.
1361 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
1363 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
1365 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
1367 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
1371 -------------------------
1375 C-c C-c q @quotation
1377 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
1380 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
1382 ** Changes in Outline mode.
1384 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
1385 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
1386 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
1388 ** Changes to Emacs Server
1390 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
1391 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
1392 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
1393 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
1394 buffers to kill, as before.
1396 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
1397 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
1400 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
1401 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
1403 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
1405 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
1406 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
1407 use. Default is 1000.
1409 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
1410 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
1412 ** Changes to hideshow.el
1414 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
1416 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
1417 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
1418 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
1419 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
1421 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
1422 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
1423 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
1426 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
1427 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
1428 the normal block-hiding function.
1430 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
1432 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
1433 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
1434 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
1435 for `hs-minor-mode'.
1437 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
1438 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
1440 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
1442 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
1443 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
1444 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
1446 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
1449 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
1452 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
1453 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
1454 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
1455 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
1456 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
1457 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
1459 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
1461 ** Changes to cmuscheme
1463 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
1464 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
1466 ** Changes in Font Lock
1468 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
1469 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
1471 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
1472 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
1474 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
1475 the face used for each string/comment.
1477 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
1478 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
1480 ** Changes to Shell mode
1482 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
1483 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
1484 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
1485 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
1487 ** Comint (subshell) changes
1489 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
1490 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
1492 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
1493 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
1494 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
1495 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
1496 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
1497 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
1499 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
1500 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
1501 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
1502 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
1503 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
1504 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
1505 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
1506 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
1508 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
1509 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
1511 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
1512 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
1513 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
1515 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
1516 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
1517 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
1519 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
1520 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
1521 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
1523 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
1524 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
1525 argument, it appends to the file.
1527 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
1528 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
1531 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
1534 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
1535 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
1536 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
1538 ** Changes to Rmail mode
1540 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
1541 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
1542 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
1543 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
1544 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
1547 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
1548 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
1549 regexp matching your mail addresses.
1551 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
1552 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
1553 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
1554 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
1555 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
1557 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
1560 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
1561 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
1564 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
1565 in which folder to put messages automatically.
1567 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
1568 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
1569 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
1571 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
1572 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
1574 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
1575 use the -f option when sending mail.
1577 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
1578 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
1579 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
1580 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
1581 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
1582 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
1584 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
1585 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
1586 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
1588 ** Changes to TeX mode
1590 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
1593 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
1595 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
1597 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
1599 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
1601 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
1602 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
1603 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
1604 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
1605 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
1606 can be edited from that buffer.
1608 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
1609 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
1610 `A' to use all marked entries).
1612 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
1613 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
1615 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
1616 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
1617 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
1620 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
1621 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
1622 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
1623 in column 1 are always made leaves.
1625 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
1626 has the following new features:
1628 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
1629 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
1630 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
1631 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
1633 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
1634 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
1635 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
1636 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
1637 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
1640 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
1645 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
1646 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
1647 spell-checks the current buffer.
1649 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
1652 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
1653 correction is made and re-checked.
1655 *** An Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definition has been added.
1657 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
1660 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
1663 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
1666 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
1668 ** Makefile mode changes
1670 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1672 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1673 Fontlock mode is active.
1677 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1678 so that searches can be resumed.
1680 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1681 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1682 that started the search.
1684 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1685 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1687 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1689 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1690 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1691 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1692 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1693 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1694 `secondary-selection'.
1696 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1697 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1698 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1699 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1700 usual snappy response.
1702 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1703 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1704 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1705 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1709 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
1710 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
1711 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
1712 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
1713 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
1714 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
1715 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
1716 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
1717 file is registered in that backend.
1719 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
1720 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
1721 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
1722 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
1723 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
1724 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
1726 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
1727 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
1728 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
1729 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
1730 where it doesn't make sense.)
1732 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
1733 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
1734 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
1738 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
1739 checks are always done now.
1741 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
1744 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
1745 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
1746 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
1748 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
1749 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
1750 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
1751 the working file (``merge news'').
1753 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
1754 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
1757 *** Multiple Backends
1759 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
1760 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
1761 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
1762 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
1765 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
1766 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
1767 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
1768 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
1770 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
1771 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
1772 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
1773 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
1774 current revision number from the more remote backend.
1776 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
1777 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
1778 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
1779 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
1781 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
1782 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
1783 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
1784 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
1788 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
1789 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
1790 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
1791 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
1792 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
1793 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
1794 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
1796 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
1797 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
1798 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
1799 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
1800 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
1801 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
1802 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
1803 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
1804 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
1805 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
1806 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
1809 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
1810 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
1811 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
1812 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
1813 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
1814 entire directory tree.
1816 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
1817 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
1818 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
1819 "watched" by other developers.)
1821 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
1822 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
1823 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
1824 starting at the given directory.
1826 *** Lisp Changes in VC
1828 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
1829 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
1830 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
1831 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
1832 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
1833 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
1834 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
1835 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
1836 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
1838 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
1839 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
1840 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
1841 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
1843 ** New modes and packages
1845 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
1846 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
1847 the default is not applicable.
1849 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
1850 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
1851 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
1855 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
1856 drawn, like this: | \ /
1860 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
1861 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
1862 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
1863 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
1864 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
1867 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
1868 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
1870 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
1873 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
1874 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
1875 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
1876 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
1878 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
1879 also do without the mouse.
1881 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
1882 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
1883 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
1884 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
1885 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
1887 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
1889 lines straight-lines
1891 poly-lines straight poly-lines
1893 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
1894 spray-can setting size for spraying
1895 vaporize line vaporize lines
1896 erase characters erase rectangles
1898 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
1899 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
1900 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
1903 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
1904 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
1905 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
1906 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
1908 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
1911 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
1912 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
1913 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
1914 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
1915 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
1916 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
1917 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
1918 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
1919 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
1921 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1922 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1923 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1924 on certain projects.
1926 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
1927 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
1929 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1931 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1932 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1933 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1934 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1935 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1936 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1937 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
1938 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
1940 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1943 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
1944 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
1946 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1947 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1949 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1950 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1951 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1952 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
1953 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
1955 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1956 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1957 separate Texinfo file.
1959 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1960 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1961 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1962 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1963 enter check-in log messages.
1965 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1966 without invoking external programs.
1968 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1969 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1970 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1971 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1972 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1974 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1975 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1977 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1978 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1980 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1981 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1982 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1983 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1984 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1987 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1988 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1989 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1990 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1992 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1993 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1994 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1996 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1999 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
2001 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
2003 ; comment (until end of line)
2007 $A default non-terminal
2008 $"C" default terminal
2009 $?C? default special
2010 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
2011 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
2012 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
2013 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
2014 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
2015 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
2016 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
2017 C+ one or more occurrences of C
2018 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
2019 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
2020 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
2021 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
2022 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
2023 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
2024 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
2026 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
2028 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
2029 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
2030 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
2031 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
2032 equal signs of assignments.
2034 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
2035 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
2037 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
2038 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
2039 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
2041 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
2043 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
2044 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
2045 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
2046 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
2047 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
2048 which answers different needs.
2050 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
2051 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
2052 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
2053 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
2054 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
2057 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
2058 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
2060 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
2062 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
2063 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
2064 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behaviour in all buffers.
2066 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
2068 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
2069 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
2070 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
2071 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
2072 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
2073 and background colors.
2075 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
2078 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
2081 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
2083 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
2085 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
2086 whitespace in a file.
2088 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
2089 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
2090 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
2091 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
2092 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
2093 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
2094 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
2096 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
2098 Here is an example of columns:
2101 dog pineapple car EXTRA
2102 porcupine strawberry airplane
2104 Doing the following settings:
2106 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
2107 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
2108 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
2109 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
2112 Selecting the lines above and typing:
2114 M-x delimit-columns-region
2118 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
2119 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
2120 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
2122 delim-col has the following options:
2124 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
2127 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
2128 between each column.
2130 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
2133 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
2136 delim-col has the following commands:
2138 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
2139 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
2141 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
2142 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
2143 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
2144 recent file list can be displayed:
2146 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
2147 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
2148 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
2150 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
2151 dynamically change the menu appearance.
2153 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
2156 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
2157 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
2158 specific to Message mode.
2160 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
2161 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
2162 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
2164 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
2165 interface to access directory servers using different directory
2166 protocols. It has a separate manual.
2168 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
2169 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
2171 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
2173 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
2174 minibuffer with completion.
2176 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
2177 with the diary features.
2179 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
2180 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
2182 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
2185 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
2186 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
2187 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
2188 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
2190 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
2191 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
2194 ** Changes in sort.el
2196 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
2197 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
2198 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
2201 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
2203 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
2204 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
2205 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
2207 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
2208 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
2210 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
2211 output ^M at the end of lines.
2213 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
2214 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
2216 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
2217 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
2220 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
2223 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
2224 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
2227 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
2228 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
2229 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
2230 nil -- just delete one character.
2232 Default value is `untabify'.
2234 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
2236 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
2237 symbol, not double-quoted.
2239 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
2240 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
2241 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
2242 moved to lisp/obsolete.
2244 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
2245 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
2246 `auto-compression-mode' command.
2248 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
2249 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
2250 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
2252 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
2253 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
2255 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
2256 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
2258 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
2259 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
2261 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
2262 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
2263 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
2264 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
2265 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
2266 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
2268 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
2269 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
2271 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
2273 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
2274 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
2276 ** Shell script mode changes.
2278 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
2279 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
2280 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
2284 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
2286 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
2287 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
2288 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
2289 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
2290 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
2292 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
2293 declarations when given the --declarations option.
2295 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
2296 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
2298 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
2299 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
2300 `template' keywords.
2302 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
2303 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
2305 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
2308 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
2310 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
2312 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
2315 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
2317 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
2318 variables are tagged.
2320 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
2322 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
2325 ** Changes in etags.el
2327 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
2328 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
2329 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
2331 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
2332 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
2334 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
2335 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
2336 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
2337 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
2339 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
2341 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
2342 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
2344 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
2346 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
2347 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
2348 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
2350 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
2351 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
2353 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
2354 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
2356 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
2357 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
2358 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
2359 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
2360 point will go to the beginning of the file.
