1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2001-03-15
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
11 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
12 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
13 charsets in this release.
15 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
17 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
19 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
20 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
23 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
24 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
25 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
26 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
27 necessary changes to unexec.
29 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
30 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
32 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
33 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
35 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
36 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
38 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
39 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
40 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
41 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
42 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
44 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
45 new display features described below.
48 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
50 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
52 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
53 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
54 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
55 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
58 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
60 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
61 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
62 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
63 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
66 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
67 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
68 under Lisp changes, below.
70 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
72 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
73 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
74 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
75 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
76 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
77 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
80 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
81 supported on character terminals.
83 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
84 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
85 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
86 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
88 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
92 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
93 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
94 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
97 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
99 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
100 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
101 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
102 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
104 - User option: max-mini-window-height
106 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
107 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
108 specifies a number of lines.
112 - User option: resize-mini-windows
114 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
115 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
116 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
119 Default is `grow-only'.
123 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
124 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
126 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
128 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
129 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
132 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
134 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
135 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
136 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
137 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
138 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
141 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
142 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
143 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
144 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
145 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
146 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
148 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
149 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
150 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
151 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
152 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
153 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
155 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
156 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
157 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
158 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
159 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
164 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
165 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
166 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
167 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
168 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
171 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
172 for specific modes (with copyright assignments). Contributions would
173 also be useful to touch up some of the PBM icons manually.
178 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
179 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
180 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
182 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
183 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
184 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
185 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
188 ** Automatic Hscrolling
190 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
191 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
194 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
195 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
196 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
197 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
198 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
201 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
202 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
203 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
204 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
205 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
206 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
208 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
209 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
210 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
211 customizing face `fringe'.
213 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
214 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
215 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
216 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
217 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
218 the window to be partially obscured.)
220 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
221 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
222 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
223 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
226 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
228 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
229 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
230 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
231 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
232 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
235 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
237 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
240 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
241 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
243 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
245 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
246 `*') toggles the status.
248 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
253 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
254 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
259 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
260 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
261 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
265 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
267 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
268 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
269 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
272 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
273 have to do anything to activate it.
275 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
277 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
278 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
280 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
281 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
282 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
283 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
284 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
285 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
286 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
287 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
289 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
290 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
291 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
292 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
293 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
294 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
296 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
297 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
300 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
301 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
304 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
305 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
306 beginning and end of the buffer.
308 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
309 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
312 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
313 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
316 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
317 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
320 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
321 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
324 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
326 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
327 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
328 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
330 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
331 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
332 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
334 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
338 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
340 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
341 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
342 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
343 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
344 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
348 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
349 all frames except the selected one.
351 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
352 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
354 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
355 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
356 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
357 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
358 `Info-use-header-line'.
360 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
361 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
362 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
364 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
366 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
367 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
371 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
372 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
373 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
374 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
376 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
378 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
379 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
380 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
381 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
384 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
385 point in a pop-up window.
388 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
389 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
390 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
392 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
393 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
396 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
397 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
398 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
399 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
402 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
405 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
406 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
408 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
409 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
410 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
412 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
413 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
416 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
417 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
418 file that is already visited under a different name.
420 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
421 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
424 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
425 and displays information about that.
427 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
428 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
430 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
431 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
432 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
433 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
434 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
435 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
437 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
438 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
441 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
442 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
443 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
444 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
445 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
446 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
447 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
449 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
450 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
453 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
454 system for keyboard input.
457 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
458 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
459 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
460 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
461 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
462 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
463 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
464 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
465 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
467 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
468 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
471 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
472 displays all characters in that character set.
474 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
475 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
478 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
479 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
480 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
483 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
484 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
485 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
486 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
487 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
488 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
492 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
493 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
496 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
497 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
498 Lisp Coding Convention".
500 new command old-binding
501 --- ------- -----------
502 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
503 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
504 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
506 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
507 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
508 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
510 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
511 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
512 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
513 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
514 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
515 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
517 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
518 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
519 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
520 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
521 "`", you must type "=q".
524 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
525 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
526 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
527 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
528 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
532 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
533 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
534 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
535 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
538 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
539 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
540 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
541 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
544 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
545 on the display using several methods
548 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
549 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
550 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
553 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
554 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
556 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
558 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
559 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
562 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
563 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
564 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
565 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
568 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
569 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
570 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
572 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
573 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
576 ** New X resources recognized
578 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
579 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
580 is useful for debugging X problems.
