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