2362 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
2363 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
2364 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
2366 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
2367 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
2368 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
2370 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
2371 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
2372 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
2374 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
2376 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
2378 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
2379 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
2380 expression from that list, are not checked.
2382 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
2383 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
2384 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
2385 the buffer, just like for the local files.
2387 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
2389 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
2390 displays local abbrevs, only.
2392 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
2393 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
2395 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
2396 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
2397 is measured in pixels.
2399 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
2400 to be visited as images.
2402 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
2403 were added to compile.el.
2405 ** Withdrawn packages
2407 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
2408 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
2410 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
2412 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
2415 * Incompatible Lisp changes
2417 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
2418 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
2419 See the sections below for details.
2421 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
2422 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
2423 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
2424 to remove the properties of the copy.
2426 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
2427 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
2428 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
2429 these properties are active.
2431 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
2432 ranges may affect some code.
2434 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
2435 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
2436 make a difference to some code.
2438 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
2439 operates on the minibuffer.
2441 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
2442 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
2443 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
2444 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
2445 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
2446 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
2447 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
2448 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
2449 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
2450 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
2451 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
2452 the buffer as multibyte characters.
2454 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
2455 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
2456 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
2458 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
2459 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
2460 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
2462 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
2465 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
2468 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
2469 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
2470 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
2471 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
2472 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
2473 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
2474 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
2475 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
2477 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
2478 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
2479 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
2480 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
2481 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
2482 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
2483 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
2484 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
2485 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
2486 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
2489 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
2490 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
2492 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
2494 ** The new function amimate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
2495 allows the animated display of strings.
2497 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
2498 interactive form of a function.
2500 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
2501 between custom options. Example:
2503 (defcustom default-input-method nil
2504 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
2505 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
2506 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
2508 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
2509 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
2511 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
2512 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
2513 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
2515 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
2516 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
2517 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
2518 (signal or normal termination).
2520 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
2521 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
2523 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
2524 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
2526 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
2527 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
2529 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
2531 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
2532 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
2535 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
2537 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
2538 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
2539 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
2540 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
2541 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
2544 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
2545 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
2548 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
2549 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
2551 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
2552 with the more general `:mask' property.
2554 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
2556 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
2559 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
2560 is running in batch mode. For example,
2562 (message "%s" (read t))
2564 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
2567 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
2568 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
2570 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
2571 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
2574 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
2577 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
2579 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
2580 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
2582 - Function: remq ELT LIST
2584 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
2585 comparison is done with `eq'.
2587 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
2589 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
2590 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
2591 `key-and-value', in addition the `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
2593 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
2594 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
2595 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
2597 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
2598 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
2600 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
2601 function was declared obsolete.
2603 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
2604 retained as an alias).
2606 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
2607 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
2608 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
2610 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
2612 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
2614 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
2615 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
2616 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
2617 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
2618 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
2619 means never include the minibuffer window.
2621 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
2623 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
2625 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
2627 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
2628 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
2629 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
2630 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
2633 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
2634 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
2635 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
2636 minibuffer even if it is active.
2638 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
2639 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
2640 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
2641 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
2642 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
2643 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
2645 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
2646 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
2647 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
2648 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
2649 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
2650 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
2651 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
2653 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
2654 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
2655 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
2657 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
2658 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
2659 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
2660 Default value is nil.
2662 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
2665 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
2666 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
2667 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
2669 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
2670 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
2671 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
2673 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
2674 list of a primitive.
2676 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
2678 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
2679 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
2680 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
2681 than replacing the local map.
2683 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
2684 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
2685 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
2688 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
2690 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
2691 as promised long ago.
2693 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
2695 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
2696 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
2697 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
2700 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
2702 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2703 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2704 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2705 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2707 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
2708 regular expressions.
2710 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
2712 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
2716 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
2718 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
2722 matches string STRING literally.
2725 matches character CHAR literally.
2728 matches any character except a newline.
2731 matches any character
2734 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
2735 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
2741 matches any character not in SET
2744 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
2745 in the text being matched
2748 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
2751 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
2752 string being matched against.
2755 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
2756 string being matched against.
2759 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
2760 buffer being matched against.
2763 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
2764 buffer being matched against.
2767 matches the empty string, but only at point.
2770 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
2774 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
2777 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
2780 `(not word-boundary)'
2781 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
2785 matches 0 through 9.
2788 matches ASCII control characters.
2791 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
2794 matches space and tab only.
2797 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
2801 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2805 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2806 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2809 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2810 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2813 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2816 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2819 matches anything lower-case.
2822 matches anything upper-case.
2825 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2826 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2829 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2832 matches anything that has word syntax.
2835 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
2836 of the following symbols.
2838 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
2839 `punctuation' (\\s.)
2842 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
2843 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
2844 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
2845 `string-quote' (\\s\")
2846 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
2848 `character-quote' (\\s/)
2849 `comment-start' (\\s<)
2850 `comment-end' (\\s>)
2852 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
2853 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
2855 `(category CATEGORY)'
2856 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
2857 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
2859 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
2861 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
2862 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
2866 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
2868 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
2869 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
2870 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
2871 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
2872 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
2873 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
2874 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
2875 `indian-tow-byte' (\\cI)
2876 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
2877 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
2878 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
2887 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
2891 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
2898 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
2899 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
2901 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2902 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
2904 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2905 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
2906 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
2908 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2909 another name for `submatch'.
2911 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
2912 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
2913 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
2916 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
2917 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
2918 zero or more occurrances of something are \"greedy\" in that they
2919 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
2920 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
2922 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
2923 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
2925 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
2926 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
2929 like `zero-or-more'.
2932 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
2935 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
2937 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
2938 matches one or more occurrences of A.
2944 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
2947 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
2949 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
2950 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
2956 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
2959 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
2962 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
2965 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
2968 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
2972 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
2974 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
2976 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
2977 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
2978 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
2979 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
2981 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
2982 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
2983 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
2984 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
2986 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
2987 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
2988 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
2990 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
2991 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
2992 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
2993 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
2994 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
2995 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
2996 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
2999 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
3001 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
3002 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
3003 character set as previously.
3005 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
3006 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
3007 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
3009 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
3010 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
3011 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
3012 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
3014 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
3015 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
3017 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
3018 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
3021 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
3022 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
3024 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
3025 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
3026 buffers and strings.
3028 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
3029 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
3030 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
3031 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
3032 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
3033 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
3034 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
3037 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
3038 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
3039 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
3041 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
3042 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
3043 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
3044 may differ between buffer and string text.
3046 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
3047 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
3049 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
3050 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
3051 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
3052 `composition' from STRING.
3054 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
3055 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
3057 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
3060 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
3061 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
3063 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
3064 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
3065 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
3066 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
3068 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
3069 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
3070 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
3071 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
3072 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
3073 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
3075 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
3076 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
3077 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
3079 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
3080 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
3081 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
3083 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
3084 have been introduced.
3086 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
3087 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
3088 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
3089 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
3090 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
3091 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
3092 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
3093 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
3094 their multibyte equivalent.
3096 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
3097 that offset in the file before writing.
3099 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
3100 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
3102 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
3103 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
3104 from which the command was issued.
3106 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
3107 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
3108 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
3109 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
3112 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
3113 to `window-buffer-height'.
3115 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
3117 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
3118 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
3119 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
3121 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
3124 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
3125 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
3127 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
3128 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
3129 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
3131 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
3132 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
3133 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
3134 is currently displayed in some window.
3136 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
3137 argument function's results.
3139 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
3140 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
3141 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
3142 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
3145 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
3146 header in the list of headers passed to it.
3148 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
3149 ignores differences in case and text representation.
3151 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
3152 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
3155 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
3156 nil don't display a cursor
3157 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
3158 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
3159 others display a box cursor.
3161 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
3162 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
3163 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
3164 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
3166 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
3167 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
3168 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
3169 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
3173 (string-to-syntax "()")
3176 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
3179 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
3180 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
3187 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
3192 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
3197 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
3204 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
3205 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
3208 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
3209 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
3210 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
3211 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
3213 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
3215 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
3216 for a regexp in a string.
3218 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
3219 `mouse-position-function'.
3221 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
3222 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
3224 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
3225 Keywords are now always considered constants.
3227 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
3230 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
3231 returned by function `recent-keys'.
3233 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
3234 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
3235 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
3236 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
3239 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
3240 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
3242 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
3243 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
3244 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
3245 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
3248 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
3249 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
3250 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
3251 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
3253 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
3254 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
3255 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
3257 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
3258 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
3261 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
3263 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
3264 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
3265 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
3268 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
3269 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
3270 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
3271 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
3272 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
3274 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
3275 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
3277 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
3278 instead of being optional.
3280 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
3281 modify read-only text.
3283 ** New functions and variables for locales.
3285 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
3286 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
3287 time functions like strftime. The new variables
3288 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
3289 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
3291 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
3292 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
3293 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
3294 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
3295 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
3296 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
3297 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
3299 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
3300 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
3301 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
3304 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
3305 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
3307 ** New function `propertize'
3309 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
3310 strings with text properties.
3312 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
3314 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
3315 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
3316 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
3317 specified value of that property. Example:
3319 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
3321 ** push and pop macros.
3323 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
3324 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
3325 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
3327 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
3328 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
3329 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
3331 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
3333 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
3334 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
3336 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
3337 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
3338 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
3339 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
3341 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
3342 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
3343 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
3344 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
3346 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
3347 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
3348 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
3351 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
3352 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
3353 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
3354 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
3355 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
3357 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
3359 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
3360 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3361 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
3362 [:alpha:] matches letters.