584 emacs.synchronous: true
586 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
587 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
588 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
589 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
590 visual class names are
599 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
600 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
603 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
604 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
605 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
610 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
612 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
613 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
614 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
615 resource values are `true' or `on'.
619 emacs.privateColormap: true
621 ** Faces and frame parameters.
623 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
624 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
625 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
626 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
627 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
628 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
629 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
631 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
632 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
633 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
634 `default' face and vice versa.
639 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
642 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
644 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
645 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
646 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
647 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
649 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
650 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
651 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
653 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
656 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
658 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
659 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
660 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
661 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
663 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
666 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
668 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
670 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
673 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
677 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
679 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
680 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
681 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
684 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
685 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
687 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
688 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
689 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
692 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
694 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
695 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
696 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
697 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
699 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
700 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
701 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
702 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
705 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
706 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
707 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
710 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
712 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
713 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
714 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
717 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
718 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
719 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
720 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
721 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
722 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
724 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
726 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
727 notably at the end of lines.
729 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
730 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
733 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
735 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
736 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
738 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
739 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
740 after each match to get the replacement text.
743 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
744 you edit the replacement string.
746 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
747 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
748 lisp-complete-symbol.
751 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
753 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
754 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
756 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
757 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
758 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
759 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
761 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
762 read mail from the menu etc.
765 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
766 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
767 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
768 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
771 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
772 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
775 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
776 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
777 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
778 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
779 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
785 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
786 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
787 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
788 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
789 earlier versions of Emacs.
791 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
792 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
795 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
796 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
797 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
798 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
801 ** New features in evaluation commands
803 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
804 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
805 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
806 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
807 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
809 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
810 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
811 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
812 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
815 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
816 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
818 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
819 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
821 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
822 code when called with a prefix argument.
826 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
827 current user setups (although it's believed that these
828 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
829 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
830 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
831 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
834 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
835 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
836 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
839 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
840 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
841 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
842 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
844 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
845 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
847 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
848 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
850 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
851 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
852 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
853 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
855 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
856 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
857 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
858 earlier statement. An example:
860 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
865 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
866 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
867 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
868 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
871 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
874 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
875 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
876 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
877 documentation or other natural language text.
879 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
880 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
881 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
882 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
883 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
884 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
885 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
887 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
888 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
889 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
890 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
892 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
893 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
894 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
895 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
898 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
899 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
900 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
901 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
902 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
903 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
904 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
905 is reported afterwards.
907 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
908 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
909 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
911 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
912 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
913 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
914 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
915 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
916 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
919 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
920 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
921 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
922 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
923 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
926 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
927 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
928 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
929 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
930 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
931 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
933 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
934 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
935 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
936 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
937 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
938 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
939 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
940 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
942 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
943 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
944 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
945 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
948 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
949 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
950 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
951 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
952 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
953 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
954 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
955 function documentation for more info.
957 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
958 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
959 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
960 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
961 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
962 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
963 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
964 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
966 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
968 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
969 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
971 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
972 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
973 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
974 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
975 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
978 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
979 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
980 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
983 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
984 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
985 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
986 chapter about this in the manual.
988 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
989 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
990 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
991 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
992 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
994 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
995 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
996 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
998 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
999 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1001 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
1002 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
1003 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
1006 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
1007 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
1008 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
1009 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
1012 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
1013 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
1014 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
1015 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
1016 they were before the filling.
1018 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
1019 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
1020 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
1023 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
1024 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
1025 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
1026 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1029 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1030 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1031 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1032 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1033 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1035 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1036 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1037 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1039 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1041 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1042 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1043 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1044 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1046 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1047 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1048 the column specified by comment-column.
1050 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1051 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1052 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1053 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1054 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1055 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1057 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1058 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1061 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1063 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1064 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1065 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1066 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1069 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1073 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
1074 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
1075 is, delete only empty directories.
1077 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
1078 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
1079 copy directories recursively.
1081 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
1082 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
1083 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
1085 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
1086 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
1089 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
1090 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
1091 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
1092 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
1093 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
1095 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
1098 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
1099 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
1100 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
1101 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
1106 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
1107 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
1108 internationalization and mail-fetching.