3363 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3364 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
3365 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
3366 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
3367 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
3368 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
3369 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3370 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
3371 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
3372 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
3373 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
3375 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
3377 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
3379 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
3381 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
3382 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
3386 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
3387 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
3388 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
3392 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
3393 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
3395 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
3397 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
3398 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
3399 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
3400 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
3401 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
3403 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
3405 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
3406 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
3407 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
3411 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
3412 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
3413 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
3414 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
3415 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
3417 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
3419 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
3421 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
3423 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
3425 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
3427 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
3430 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
3432 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
3434 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
3436 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
3438 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
3440 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
3442 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
3444 Returns the size of TABLE.
3446 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
3448 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
3450 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
3452 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
3454 - Function: clrhash TABLE
3458 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
3460 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
3463 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
3465 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
3466 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
3468 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
3470 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
3472 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
3474 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
3475 arguments KEY and VALUE.
3477 - Function: sxhash OBJ
3479 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
3481 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
3483 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
3484 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
3485 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
3486 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
3487 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
3489 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
3491 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
3492 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
3493 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
3495 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
3496 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
3498 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
3499 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
3501 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
3502 (sxhash (upcase a)))
3504 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
3505 'case-fold-string-hash))
3507 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
3509 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
3511 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
3512 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
3513 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
3515 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
3517 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
3518 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
3520 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
3521 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
3522 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
3523 is too short to reach that column.
3525 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
3526 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
3527 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
3528 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
3530 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
3531 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
3532 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
3534 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
3535 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
3537 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
3538 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
3540 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
3541 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
3542 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
3543 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
3544 temporary-file-directory instead.
3546 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
3547 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
3548 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
3549 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
3551 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
3552 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
3554 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
3556 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
3557 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
3558 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
3560 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
3562 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
3563 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
3564 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
3565 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
3566 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
3567 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
3569 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
3570 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
3571 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
3572 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
3574 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
3576 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
3577 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
3578 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
3581 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
3582 string where arguments appear in the result string.
3586 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
3588 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
3589 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
3592 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
3594 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
3596 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
3597 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
3600 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
3602 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
3603 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
3608 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
3609 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
3611 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
3612 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
3613 to enable sound support.
3615 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
3616 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
3617 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
3618 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
3619 sound to play, before playing the sound.
3621 The following sound properties are supported:
3625 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
3626 searched relative to `data-directory'.
3630 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
3631 may be present, but not both.
3635 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
3636 0..1. This property is optional.
3640 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
3641 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
3643 Other properties are ignored.
3645 An alternative interface is called as
3646 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
3648 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
3650 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
3653 ** Changes to garbage collection
3655 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
3656 of live and free strings.
3658 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
3659 strings that have been consed so far.
3662 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
3665 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
3668 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
3669 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
3670 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
3672 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
3674 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
3676 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
3679 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
3681 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
3683 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
3684 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
3685 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
3686 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
3687 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
3689 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
3692 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
3694 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
3695 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
3696 or omitted means use the selected frame.
3698 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
3699 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
3701 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
3704 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
3708 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
3710 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
3711 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
3712 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
3713 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
3715 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
3716 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
3718 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
3719 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
3720 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
3721 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
3722 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
3723 just display it black instead.
3725 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
3728 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
3732 ** New face implementation.
3734 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
3735 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
3739 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
3741 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
3743 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
3744 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
3746 3. Font height in 1/10pt
3748 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
3750 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
3752 6. Foreground color.
3754 7. Background color.
3756 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
3758 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
3760 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
3762 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
3764 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
3767 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
3768 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
3770 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
3771 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
3772 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
3773 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
3774 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
3775 attributes mentioned above.
3777 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
3778 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
3781 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
3782 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
3787 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
3788 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
3789 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
3790 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
3791 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
3792 results in a fully-specified face.
3794 *** Face realization.
3796 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
3797 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
3798 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
3799 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
3800 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
3801 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
3803 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
3804 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
3805 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
3806 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
3808 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
3809 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
3810 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
3811 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
3812 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
3814 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
3815 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
3816 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
3817 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
3818 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
3821 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
3822 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
3823 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
3824 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
3826 **** Clearing face caches.
3828 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
3829 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
3834 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
3835 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
3836 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
3838 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
3839 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
3840 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
3841 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
3842 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
3844 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
3845 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
3846 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
3848 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
3850 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
3851 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
3852 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
3853 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
3854 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
3855 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
3856 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
3858 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3859 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
3862 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3863 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
3866 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
3869 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
3874 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
3875 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
3878 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
3879 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
3880 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
3881 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
3882 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
3885 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
3887 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
3889 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
3891 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
3893 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
3894 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
3895 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
3897 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
3898 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
3899 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
3900 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
3901 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
3902 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
3903 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
3904 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
3905 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
3906 of the face font sort order.
3908 - Function: x-font-family-list
3910 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
3911 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
3912 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
3913 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
3915 - Variable: font-list-limit
3917 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
3918 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
3919 matching font. The default is currently 100.
3921 *** Setting face attributes.
3923 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
3924 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
3925 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
3928 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
3929 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
3931 The following attributes are recognized:
3935 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
3936 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
3937 and `?' are allowed.
3941 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
3942 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
3943 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
3944 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
3948 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
3949 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
3950 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
3951 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
3955 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
3956 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
3957 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
3961 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
3962 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
3965 `:foreground', `:background'
3967 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
3971 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
3972 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
3973 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
3978 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
3979 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
3980 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
3985 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
3986 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
3987 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
3988 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
3992 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
3993 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
3994 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
3995 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
3996 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
3997 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
3998 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
3999 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
4000 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
4001 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
4002 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
4003 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
4004 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
4005 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
4006 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
4007 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
4012 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
4013 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
4017 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
4018 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
4019 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
4020 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
4021 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
4022 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
4024 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
4025 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
4029 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
4030 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
4031 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
4034 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
4035 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
4036 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
4038 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
4043 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
4044 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
4045 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
4047 *** Face attributes and X resources
4049 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
4052 Face attribute X resource class
4053 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
4054 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
4055 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
4056 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
4057 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
4058 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
4059 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
4060 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
4061 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
4062 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
4063 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
4064 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
4065 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
4066 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
4067 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
4068 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
4069 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
4070 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
4071 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
4072 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
4074 *** Text property `face'.
4076 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
4077 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
4078 specification can be
4080 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
4082 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
4083 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
4084 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
4085 for face attribute names.
4087 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
4088 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
4089 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
4091 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
4093 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
4094 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
4095 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
4096 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
4097 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
4098 used to clear the mapping table.
4100 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
4102 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
4103 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
4104 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
4105 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
4106 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
4107 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
4108 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
4109 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
4110 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
4111 modify their color-related behavior.
4113 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
4116 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
4118 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
4119 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
4120 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
4121 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
4122 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
4123 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
4124 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
4125 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
4126 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
4128 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
4129 display can display image files.
4131 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
4133 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
4134 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
4135 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
4136 `Inviolable' option.
4138 The function minibuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
4139 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
4140 Otherwise, it returns zero.
4142 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
4144 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
4145 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
4146 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
4148 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
4149 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
4150 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
4151 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
4152 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
4153 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
4154 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
4157 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
4158 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
4159 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
4161 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
4163 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
4165 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
4167 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4168 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
4169 constrained position if that is different.
4171 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
4172 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
4173 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
4174 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
4175 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4176 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
4177 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
4178 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
4179 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
4181 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
4182 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
4183 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
4184 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
4185 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
4187 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
4188 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
4190 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
4192 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
4194 Delete the field surrounding POS.
4195 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4196 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4198 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4200 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
4201 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4202 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4203 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
4204 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
4206 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4208 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
4209 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4210 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4211 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
4212 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
4214 - Function: field-string &optional POS
4216 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
4217 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4218 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4220 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
4222 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
4223 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4224 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4228 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
4229 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
4230 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
4231 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
4233 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
4234 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
4235 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
4236 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
4239 IMAGE is an image specification.
4241 *** Image specifications
4243 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
4244 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
4245 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
4246 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
4247 described below are ignored.
4249 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
4253 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
4254 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
4255 to use for its ascent.
4257 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
4258 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
4260 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
4261 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
4262 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
4263 overlays that apply to the image.
4267 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
4268 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
4269 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
4273 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
4278 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
4280 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
4281 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
4283 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
4284 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
4285 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
4286 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
4287 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
4288 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
4289 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
4290 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
4293 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
4295 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
4297 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
4298 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
4299 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
4300 of the factors' absolute values.
4302 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
4308 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
4314 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
4319 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
4320 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
4321 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
4322 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
4323 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
4324 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
4325 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
4328 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
4329 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
4334 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
4335 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
4336 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
4337 may be present in the image specification.
4341 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
4342 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
4343 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
4344 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
4346 *** Supported image types
4348 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
4350 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
4351 properties supported are
4355 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4356 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
4360 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4361 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
4363 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
4364 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
4365 instead of a `:file' property.
4369 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
4373 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
4379 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
4380 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
4382 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
4384 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
4387 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
4388 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
4391 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
4393 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
4394 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
4395 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
4396 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
4398 Additional image properties supported are:
4400 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
4402 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
4403 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
4406 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
4407 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
4409 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
4410 to display compressed images.
4412 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
4414 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
4415 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
4420 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4421 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
4425 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4426 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
4428 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
4430 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
4431 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
4434 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
4436 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
4437 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
4440 **** GIF, image type `gif'
4442 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
4443 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
4445 Additional image properties supported are:
4449 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
4450 multi-image GIF file. An error is signaled if INDEX is too large.
4452 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
4453 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
4454 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
4457 (defun show-anim (file max)
4458 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
4459 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
4461 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
4464 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
4467 (goto-char (point-min))
4468 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
4469 (insert-image img "x"))
4470 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
4472 **** PNG, image type `png'
4474 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
4475 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
4478 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
4480 Additional image properties supported are:
4484 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
4485 integer. This is a required property.
4489 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
4490 must be a integer. This is an required property.
4494 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
4495 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
4496 files. This is an required property.
4498 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
4503 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
4504 which are supported in the current configuration.
4506 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
4507 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
4508 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
4509 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
4510 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
4512 *** Simplified image API, image.el
4514 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
4515 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
4516 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
4517 define an image based on available image types. The functions
4518 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
4523 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
4526 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
4527 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
4528 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
4529 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
4530 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4531 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4532 of the display margins.
4534 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
4535 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
4536 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
4537 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
4542 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
4543 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
4544 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
4545 that have a `help-echo' property.
4547 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
4548 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
4549 the window in which the help was found.
4551 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
4552 `help-echo' text property was found.
4554 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
4555 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
4557 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
4558 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
4561 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
4562 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
4564 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
4565 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
4566 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
4567 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
4568 used as help string.
4570 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
4571 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
4572 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
4574 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
4576 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
4577 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
4579 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
4580 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
4581 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
4582 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
4585 (global-set-key [A-down]
4588 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4589 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
4590 (global-set-key [A-up]
4593 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4594 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
4596 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
4598 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
4599 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
4600 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
4601 is called with one argument, POS.
4603 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
4604 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
4605 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
4606 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
4607 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
4609 ** Tool bar support.
4611 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
4612 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
4613 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
4614 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
4615 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
4616 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
4618 *** Tool bar item definitions
4620 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4621 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
4622 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
4624 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
4625 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
4626 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
4627 property (see below).
4629 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
4630 binding are currently ignored.
4632 The following properties are recognized:
4636 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
4641 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
4645 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
4646 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
4647 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
4649 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
4651 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
4652 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
4656 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
4657 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
4658 meaning of each of the four elements:
4660 Index Use when item is
4661 ----------------------------------------
4662 0 enabled and selected
4663 1 enabled and deselected
4664 2 disabled and selected
4665 3 disabled and deselected
4667 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
4668 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
4670 `:help HELP-STRING'.
4672 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
4673 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
4675 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
4676 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
4677 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
4680 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
4681 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
4682 buffer-locally to override the global map.
4684 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
4686 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
4687 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
4688 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
4690 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
4691 raised when the mouse moves over them.
4693 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
4694 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
4695 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
4696 vertical margins . Default is 1.
4698 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
4699 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
4701 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
4703 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
4706 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
4707 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
4708 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
4710 is the original tool bar item definition, then
4712 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
4714 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
4717 ** Mode line changes.
4719 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
4721 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
4722 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
4723 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
4725 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
4726 a `local-map' text property.
4728 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
4729 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
4731 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
4732 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
4733 `local-map' property.
4735 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
4736 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
4739 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
4740 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
4742 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
4743 variable mode-line-format to nil.
4745 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
4747 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
4748 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
4749 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
4750 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
4753 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
4756 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
4757 position in the header-line.
4759 ** Text property `display'
4761 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
4762 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
4763 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
4764 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
4765 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
4767 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
4769 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
4770 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
4772 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
4773 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
4774 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
4775 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
4776 simpler form STRING as property value.
4778 *** Variable width and height spaces
4780 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
4781 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
4782 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
4783 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
4784 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
4785 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
4786 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
4788 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
4789 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
4790 properties described below.
4792 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
4793 characters having the `display' property.
4797 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
4798 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
4800 - :relative-width FACTOR
4802 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
4803 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
4804 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
4805 width of that character by FACTOR.
4809 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
4810 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
4812 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
4816 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
4819 - :relative-height FACTOR
4821 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
4822 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
4826 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
4827 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
4828 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
4831 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
4835 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
4836 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
4837 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
4838 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
4839 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
4840 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
4841 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
4842 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
4843 as display specification.
4845 *** Other display properties
4847 - (space-width FACTOR)
4849 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
4850 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
4855 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
4857 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
4858 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
4859 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
4860 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
4861 a font is available counts as a step.
4863 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
4864 as tall as the frame's default font.
4866 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
4867 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
4869 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
4870 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
4874 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
4875 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
4876 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
4877 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
4878 `height' subproperty.
4880 *** Conditional display properties
4882 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
4883 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
4884 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
4885 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
4886 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
4887 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
4888 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
4889 different when object is a string.
4891 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
4894 ** New menu separator types.
4896 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
4897 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
4898 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
4899 to specify other menu separator types.
4901 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
4903 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
4906 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
4908 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
4910 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
4912 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
4914 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
4916 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4918 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
4920 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4922 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
4924 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
4925 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
4927 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
4929 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
4931 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
4933 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
4935 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
4937 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
4939 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
4941 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4943 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
4945 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
4947 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
4949 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4951 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
4953 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
4955 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
4956 the corresponding single-line separators.
4958 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
4960 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
4961 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
4962 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
4963 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
4964 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
4965 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
4966 default foreground is black.
4968 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
4969 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
4970 `ScrollBarBackground').
4972 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
4973 settings for scroll bar colors.
4975 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
4976 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
4978 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
4979 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
4980 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
4981 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
4982 the original window start.
4984 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
4985 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
4986 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
4988 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
4990 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
4991 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
4992 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
4993 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
4995 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
4996 fixed-width and fixed-height.
4998 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
5000 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
5001 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
5002 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
5003 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
5004 temporarily to nil, for example
5006 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
5007 (enlarge-window 10))
5009 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
5010 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
5012 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
5013 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
5014 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
5015 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
5016 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
5017 support a vertical-bar cursor).
5021 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
5023 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
5026 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
5028 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
5030 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
5031 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
5032 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
5033 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
5034 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
5036 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
5040 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
5042 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
5046 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
5048 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
5049 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
5051 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
5053 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
5055 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
5056 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
5057 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
5059 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
5060 is the one that is used.
5062 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
5063 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
5064 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
5065 separate from the command's regular output.
5066 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
5067 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
5068 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
5071 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
5072 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
5073 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
5074 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
5076 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
5077 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
5078 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
5079 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
5081 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
5082 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
5083 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
5084 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
5086 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
5087 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
5088 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
5089 they never ignore case.
5091 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
5092 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
5093 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
5094 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
5095 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
5096 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
5097 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
5099 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
5100 the same format that was used in the file before.
5102 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
5103 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
5105 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
5106 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
5107 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
5109 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
5110 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
5111 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
5112 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
5113 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
5114 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
5115 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
5117 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
5118 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
5119 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
5120 format. You can now customize these variables.
5122 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
5123 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
5124 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
5125 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
5127 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
5128 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
5129 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
5131 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
5132 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
5133 doesn't have any effect.
5135 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
5138 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
5139 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
5140 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
5142 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
5143 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
5144 `auto-show-mode' command.
5146 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
5147 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
5148 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
5149 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
5150 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
5152 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
5153 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
5155 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
5156 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
5157 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
5159 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
5160 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
5161 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
5162 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
5164 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
5166 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
5167 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
5168 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
5169 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
5170 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
5172 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
5173 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
5175 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
5176 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
5177 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
5178 `?' on other systems.
5180 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
5181 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
5184 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
5185 current codepage when it starts.
5189 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
5190 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
5191 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
5192 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
5193 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
5194 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
5198 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
5199 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
5201 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
5202 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
5203 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
5204 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
5205 buffer-file-coding-system.
5207 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
5208 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
5211 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
5212 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
5213 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
5214 list of possible coding systems.
5218 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
5219 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
5220 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
5221 docstring for details.
5223 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
5224 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
5225 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
5226 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
5227 lineup functions use this feature currently.
5229 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
5230 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
5232 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
5233 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
5235 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
5236 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
5237 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
5238 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
5241 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
5242 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
5244 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
5245 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
5246 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
5247 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
5249 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
5250 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
5251 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
5252 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
5253 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
5255 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
5257 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
5259 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
5260 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
5262 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
5264 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
5265 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
5266 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
5267 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
5268 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
5272 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
5273 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
5274 Gnus manual for the full story.
5276 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
5277 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
5278 group, which is created automatically.
5280 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
5283 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
5285 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
5286 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
5288 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
5291 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
5293 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
5294 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
5296 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
5298 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
5299 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
5301 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
5302 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
5304 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
5305 control over simplification.
5307 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
5309 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
5312 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
5314 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
5316 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
5317 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
5318 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
5320 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
5321 `a' forces normal posting method.
5323 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
5326 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
5329 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
5330 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
5332 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
5335 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
5337 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
5339 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
5340 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
5342 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
5343 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
5345 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
5347 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
5350 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
5351 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
5353 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
5354 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
5356 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
5358 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
5360 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
5362 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
5364 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
5365 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
5366 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
5368 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
5369 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
5370 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
5371 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
5372 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
5374 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
5375 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
5376 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
5377 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
5379 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
5380 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
5381 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
5384 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5386 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
5387 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
5389 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
5390 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
5391 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
5392 removed from the label.
5394 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
5395 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
5397 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
5398 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
5400 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
5401 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
5404 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
5406 ** New/deleted modes and packages
5408 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
5409 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
5411 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
5412 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
5413 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
5415 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
5416 changes with a special face.
5418 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
5419 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
5420 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
5422 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
5424 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
5425 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
5426 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
5427 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
5428 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
5430 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
5431 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
5432 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
5434 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
5435 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
5436 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
5437 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
5438 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
5439 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
5440 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
5441 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
5442 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
5444 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
5445 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
5446 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
5447 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
5448 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
5451 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
5452 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
5453 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
5454 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
5455 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
5456 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
5458 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
5459 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
5460 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
5461 was not documented clearly before.
5463 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
5464 This includes Tetris and Snake.
5466 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
5468 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
5469 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
5470 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
5471 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
5473 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
5474 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
5475 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
5477 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
5479 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
5480 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
5482 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
5483 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
5486 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
5487 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
5488 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
5489 file names and attributes are returned.
5491 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
5492 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
5493 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
5494 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
5497 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
5498 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
5500 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
5502 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
5503 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
5504 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
5507 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
5508 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
5511 The new function process-running-child-p
5512 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
5513 terminal to its own child process.
5515 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
5516 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
5517 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
5518 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
5520 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
5521 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
5523 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
5524 :included is an alias for :visible.
5526 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
5527 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
5528 to move or copy menu entries.
5530 ** Multibyte editing changes
5532 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
5533 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
5534 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
5535 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
5536 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
5537 (setq char (sref str idx)
5538 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
5539 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
5541 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
5542 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
5543 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
5545 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
5546 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
5547 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
5549 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
5551 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
5552 across the boundary.
5554 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
5555 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
5556 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
5557 contains 8-bit characters.
5558 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
5559 contains invalid characters.