1110 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
1111 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
1113 If you used procmail like in
1115 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
1116 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
1117 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
1118 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
1120 this now has changed to
1123 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
1126 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
1127 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
1129 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
1130 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
1131 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
1132 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
1134 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
1135 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
1136 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
1138 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
1139 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
1140 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
1141 now just a compatibility layer.
1143 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
1144 called to position point.
1146 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
1147 summary buffers and NOV files.
1149 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
1150 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
1152 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
1153 subtly different manner.
1155 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
1156 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
1157 ever-changing layouts.
1159 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
1161 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
1163 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
1165 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
1169 -------------------------
1173 C-c C-c q @quotation
1175 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
1178 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
1180 ** Changes in Outline mode.
1182 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
1183 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
1184 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
1186 ** Changes to Emacs Server
1189 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
1190 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
1191 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
1192 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
1193 buffers to kill, as before.
1195 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
1196 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
1199 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
1200 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
1202 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
1204 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
1205 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
1206 use. Default is 1000.
1209 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
1210 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
1212 ** Changes to hideshow.el
1214 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
1216 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
1217 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
1218 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
1219 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
1221 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
1222 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
1223 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
1226 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
1227 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
1228 the normal block-hiding function.
1230 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
1232 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
1233 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
1234 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
1235 for `hs-minor-mode'.
1237 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
1238 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
1240 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
1243 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
1244 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
1245 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
1248 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
1252 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
1256 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
1257 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
1258 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
1259 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
1260 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
1261 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
1263 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
1265 ** Changes to cmuscheme
1267 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
1268 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
1270 ** Changes in Font Lock
1272 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
1273 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
1275 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
1276 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
1278 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
1279 the face used for each string/comment.
1281 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
1282 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
1284 ** Changes to Shell mode
1286 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
1287 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
1288 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
1289 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
1291 ** Comint (subshell) changes
1293 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
1294 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
1296 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
1297 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
1298 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
1299 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
1300 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
1301 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
1303 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
1304 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
1305 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
1306 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
1307 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
1308 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
1309 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
1310 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
1312 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
1313 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
1315 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
1316 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
1317 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
1319 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
1320 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
1321 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
1323 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
1324 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
1325 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
1327 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
1328 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
1329 argument, it appends to the file.
1331 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
1332 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
1335 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
1338 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
1339 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
1340 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
1342 ** Changes to Rmail mode
1344 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
1345 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
1346 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
1347 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
1348 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
1351 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
1352 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
1353 regexp matching your mail addresses.
1355 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
1356 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
1357 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
1358 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
1359 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
1361 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
1364 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
1365 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
1368 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
1369 in which folder to put messages automatically.
1371 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
1372 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
1373 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
1375 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
1376 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
1378 ** Changes to TeX mode
1380 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
1383 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
1385 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
1387 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
1389 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
1391 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
1392 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
1393 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
1394 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
1395 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
1396 can be edited from that buffer.
1398 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
1399 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
1400 `A' to use all marked entries).
1402 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
1403 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
1405 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
1406 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
1407 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
1410 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
1411 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
1412 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
1413 in column 1 are always made leaves.
1415 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
1416 has the following new features:
1418 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
1419 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
1420 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
1421 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
1423 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
1424 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
1425 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
1426 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
1427 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
1430 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
1436 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
1437 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
1438 spell-checks the current buffer.
1441 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
1444 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
1445 correction is made and re-checked.
1447 *** An Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definition has been added.
1449 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
1452 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
1455 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
1458 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
1460 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
1461 use the -f option when sending mail.
1463 ** Makefile mode changes
1465 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1467 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1468 Fontlock mode is active.
1472 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1473 so that searches can be resumed.
1475 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1476 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1477 that started the search.
1479 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1480 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1483 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1485 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1486 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1487 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1488 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1489 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1490 `secondary-selection'.
1492 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1493 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1494 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1495 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1496 usual snappy response.
1498 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1499 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1500 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1501 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1505 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
1506 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
1507 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
1508 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
1509 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
1510 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
1511 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
1512 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
1513 file is registered in that backend.
1515 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
1516 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
1517 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
1518 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
1519 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
1520 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
1522 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
1523 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
1524 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
1525 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
1526 where it doesn't make sense.)
1528 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
1529 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
1530 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
1534 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
1535 checks are always done now.
1537 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
1540 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
1541 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
1542 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
1544 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
1545 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
1546 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
1547 the working file (``merge news'').