5561 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
5562 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
5563 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
5564 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
5567 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
5568 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
5569 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
5570 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
5572 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
5573 compose Thai characters in a string.
5575 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
5576 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
5577 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
5578 menus should always use the third argument.
5580 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
5581 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
5582 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
5583 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
5585 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
5586 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
5587 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
5588 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
5590 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
5591 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
5592 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
5595 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
5597 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
5598 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
5599 requested feature cannot be loaded.
5601 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
5602 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
5603 means to clear out that attribute.
5605 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
5606 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
5608 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
5609 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
5610 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
5611 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
5613 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
5614 the gap of the current buffer.
5616 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
5617 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
5620 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
5621 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
5622 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
5623 it back in after any modifications have been made.
5625 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
5627 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
5628 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
5629 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
5630 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
5631 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
5633 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
5634 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
5635 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
5636 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
5637 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
5639 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
5640 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
5641 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
5643 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
5644 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
5645 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
5646 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
5647 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
5650 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
5651 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
5652 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
5653 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
5655 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
5657 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
5658 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
5659 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
5660 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
5662 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
5663 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
5664 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
5665 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
5666 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
5667 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
5668 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
5671 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
5674 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
5675 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
5676 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
5677 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
5678 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
5680 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
5681 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
5682 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
5683 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
5685 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
5686 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
5687 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
5688 something that most users not do.
5690 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
5691 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
5692 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
5695 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
5698 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
5699 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
5700 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
5701 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
5704 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
5705 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
5706 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
5707 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
5708 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
5711 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
5712 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
5713 to be confused by TeX commands.
5715 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
5716 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
5717 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
5718 of various alternative replacements and actions.
5720 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
5721 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
5722 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
5723 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
5724 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
5726 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
5727 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
5729 ** Changes in input method usage.
5731 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
5732 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
5735 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
5737 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
5738 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
5740 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
5741 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
5743 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
5745 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
5747 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
5748 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
5750 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
5751 given in the following case:
5752 o When you are using a complex input method.
5753 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
5755 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
5756 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
5757 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
5758 setting it to t is helpful.
5760 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
5762 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
5764 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
5765 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
5766 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
5767 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
5770 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
5771 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
5772 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
5775 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
5777 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
5779 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
5780 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
5782 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
5783 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
5784 its owner and group.
5786 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
5787 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
5789 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
5790 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
5792 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
5793 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
5794 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
5795 by the left edge of the rectangle.
5797 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
5798 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
5799 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
5800 for writing keyboard macros.
5802 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
5803 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
5804 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
5805 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
5806 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
5809 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
5811 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
5812 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
5815 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
5816 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
5817 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
5818 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
5820 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
5821 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
5822 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
5824 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
5825 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
5826 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
5827 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
5829 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
5830 failure if the command produces no output.
5832 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
5833 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
5836 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
5837 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
5838 function and variable names.
5840 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
5841 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
5842 file-coding-system-alist.
5844 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
5845 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
5846 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
5847 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
5848 according to the current fontset.
5850 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
5852 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
5853 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
5854 nonascii-insert-offset.
5856 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
5857 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
5858 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
5859 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
5861 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
5862 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
5864 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
5865 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
5867 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
5868 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
5871 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
5872 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
5874 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
5875 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
5876 all variables that have documentation.
5878 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
5879 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
5880 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
5881 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
5882 it should show; the default is 20.
5884 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
5885 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
5888 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
5889 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
5890 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
5891 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
5892 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
5893 Newly added options are included as well.
5895 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
5896 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
5897 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
5899 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
5902 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
5903 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
5905 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
5906 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
5909 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
5910 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
5913 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
5914 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
5915 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
5916 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
5919 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
5921 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
5922 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
5923 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
5925 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
5926 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
5927 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
5932 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
5933 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
5935 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
5936 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
5938 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
5939 read and post multi-lingual articles.
5941 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
5942 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
5943 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
5944 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
5945 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
5946 made invisible again.
5948 ** Mail reading and sending changes
5950 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
5951 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
5952 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
5955 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
5956 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
5957 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
5958 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
5959 rmail-default-body-file.
5961 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
5962 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
5963 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
5965 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
5966 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
5967 is evaluated to insert the signature.
5969 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
5970 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
5971 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
5972 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
5973 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
5974 especially interested in trying feedmail.
5976 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
5977 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
5978 provided by feedmail are:
5980 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
5981 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
5982 there is also a queue for draft messages
5984 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
5985 be prompted for confirmation
5987 **** does smart filling of address headers
5989 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
5990 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
5991 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
5993 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
5994 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
5995 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
5996 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
6000 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
6001 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
6003 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
6004 run Dired on the directory name at point.
6006 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
6007 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
6008 for a specified regexp.
6012 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
6015 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
6016 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
6019 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
6020 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
6021 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
6022 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
6024 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
6025 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
6026 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
6027 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
6028 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
6030 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
6031 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
6032 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
6033 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
6034 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
6036 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
6037 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
6038 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
6039 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
6041 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
6042 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
6043 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
6045 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
6046 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
6047 session to resolve them.
6049 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
6050 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
6051 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
6054 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
6055 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
6056 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
6057 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
6058 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
6059 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
6062 ** Changes in Font Lock
6064 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
6065 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
6066 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
6067 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
6068 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
6070 ** Frame name display changes
6072 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
6073 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
6074 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
6075 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
6077 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
6078 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
6081 ** Comint (subshell) changes
6083 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
6084 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
6085 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
6087 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
6089 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
6090 that is, the line after the last line you got.
6091 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
6093 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
6094 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
6097 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
6098 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
6099 previously sent input.
6101 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
6102 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
6103 as the search string.
6105 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
6106 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
6110 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
6111 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
6112 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
6115 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
6116 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
6117 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
6118 style is still the default however.
6120 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
6122 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
6123 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
6124 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
6126 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
6127 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
6129 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
6130 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
6132 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
6133 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
6135 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
6136 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
6138 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
6139 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
6140 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
6141 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
6143 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
6145 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
6146 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
6147 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
6149 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
6150 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
6151 expanding dynamically.
6153 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
6154 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
6156 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
6157 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
6158 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
6159 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
6161 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
6163 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6165 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
6166 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
6167 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
6168 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
6169 against the first word in the title.
6171 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
6172 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
6173 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
6174 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
6175 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
6176 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
6178 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
6179 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
6180 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
6181 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
6183 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
6185 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
6186 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
6187 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
6188 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
6189 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
6190 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
6192 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
6193 Editing group once the package is loaded.
6195 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
6196 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
6197 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
6199 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
6200 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
6204 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
6205 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
6206 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
6208 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
6209 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
6210 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
6211 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
6214 o URLs are automatically skipped
6215 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
6217 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
6219 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6221 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
6222 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
6223 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
6224 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
6226 *** New recursive parser.
6228 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
6229 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
6230 recursive parser scans the individual files.
6232 *** Parsing only part of a document.
6234 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
6235 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
6236 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
6238 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
6240 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
6242 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
6244 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
6246 *** Using multiple selection buffers
6248 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
6249 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
6251 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
6253 *** References to external documents.
6255 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
6256 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
6257 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
6258 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
6259 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
6260 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
6261 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
6263 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
6265 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
6266 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
6268 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
6269 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
6271 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
6273 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
6274 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
6276 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
6278 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
6279 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
6280 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
6281 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
6282 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
6283 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
6286 *** Support for the varioref package
6288 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
6292 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
6293 and citations are created. These hooks are
6294 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
6295 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
6297 *** Citations outside LaTeX
6299 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
6300 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
6302 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
6304 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
6305 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
6308 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
6310 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
6311 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
6312 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
6313 directories that contain the same file name.
6315 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
6316 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
6317 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
6318 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
6319 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
6320 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
6321 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
6324 ** New modes and packages
6326 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
6327 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
6328 it, but some do not.
6330 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
6333 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
6334 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
6337 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
6339 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
6340 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
6341 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
6342 established system of notation similar to Chess.
6344 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
6345 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
6346 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
6348 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
6349 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
6350 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
6351 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
6352 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
6355 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
6356 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
6358 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
6359 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
6360 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
6361 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
6363 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
6365 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
6366 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
6367 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
6368 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
6369 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
6370 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
6371 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
6372 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
6373 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
6374 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
6375 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
6377 Platform-specific modes:
6379 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
6380 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
6381 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
6382 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
6383 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
6384 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
6385 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
6386 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
6387 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
6389 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
6391 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
6392 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
6393 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
6394 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
6396 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
6397 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
6398 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
6400 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
6401 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
6402 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
6403 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
6405 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
6406 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
6407 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
6410 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
6411 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
6412 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
6413 current input method for reading this one event.
6415 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
6416 now control whether to output certain characters as
6417 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
6418 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
6419 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
6420 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
6422 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
6424 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
6425 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
6427 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
6428 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
6429 always increases point by 1.
6431 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
6432 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
6434 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
6436 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
6437 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
6438 default value changed. For example,
6440 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
6445 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
6448 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
6449 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
6450 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
6451 `:version' in the top level group.
6453 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
6455 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
6456 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
6458 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
6459 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
6460 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
6463 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
6464 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
6467 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
6468 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
6469 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
6471 ** Frame-local variables.
6473 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
6474 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
6475 local bindings for that variable.
6477 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
6478 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
6479 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
6482 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
6483 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
6484 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
6485 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
6487 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
6488 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
6489 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
6490 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
6492 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
6493 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
6494 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
6495 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
6496 See the documentation in sregex.el.
6498 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
6499 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
6500 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
6501 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
6503 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
6504 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
6506 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
6507 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
6508 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
6510 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
6511 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
6512 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
6513 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
6515 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
6516 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
6519 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
6520 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
6521 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
6522 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
6523 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
6525 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
6526 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
6527 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
6528 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
6530 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
6531 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
6532 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
6533 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
6534 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
6536 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
6537 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
6538 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
6539 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
6541 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
6542 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
6543 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
6545 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
6546 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
6547 was directed to display this buffer.
6549 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
6550 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
6551 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
6552 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
6553 set-window-configuration.