1549 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
1550 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
1553 *** Multiple Backends
1555 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
1556 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
1557 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
1558 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
1561 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
1562 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
1563 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
1564 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
1566 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
1567 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
1568 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
1569 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
1570 current revision number from the more remote backend.
1572 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
1573 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
1574 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
1575 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
1577 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
1578 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
1579 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
1580 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
1584 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
1585 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
1586 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
1587 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
1588 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
1589 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
1590 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
1592 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
1593 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
1594 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
1595 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
1596 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
1597 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
1598 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
1599 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
1600 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
1601 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
1602 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
1605 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
1606 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
1607 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
1608 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
1609 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
1610 entire directory tree.
1612 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
1613 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
1614 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
1615 "watched" by other developers.)
1617 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
1618 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
1619 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
1620 starting at the given directory.
1622 *** Lisp Changes in VC
1624 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
1625 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
1626 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
1627 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
1628 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
1629 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
1630 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
1631 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
1632 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
1634 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
1635 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
1636 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
1637 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
1639 ** New modes and packages
1641 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
1642 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
1643 the default is not applicable.
1645 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
1646 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
1647 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
1651 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
1652 drawn, like this: | \ /
1656 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
1657 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
1658 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
1659 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
1660 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
1663 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
1664 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
1666 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
1669 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
1670 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
1671 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
1672 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
1674 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
1675 also do without the mouse.
1677 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
1678 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
1679 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
1680 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
1681 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
1683 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
1685 lines straight-lines
1687 poly-lines straight poly-lines
1689 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
1690 spray-can setting size for spraying
1691 vaporize line vaporize lines
1692 erase characters erase rectangles
1694 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
1695 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
1696 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
1699 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
1700 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
1701 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
1702 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
1704 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
1708 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
1709 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
1710 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
1711 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
1712 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
1713 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
1714 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
1715 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
1716 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
1719 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1720 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1721 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1722 on certain projects.
1725 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
1726 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
1728 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1730 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1731 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1732 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1733 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1734 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1735 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1736 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
1737 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
1740 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1744 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
1745 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
1747 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1748 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1750 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1751 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1752 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1753 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
1754 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
1757 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1758 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1759 separate Texinfo file.
1762 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1763 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1764 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1765 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1766 enter check-in log messages.
1769 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1770 without invoking external programs.
1772 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1773 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1774 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1775 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1776 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1778 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1779 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1782 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1783 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1785 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1786 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1787 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1788 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1789 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1792 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1793 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1794 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1795 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1798 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1799 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1800 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1802 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1805 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1807 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1809 ; comment (until end of line)
1813 $A default non-terminal
1814 $"C" default terminal
1815 $?C? default special
1816 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1817 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1818 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1819 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1820 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1821 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1822 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1823 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1824 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1825 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1826 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1827 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1828 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1829 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1830 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1832 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1834 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1835 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1836 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1837 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1838 equal signs of assignments.
1841 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1842 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1845 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1846 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1847 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
1849 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1851 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1852 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1853 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1854 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1855 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1856 which answers different needs.
1859 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1860 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1861 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1862 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1863 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1867 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1868 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1871 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1874 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1876 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1878 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
1879 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
1880 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
1881 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
1882 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
1883 and background colors.
1885 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1889 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1892 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1895 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1897 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
1898 whitespace in a file.
1900 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1901 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1902 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1903 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1904 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1905 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1906 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1908 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1910 Here is an example of columns:
1913 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1914 porcupine strawberry airplane
1916 Doing the following settings:
1918 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1919 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1920 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1921 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1924 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1926 M-x delimit-columns-region
1930 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1931 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1932 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1934 delim-col has the following options:
1936 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1939 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1940 between each column.
1942 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1945 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1948 delim-col has the following commands:
1950 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1951 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1954 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
1955 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
1956 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
1957 recent file list can be displayed:
1959 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1960 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
1961 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
1963 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1964 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1966 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1970 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1971 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1972 specific to Message mode.
1975 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1976 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1977 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1979 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1980 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1981 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1983 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1984 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1987 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1989 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1990 minibuffer with completion.
1992 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1993 with the diary features.
1995 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1996 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1998 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
2001 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
2004 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
2005 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
2006 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
2007 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
2009 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
2010 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
2014 ** Changes in sort.el
2016 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
2017 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
2018 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
2021 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
2024 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
2025 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
2026 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
2028 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
2029 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
2031 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
2032 output ^M at the end of lines.
2035 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
2036 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
2039 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
2040 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
2043 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
2046 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
2047 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
2050 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
2051 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
2052 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
2053 nil -- just delete one character.
2055 Default value is `untabify'.
2057 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
2059 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
2060 symbol, not double-quoted.
2062 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
2063 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
2064 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
2065 moved to lisp/obsolete.
2067 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
2068 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
2069 `auto-compression-mode' command.
2071 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
2072 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
2073 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
2075 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
2076 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
2079 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
2080 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
2083 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
2084 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
2086 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
2087 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
2088 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
2089 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
2090 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
2091 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
2094 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
2095 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
2097 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
2099 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
2100 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
2102 ** Shell script mode changes.
2104 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
2105 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
2106 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
2110 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
2112 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
2113 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
2114 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
2115 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
2116 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
2118 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
2119 declarations when given the --declarations option.
2121 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
2122 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
2124 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
2125 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
2126 `template' keywords.
2128 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
2129 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
2131 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
2134 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
2136 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
2138 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
2141 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
2143 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
2144 variables are tagged.
2146 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
2148 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
2152 ** Changes in etags.el
2154 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
2155 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
2156 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
2158 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
2159 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
2161 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
2162 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
2163 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
2164 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
2166 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
2168 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
2169 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
2171 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
2173 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
2174 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
2175 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
2177 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
2178 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
2180 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
2181 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
2183 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
2184 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
2185 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
2186 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
2187 point will go to the beginning of the file.
2189 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
2190 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
2191 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
2193 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
2194 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
2195 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
2198 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
2199 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
2200 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
2202 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
2205 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
2208 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
2209 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
2210 expression from that list, are not checked.
2212 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
2213 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
2214 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
2215 the buffer, just like for the local files.
2217 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
2220 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
2221 displays local abbrevs, only.
2224 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
2225 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
2227 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
2228 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
2229 is measured in pixels.
2232 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
2233 to be visited as images.
2235 ** Withdrawn packages
2237 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
2238 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
2240 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
2242 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
2245 * Incompatible Lisp changes
2247 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
2248 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
2249 See the sections below for details.
2251 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
2252 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
2253 Use `copy-sequence' and `set-text-properties'.
2255 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
2256 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
2257 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
2258 these properties are active.
2260 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
2261 ranges may affect some code.
2263 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
2264 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
2265 make a difference to some code.
2267 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
2268 operates on the minibuffer.
2270 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
2271 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
2272 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
2273 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
2274 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
2275 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
2276 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
2277 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
2278 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
2279 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
2280 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
2281 the buffer as multibyte characters.
2283 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
2284 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
2285 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
2287 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
2288 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
2289 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
2291 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
2294 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
2297 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
2298 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
2299 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
2300 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
2301 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
2302 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
2303 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
2304 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
2306 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
2307 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
2308 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
2309 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
2310 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
2311 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
2312 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
2313 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
2314 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
2315 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
2318 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
2319 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
2321 ** The new function amimate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
2322 allows the animated display of strings.
2324 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
2325 interactive form of a function.
2327 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
2328 between custom options. Example:
2330 (defcustom default-input-method nil
2331 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
2332 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
2333 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
2335 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
2336 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
2338 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
2339 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
2340 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
2342 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
2343 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
2344 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
2345 (signal or normal termination).
2348 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
2349 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
2352 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
2353 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
2356 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
2357 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
2359 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
2362 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
2363 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
2367 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
2370 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
2371 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
2372 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
2373 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
2374 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
2378 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
2379 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
2382 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
2383 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
2386 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
2387 with the more general `:mask' property.
2390 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
2392 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
2396 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
2397 is running in batch mode. For example,
2399 (message "%s" (read t))
2401 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
2405 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
2406 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
2408 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
2409 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
2413 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
2416 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
2418 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
2419 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
2421 - Function: remq ELT LIST
2423 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
2424 comparison is done with `eq'.
2427 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
2429 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
2433 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
2434 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
2435 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
2438 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
2439 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
2441 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
2442 function was declared obsolete.
2445 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
2446 retained as an alias).
2448 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
2449 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
2450 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
2452 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
2454 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
2456 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
2457 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
2458 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
2459 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
2460 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
2461 means never include the minibuffer window.