6555 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
6556 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
6557 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
6558 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
6560 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
6561 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
6562 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
6564 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
6565 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
6566 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
6568 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
6569 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
6571 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
6572 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
6574 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
6575 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
6576 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
6578 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
6579 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
6580 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
6581 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
6585 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
6586 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
6589 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
6590 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
6591 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
6592 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
6593 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
6595 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
6597 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
6598 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
6599 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
6600 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
6603 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
6604 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
6605 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
6606 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
6607 The supported properties include
6609 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6611 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6612 item should appear in the menu.
6614 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
6615 which will be REAL-BINDING.
6616 It should return a binding to use instead.
6618 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
6619 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
6620 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
6621 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
6622 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
6625 This means that the command normally has no
6626 keyboard equivalent.
6627 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
6628 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
6629 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
6630 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
6631 value says whether this button is currently selected.
6633 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
6634 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
6636 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
6640 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
6641 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
6642 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
6643 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
6645 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
6647 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
6648 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
6649 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
6650 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
6651 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
6652 forward, away from the user.
6654 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6656 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
6657 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
6658 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
6659 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
6660 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
6662 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
6664 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
6665 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
6666 that were dragged and dropped.
6668 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6670 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
6672 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
6673 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
6674 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
6676 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
6677 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
6678 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
6680 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
6681 in Emacs 19 and before.
6683 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
6684 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
6686 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
6687 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
6688 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
6689 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
6691 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
6692 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
6693 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
6694 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
6695 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
6697 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
6698 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
6699 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
6700 consistent with the new representation.
6702 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
6703 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
6704 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
6705 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
6707 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
6708 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
6709 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
6711 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
6712 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
6713 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
6715 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
6716 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
6717 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
6719 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6720 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
6722 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6723 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
6725 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
6726 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
6727 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
6728 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
6730 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
6731 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
6733 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
6734 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
6735 buffer or string being searched.
6737 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
6738 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
6739 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
6740 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
6741 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
6742 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
6743 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
6745 *** Structure of coding system changed.
6747 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
6748 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
6749 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
6750 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
6751 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
6752 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
6753 define-coding-system-alias.
6755 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
6756 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
6757 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
6758 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
6759 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
6760 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
6761 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
6764 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
6765 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
6766 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
6767 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
6769 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
6770 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
6771 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
6772 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
6774 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
6775 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
6776 This function requires a user interaction.
6778 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
6779 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
6780 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
6781 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
6782 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
6783 select-safe-coding-system.
6785 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
6786 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
6787 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
6790 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
6791 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
6792 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
6794 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
6795 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
6796 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
6797 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
6799 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
6800 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
6801 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
6804 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
6805 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
6807 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
6808 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
6809 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
6810 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
6811 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
6812 range of characters.
6814 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
6815 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
6817 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
6818 in the current buffer at position POS.
6820 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
6821 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
6822 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
6823 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
6824 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
6825 binding input-method-function to nil.
6827 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
6828 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
6829 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
6830 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
6831 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
6833 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
6834 subsequent events of a key sequence.
6836 *** You can customize any language environment by using
6837 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
6839 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
6840 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
6841 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
6842 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
6843 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
6845 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
6847 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
6848 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
6849 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
6852 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
6853 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
6855 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
6856 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
6857 in your .emacs file.)
6859 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
6860 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
6862 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
6863 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
6865 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
6866 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
6869 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
6870 delete the character before point, as usual.
6872 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
6873 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
6874 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
6876 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
6877 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
6878 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
6879 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
6880 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
6883 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
6884 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
6885 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
6886 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
6887 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
6889 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
6890 and is an alias for it.
6892 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
6893 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
6895 ** Scrolling changes
6897 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
6898 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
6900 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
6901 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
6904 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
6905 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
6906 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
6907 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
6909 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
6910 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
6911 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
6912 recenters the window.
6914 ** International character set support (MULE)
6916 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
6917 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
6918 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
6919 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
6920 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
6921 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
6923 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
6924 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
6925 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
6926 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
6927 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
6929 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
6930 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
6931 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
6932 language, to make it possible to type them.
6934 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
6935 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
6937 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
6938 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
6940 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
6942 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
6944 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
6945 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
6946 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
6947 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
6948 characters for their work until they want to change.
6952 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
6953 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
6954 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
6955 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
6956 support several input methods.
6958 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
6959 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
6962 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
6963 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
6964 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
6965 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
6966 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
6969 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
6970 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
6971 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
6972 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
6973 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
6975 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
6976 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
6977 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
6978 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
6980 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
6981 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
6982 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
6983 the first guess is wrong.
6985 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
6986 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
6988 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
6989 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
6990 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
6991 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
6993 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
6994 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
6995 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
6996 translate automatically to and from either one.
6998 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
7000 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
7001 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
7002 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
7005 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
7006 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
7007 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
7008 multibyte characters in that buffer.
7010 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
7011 character conversion as well.
7013 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
7015 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
7016 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
7017 requires using many fonts.
7019 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
7020 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
7022 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
7023 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
7024 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
7025 you would use a font.
7027 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
7028 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
7029 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
7031 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
7032 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
7035 *** Defining fontsets.
7037 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
7038 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
7039 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
7041 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
7042 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
7043 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
7044 standard fontset are created automatically.
7046 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
7047 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
7048 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
7049 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
7050 name is `fontset-startup'.
7052 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
7053 The resource value should have this form:
7054 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
7055 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
7056 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
7057 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
7058 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
7059 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
7060 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
7061 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
7062 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
7064 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
7065 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
7066 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
7068 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
7069 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
7071 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
7072 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
7073 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
7074 Here is the substitution rule:
7075 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
7076 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
7077 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
7078 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
7079 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
7081 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
7082 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
7083 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
7085 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
7086 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
7087 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
7088 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
7091 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
7092 defaults for a particular choice of language.
7094 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
7095 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
7096 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
7097 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
7098 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
7099 system for new files that you create.
7101 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
7102 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
7103 whole Emacs session.
7105 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
7106 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
7107 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
7109 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
7110 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
7111 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
7112 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
7113 coding systems that Emacs supports.
7115 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
7116 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
7117 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
7118 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
7119 is used for *the immediately following command*.
7121 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
7122 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
7124 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
7125 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
7127 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
7128 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
7130 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
7131 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
7132 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
7133 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
7136 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
7137 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
7138 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
7139 translated into that character code.
7141 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
7142 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
7144 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
7146 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
7147 the coding system for keyboard input.
7149 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
7150 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
7151 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
7153 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
7155 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
7156 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
7157 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
7158 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
7159 designed to work with terminals.
7161 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
7162 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
7163 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
7164 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
7165 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
7166 in the corresponding buffer.
7168 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
7170 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
7171 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
7172 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
7174 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
7175 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
7176 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
7179 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
7180 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
7182 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
7183 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
7184 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
7185 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
7187 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
7188 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
7189 related information.
7191 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
7192 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
7195 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
7196 information about the support for a particular language.
7197 You specify the language as an argument.
7199 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
7200 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
7203 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
7204 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
7205 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
7206 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
7208 A alternativnyj (Russian)
7210 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
7211 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
7212 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
7213 E euc-japan (Japanese)
7214 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
7215 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
7216 K euc-korea (Korean)
7219 S shift_jis (Japanese)
7222 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
7223 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
7224 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
7228 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
7229 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
7230 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
7231 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
7233 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
7234 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
7236 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
7237 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
7238 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
7239 Rmail files themselves.
7241 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
7242 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
7244 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
7247 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
7248 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
7249 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
7250 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
7251 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
7253 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
7254 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
7255 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
7258 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
7259 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
7260 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
7261 without any conversion.
7263 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
7264 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
7265 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
7266 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
7268 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
7269 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
7271 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
7272 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
7274 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
7275 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
7277 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
7278 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
7279 in the buffer before point.
7281 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
7282 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
7285 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
7286 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
7288 ** File locking works with NFS now.
7290 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
7291 in the same directory as FILENAME.
7293 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
7294 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
7295 can become a bottleneck.
7297 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
7298 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
7299 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
7300 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
7301 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
7302 so useful that the change is worth while.
7304 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
7305 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
7306 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
7307 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
7309 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
7310 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
7313 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
7314 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
7315 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
7317 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
7318 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
7319 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
7321 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
7322 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
7323 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
7325 ** Changes in View mode.
7327 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
7328 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
7330 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
7331 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
7333 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
7336 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
7337 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
7339 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
7340 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
7341 not just the selected window.
7343 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
7344 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
7345 turns View mode on or off.
7347 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
7348 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
7349 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
7351 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
7352 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
7354 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
7355 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
7356 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
7357 which version to compare with.
7359 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
7360 blocks if a match is inside the block.
7362 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
7363 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
7364 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
7365 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
7367 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
7368 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
7369 blocks, all of them or none.
7371 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
7372 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
7375 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
7376 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
7377 However, the mode will not be changed if
7378 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
7379 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
7380 not suitable for ordinary files, or
7381 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
7383 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
7385 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
7386 these commands do not change the major mode.
7388 ** M-x occur changes.
7390 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
7391 it performs a case-sensitive search.
7393 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
7394 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
7395 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
7397 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
7398 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
7399 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
7400 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
7401 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
7403 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
7404 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
7405 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
7406 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
7408 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7409 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
7410 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
7412 ** Outline mode changes.
7414 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
7416 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
7418 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
7419 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
7420 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
7423 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
7424 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
7427 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
7428 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
7430 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
7432 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7433 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
7434 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
7435 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
7437 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
7438 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
7439 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
7441 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
7442 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
7445 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
7446 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
7447 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
7448 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
7450 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
7451 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
7452 can be. The default value is 30.
7454 ** Changes in Mail mode.
7456 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
7457 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
7458 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
7459 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
7460 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
7463 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
7464 compose-mail-other-frame.
7466 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
7467 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
7468 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
7469 buffer that shows the original message.
7471 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
7472 with separator lines around the contents.
7474 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
7475 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
7476 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
7477 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
7479 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
7481 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
7482 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
7483 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
7484 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
7486 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
7487 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
7490 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
7491 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
7494 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
7495 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
7496 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
7497 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
7499 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
7500 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
7501 be taken to be magic.
7503 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
7504 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
7505 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
7507 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
7508 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
7510 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
7511 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
7513 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
7515 new key dired.el binding old key
7516 ------- ---------------- -------
7517 * c dired-change-marks c
7519 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
7520 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
7521 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
7523 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
7524 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
7525 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
7526 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
7527 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
7528 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
7532 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
7533 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
7534 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
7535 each time you run it.
7537 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
7538 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
7540 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
7541 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
7542 means to move in the opposite direction.
7544 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
7545 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
7547 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
7548 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
7549 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
7550 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
7555 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
7557 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
7560 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
7561 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
7563 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
7566 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
7568 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
7570 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
7572 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
7573 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
7574 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
7576 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
7578 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
7580 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
7581 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
7583 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
7584 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
7585 used to pick articles.
7587 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
7588 another have been added.
7590 `M-x gnus-change-server'
7592 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
7593 generating lines in buffers.
7595 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
7598 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
7600 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
7602 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
7604 *** Scores can be decayed.
7606 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
7608 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
7609 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
7611 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
7614 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
7616 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
7617 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
7619 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
7621 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
7622 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
7624 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
7625 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
7627 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
7630 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
7631 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
7633 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
7635 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
7637 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
7639 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
7641 Use the `Y c' command.
7643 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
7645 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
7647 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
7649 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
7650 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
7652 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
7654 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
7656 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
7657 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
7659 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
7661 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
7662 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
7663 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
7664 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
7667 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
7668 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
7669 particular news group. This can be done by:
7671 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
7673 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
7674 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
7675 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
7676 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
7677 for reading and posting).
7679 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
7680 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
7681 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
7682 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
7685 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
7686 default. Here are some of these default settings:
7688 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
7689 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
7690 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
7691 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
7692 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
7694 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
7695 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
7699 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
7700 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
7701 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
7702 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
7703 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
7706 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
7707 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
7708 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
7709 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
7710 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
7711 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
7713 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
7714 of the current buffer.
7716 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
7717 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
7718 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
7720 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
7721 style that the Python developers like.
7723 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
7724 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
7725 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
7729 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
7730 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
7731 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
7733 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
7734 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
7737 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
7738 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
7740 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
7741 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
7742 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
7743 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
7745 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
7746 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
7748 ** Calendar changes.
7750 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
7751 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
7752 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
7753 following/previous years.
7755 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
7756 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
7757 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
7758 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
7759 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
7760 supposed attribute of God.
7764 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
7767 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
7769 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
7770 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
7771 printer system has this behavior, set variable
7772 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
7774 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
7775 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
7776 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
7778 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
7779 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
7781 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
7782 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
7783 printing for your printer.
7785 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
7786 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7788 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
7789 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7791 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
7792 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
7793 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
7794 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
7795 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
7796 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
7797 The default value is nil.
7799 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
7800 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
7802 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
7803 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
7804 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
7805 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
7806 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
7807 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
7808 color). The default is 0 ("black").
7810 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
7811 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
7813 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
7814 The default is 0 ("black").
7816 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
7817 The default is 0 ("black").
7819 border-width Specify the border width.
7822 Any other property is ignored.
7824 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
7825 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
7828 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
7829 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
7830 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
7831 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
7832 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
7833 controlling headers.
7835 *** Color management (subgroup)
7837 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
7840 *** Face Management (subgroup)
7842 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
7843 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
7844 background should be used. Valid values are:
7846 t always use face background color.
7847 nil never use face background color.
7848 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
7850 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
7852 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
7855 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
7856 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
7858 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
7861 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
7862 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
7863 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
7865 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
7869 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
7873 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
7877 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
7881 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
7883 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
7885 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
7888 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
7889 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
7890 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
7892 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
7893 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7894 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7895 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7896 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7900 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7901 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7902 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7905 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7906 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7907 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
7908 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
7909 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
7910 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7911 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7912 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7913 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
7914 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
7915 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
7918 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7920 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
7923 *** Printer management (subgroup)
7925 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
7926 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
7927 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
7928 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
7931 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
7932 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
7933 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
7935 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
7936 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
7939 *** Page settings (subgroup)
7941 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
7942 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
7943 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
7944 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
7945 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
7946 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
7949 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
7950 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
7951 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
7953 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
7954 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
7955 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
7956 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
7957 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
7958 its TO, are ignored.
7960 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
7961 pages. Valid values are:
7963 nil print all pages.
7965 `even-page' print only even pages.
7967 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
7969 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
7970 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
7971 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
7972 print only the even sheet of paper.
7974 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
7975 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
7976 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
7977 only the odd sheet of paper.
7979 Any other value is treated as nil.
7981 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
7982 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
7983 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
7985 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
7987 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
7988 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
7990 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
7991 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
7992 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
7993 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
7994 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
7995 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
7996 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
7998 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
7999 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
8000 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
8001 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
8002 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
8003 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
8004 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
8006 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
8008 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
8009 messages should be sent.
8011 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
8012 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
8013 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
8015 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
8017 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
8018 points for line numbers.
8020 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
8021 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
8023 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
8024 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
8025 to 2, the printing will look like:
8037 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
8038 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
8041 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
8042 zebra stripe is to be printed.
8044 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
8046 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
8047 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
8048 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
8049 3, the output will look like:
8063 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
8064 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
8066 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
8067 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
8070 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
8071 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
8074 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
8076 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
8077 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
8079 ** hideshow changes.
8081 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
8084 *** Support for java-mode added.
8086 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
8087 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
8089 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
8090 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
8091 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
8093 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
8094 robust and a lot faster.
8096 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
8098 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
8099 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
8100 documentation for more details.
8102 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
8104 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
8105 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
8106 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
8107 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
8108 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
8110 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
8111 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
8112 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
8113 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
8119 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
8120 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
8121 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
8122 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
8123 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
8124 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
8126 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
8128 *** Maximum decoration
8130 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
8131 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
8132 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
8133 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
8134 to get the old behavior.
8138 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
8140 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
8141 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
8143 *** Configurable support
8145 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
8146 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
8147 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
8148 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
8149 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
8150 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
8151 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
8153 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
8154 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
8155 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
8157 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
8159 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
8160 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
8163 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
8165 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
8171 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
8172 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
8173 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
8174 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
8176 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
8178 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
8179 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
8180 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
8182 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
8184 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
8185 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
8186 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
8187 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
8188 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
8189 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
8190 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
8192 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
8193 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
8194 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
8195 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
8196 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
8197 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
8199 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
8201 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
8202 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
8203 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
8204 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
8206 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
8209 ** Ada mode changes.
8211 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
8212 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
8213 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
8214 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
8217 *** There are two new commands:
8218 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
8219 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
8221 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
8222 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
8223 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
8225 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
8226 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
8227 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
8229 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
8230 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
8231 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
8232 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
8234 ** Scheme mode changes.
8236 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
8237 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
8238 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
8239 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
8242 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
8243 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
8244 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
8245 variables as buffer-local variables.
8247 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
8250 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
8252 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
8253 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
8254 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
8255 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
8257 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
8258 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
8261 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
8262 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
8263 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
8264 option takes precedence.
8266 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
8267 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
8268 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
8270 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
8271 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
8274 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
8275 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
8277 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
8278 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
8281 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
8282 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
8283 these register values no longer become completely useless.
8284 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
8285 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
8286 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
8288 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
8289 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
8290 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
8291 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
8293 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
8294 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
8295 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
8296 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
8297 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
8299 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
8300 since it applies only to the current frame.
8302 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
8303 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
8304 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
8306 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
8307 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
8308 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
8309 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
8310 instead of just the file you are editing.
8314 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
8315 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
8316 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
8317 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
8318 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
8321 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
8322 knows which kind of label is needed.
8324 C-c ) reftex-reference
8325 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
8326 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
8328 C-c [ reftex-citation
8329 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
8330 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
8332 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
8333 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
8336 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
8337 can quickly jump to every section.
8339 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
8340 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
8341 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
8342 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
8343 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
8345 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8347 *** Info documentation is now available.
8349 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
8350 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
8352 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
8353 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
8355 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
8356 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
8358 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
8359 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
8360 appropriate functions.
8362 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
8363 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
8365 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
8368 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
8369 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
8371 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
8374 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
8375 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
8376 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
8378 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
8379 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
8380 prefixed with `ALT'.
8382 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
8383 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
8384 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
8387 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
8388 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
8389 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
8391 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
8392 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
8394 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
8395 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
8396 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
8398 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
8400 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
8402 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
8405 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
8406 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
8409 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
8412 *** Added support for imenu.
8414 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
8415 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
8416 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
8417 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
8419 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
8420 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
8422 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
8424 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
8426 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
8427 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
8428 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
8431 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
8432 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
8434 ** browse-url changes
8436 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
8437 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
8438 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
8439 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
8440 customization variables.
8442 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
8444 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
8445 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
8446 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
8450 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
8451 pops up the Info file for this command.
8453 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
8454 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
8455 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
8458 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
8459 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
8460 files in the same directory.
8462 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
8463 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
8464 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
8468 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
8469 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
8471 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
8472 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
8473 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
8474 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
8475 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
8476 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
8477 color when Viper is in insert state.
8478 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
8479 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
8480 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
8484 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
8485 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
8486 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
8487 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
8488 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
8490 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
8492 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
8493 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
8495 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
8496 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
8497 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
8499 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
8500 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
8501 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
8502 methods and protocols.
8504 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
8505 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
8506 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
8509 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
8510 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
8511 at least M times and as many as N times.
8513 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
8514 in files has changed slightly.
8516 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
8517 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
8518 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
8519 with old time-stamp-format values.
8521 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
8522 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
8523 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
8526 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
8527 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
8528 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
8529 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
8530 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
8531 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
8533 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
8534 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
8535 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
8537 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
8538 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
8539 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
8540 recommended now will continue to work then.
8542 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
8545 ** There are some additional major modes:
8547 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
8548 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
8549 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
8551 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
8552 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
8555 ** New Lisp packages include:
8557 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
8559 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
8560 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
8562 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
8564 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
8567 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
8568 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
8571 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
8572 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
8573 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
8574 strings or comments.
8576 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
8577 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
8578 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
8579 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
8582 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
8583 can visit them by short forms of their names.
8585 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
8586 Emacs Lisp function at point.
8588 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
8590 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
8591 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
8593 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
8595 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
8597 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
8599 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
8600 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
8602 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
8603 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
8604 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
8605 original place after inserting the copy.
8607 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
8610 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
8611 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
8612 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
8614 Enable mouse-drag with:
8615 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
8617 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
8619 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
8620 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
8622 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
8623 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
8627 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
8628 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
8629 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
8630 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
8631 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
8632 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
8633 instance) and vice versa.
8635 To use this package load it using
8636 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
8637 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
8638 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
8639 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
8640 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
8641 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
8643 *** Interface to ph.
8645 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
8647 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
8648 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
8651 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
8653 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
8654 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
8655 while the real cursor does not move.
8657 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
8658 for visiting your favorite web sites.
8660 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
8661 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
8665 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
8666 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
8667 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
8668 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
8670 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
8672 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
8674 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
8676 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
8677 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
8678 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
8679 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
8680 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
8682 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
8683 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
8684 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
8685 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
8686 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
8687 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
8689 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
8691 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
8692 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
8693 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
8694 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
8696 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
8697 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
8699 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
8700 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
8703 ** Basic Lisp changes
8705 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
8706 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
8708 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
8709 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
8712 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
8714 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
8716 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
8717 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
8719 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
8720 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
8723 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
8725 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
8727 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
8729 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
8730 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
8731 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
8734 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
8735 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
8736 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
8738 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
8739 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
8740 adding one of these suffixes.
8742 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
8743 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
8744 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
8746 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
8747 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
8749 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
8751 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
8752 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
8754 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
8755 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
8757 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
8759 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
8760 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
8762 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
8763 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
8764 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
8765 works using `save-current-buffer'.
8767 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
8768 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
8771 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
8772 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
8773 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
8776 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
8777 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
8780 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
8782 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
8783 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
8784 Then it returns that string.
8786 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
8788 (with-output-to-string
8789 (princ "The buffer is ")
8790 (princ (buffer-name)))
8792 returns "The buffer is foo".
8794 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
8797 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
8798 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
8799 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
8801 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
8802 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
8804 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
8805 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
8806 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
8807 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
8808 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
8809 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
8811 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
8812 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
8813 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
8816 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
8817 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
8818 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
8819 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
8820 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
8822 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
8823 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
8824 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
8825 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
8827 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
8828 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
8830 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
8832 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
8833 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
8834 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
8835 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
8838 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
8839 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
8842 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
8844 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
8845 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
8846 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
8847 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
8848 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
8850 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
8852 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
8853 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
8854 more than the number of characters.
8856 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
8857 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
8858 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
8859 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
8860 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
8861 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
8863 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
8864 and returns a string containing those characters.
8866 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
8867 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
8868 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
8869 character, sref signals an error.
8871 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
8872 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
8873 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
8875 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
8876 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
8877 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
8879 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
8880 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
8881 to a vector of the characters in it.
8883 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
8884 of a string. You call it as follows:
8886 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
8888 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
8889 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
8890 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
8891 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
8892 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
8894 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
8895 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
8897 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
8898 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
8900 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
8901 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
8902 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
8903 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
8905 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
8907 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
8909 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
8910 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
8911 are not included in the resulting value.
8913 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
8914 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
8915 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
8916 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
8918 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
8919 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
8920 character extends across that column), then the padding character
8921 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
8922 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
8923 column START-COLUMN.
8925 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
8926 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
8927 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
8928 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
8929 changed text, before the change.
8931 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
8932 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
8933 one character set for each script, not for each language.
8935 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
8937 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
8939 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
8940 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
8942 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
8943 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
8944 which identify the character within that character set.
8946 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
8947 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
8948 opposite of split-char.
8950 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
8951 of all the characters between BEG and END.
8953 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
8954 of all the characters in a string.
8956 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
8957 and specifying coding systems.
8959 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
8960 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
8961 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
8962 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
8963 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
8964 as what to do about code conversion.)
8966 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
8967 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
8969 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
8970 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
8971 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
8973 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
8974 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
8975 to match against a file name.
8977 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
8978 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
8979 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
8980 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
8981 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
8982 specifies the coding system for encoding.
8984 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
8985 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
8987 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
8988 the coding system to use for network sockets.
8990 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
8991 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
8992 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
8995 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
8996 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
8997 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
8998 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
8999 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
9000 specifies the coding system for encoding.
9002 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
9003 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
9005 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
9006 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
9007 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
9008 start the subprocess.
9010 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
9011 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
9012 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
9013 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
9014 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
9016 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
9017 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
9020 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
9021 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
9022 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
9023 connection permanently or until overridden.
9025 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
9026 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
9027 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
9028 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
9029 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
9030 system for one operation at a time.
9032 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
9033 files, subprocesses or network connections.
9035 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
9036 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
9037 The value is a cons cell,
9038 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
9039 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
9040 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
9041 input to the subprocess.
9043 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
9044 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
9046 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
9047 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
9048 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
9050 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
9051 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
9052 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
9053 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
9056 Thus, instead of writing
9058 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
9059 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
9061 you would now write this:
9063 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
9064 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
9068 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
9069 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
9070 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
9071 for a description of them.
9073 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
9074 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
9076 (defgroup ispell nil
9077 "Spell checking using Ispell."
9080 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
9081 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
9082 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
9083 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
9084 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
9086 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
9087 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
9088 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
9089 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
9090 first-level subgroups.
9092 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
9094 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
9095 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
9099 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
9100 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
9101 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
9102 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
9103 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
9104 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
9106 ** Text property changes
9108 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
9111 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
9112 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
9113 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
9114 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
9115 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
9117 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
9118 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
9119 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
9120 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
9122 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
9123 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
9124 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
9126 ** Changes in invisibility features
9128 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
9129 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
9130 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
9131 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
9132 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
9133 make the overlay visible.
9135 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
9136 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
9137 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
9138 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
9139 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
9140 t when it should hide it.
9142 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
9144 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
9145 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
9146 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
9147 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
9148 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
9149 Here is an example of how to do this:
9151 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
9152 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
9153 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
9154 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
9157 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
9160 ;; When done with the overlays:
9161 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
9163 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
9165 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
9167 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
9168 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
9169 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
9170 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
9172 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
9173 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
9174 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
9176 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
9177 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
9179 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
9180 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
9182 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
9183 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
9184 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
9186 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
9187 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
9188 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
9189 determine the syntax type of the character.
9191 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
9192 of the current buffer.
9194 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
9195 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
9196 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
9198 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
9199 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
9200 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
9201 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
9202 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
9204 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
9207 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
9208 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
9209 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
9211 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
9212 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
9213 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
9214 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
9215 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
9217 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
9218 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
9219 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
9221 ** Changes in face features
9223 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
9224 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
9226 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
9227 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
9229 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
9230 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
9232 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
9233 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
9235 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
9236 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
9237 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
9238 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
9241 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
9242 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
9244 ** Changes in file-handling functions
9246 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
9247 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
9248 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
9249 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
9251 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
9254 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
9255 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
9257 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
9258 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
9260 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
9261 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
9263 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
9264 character code conversion as well as other things.
9266 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
9267 (formerly it did not).
9269 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
9270 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
9272 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
9273 instead of constant strings.
9275 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
9276 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
9277 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
9279 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
9280 in the same way as before.
9282 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
9283 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
9284 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
9286 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
9287 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
9288 else, and returns nil.
9290 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
9291 directory cannot be listed.
9293 ** Changes in minibuffer input
9295 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
9296 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
9297 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
9298 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
9301 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
9302 It is available through the history command M-n.
9304 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
9305 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
9306 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
9307 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
9308 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
9310 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
9311 argument in this way.
9313 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
9314 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
9315 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
9317 ** Echo area features
9319 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
9320 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
9321 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
9322 after the echo area is cleared.
9324 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
9325 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
9327 ** Keyboard input features
9329 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
9330 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
9332 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
9333 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
9336 ** Frame-related changes
9338 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
9339 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
9340 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
9342 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
9343 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
9344 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
9346 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
9347 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
9348 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
9349 in the selected frame.
9351 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
9352 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
9353 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
9355 ** X Windows features
9357 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
9358 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
9359 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
9361 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
9362 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
9364 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
9365 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
9366 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
9368 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
9369 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
9371 ** Subprocess features
9373 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
9374 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
9377 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
9378 and returns the output from the command as a string.
9380 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
9381 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
9383 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
9384 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
9386 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
9387 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
9388 goes after the other menu items.
9390 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
9391 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
9392 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
9395 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
9396 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
9398 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
9399 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
9402 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
9403 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
9404 but its hook is still run.
9406 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
9407 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
9409 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
9410 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
9411 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
9413 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
9414 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
9415 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
9418 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
9419 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
9421 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
9422 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
9423 functions like display-time.
9425 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
9426 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
9428 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
9429 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
9430 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
9432 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
9433 if there is an error in compilation.
9435 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
9436 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
9437 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
9438 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
9440 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
9441 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
9442 the *scratch* buffer.
9444 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
9445 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
9446 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
9447 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
9449 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
9450 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
9451 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
9453 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
9454 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
9455 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
9456 and compose-mail-other-frame.
9458 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
9459 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
9460 full name of the specified user will be returned.
9462 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
9463 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
9464 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
9465 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
9466 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
9469 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
9470 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
9471 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
9472 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
9474 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
9475 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
9476 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
9477 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
9479 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
9481 ** imenu.el changes.
9483 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
9484 item from menu created by imenu.
9486 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
9487 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
9488 select one of those items.
9490 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
9492 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
9493 Copyright information:
9495 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
9497 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
9498 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
9499 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
9500 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
9502 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
9503 of this document, or of portions of it,
9504 under the above conditions, provided also that they
9505 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
9509 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"