2463 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
2465 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
2467 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
2469 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
2470 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
2471 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
2472 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
2475 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
2476 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
2477 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
2478 minibuffer even if it is active.
2480 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
2481 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
2482 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
2483 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
2484 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
2485 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
2487 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
2488 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
2489 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
2490 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
2491 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
2492 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
2493 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
2495 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
2496 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
2497 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
2499 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
2500 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
2501 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
2502 Default value is nil.
2505 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
2509 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
2510 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
2511 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
2513 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
2514 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
2515 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
2518 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
2519 list of a primitive.
2521 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
2524 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
2525 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
2526 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
2527 than replacing the local map.
2529 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
2530 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
2531 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
2534 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
2537 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
2538 as promised long ago.
2540 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
2542 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
2543 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
2544 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
2547 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
2549 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2550 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2551 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2552 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2554 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
2556 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
2557 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
2558 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
2559 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
2561 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
2562 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
2563 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
2564 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
2566 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
2567 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
2568 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
2570 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
2571 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
2572 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
2573 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
2574 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
2575 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
2576 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
2579 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
2581 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
2582 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
2583 character set as previously.
2585 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
2586 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
2587 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
2589 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
2590 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
2591 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
2592 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
2594 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
2595 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
2597 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
2598 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
2601 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
2602 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
2604 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
2605 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
2606 buffers and strings.
2608 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
2609 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
2610 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
2611 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
2612 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
2613 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
2614 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
2617 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
2618 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
2619 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
2621 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
2622 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
2623 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
2624 may differ between buffer and string text.
2626 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
2627 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
2629 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
2630 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
2631 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
2632 `composition' from STRING.
2634 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
2635 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
2637 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
2640 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
2641 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
2643 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
2644 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
2645 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
2646 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
2648 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
2649 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
2650 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
2651 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
2652 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
2653 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
2655 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
2656 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
2657 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
2659 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
2660 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
2661 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
2663 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
2664 have been introduced.
2667 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
2668 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
2669 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
2670 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
2671 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
2672 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
2673 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
2674 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
2675 their multibyte equivalent.
2678 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
2679 that offset in the file before writing.
2681 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
2682 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
2684 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
2685 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
2686 from which the command was issued.
2688 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
2689 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
2690 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
2691 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
2694 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
2695 to `window-buffer-height'.
2697 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
2699 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
2700 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
2701 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
2703 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
2706 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
2707 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
2709 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
2710 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
2711 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
2713 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
2714 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
2715 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
2716 is currently displayed in some window.
2718 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
2719 argument function's results.
2721 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
2722 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
2723 base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs 20,
2724 it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
2727 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
2728 header in the list of headers passed to it.
2730 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
2731 ignores differences in case and text representation.
2733 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
2734 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
2737 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
2738 nil don't display a cursor
2739 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
2740 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
2741 others display a box cursor.
2743 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
2744 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
2745 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
2746 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
2748 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
2749 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
2750 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
2751 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
2755 (string-to-syntax "()")
2758 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
2761 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
2762 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
2769 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
2774 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
2779 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
2786 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
2787 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
2790 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
2791 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
2792 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
2793 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
2796 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
2798 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
2799 for a regexp in a string.
2801 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
2802 `mouse-position-function'.
2804 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
2805 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
2807 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
2808 Keywords are now always considered constants.
2811 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
2814 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
2815 returned by function `recent-keys'.
2818 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
2819 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
2820 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
2821 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
2825 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
2826 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
2829 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
2830 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
2831 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
2832 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
2835 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
2836 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
2837 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
2838 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
2841 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
2842 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
2843 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
2846 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
2847 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
2850 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
2852 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
2853 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
2854 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
2858 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
2859 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
2860 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
2861 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
2862 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
2865 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
2866 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
2869 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
2870 instead of being optional.
2873 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
2874 modify read-only text.
2876 ** New functions and variables for locales.
2879 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
2880 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
2881 time functions like strftime. The new variables
2882 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
2883 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
2885 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
2886 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
2887 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
2888 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
2889 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
2890 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
2891 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
2894 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
2895 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
2896 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
2900 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
2901 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
2904 ** New function `propertize'
2906 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
2907 strings with text properties.
2909 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
2911 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
2912 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
2913 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
2914 specified value of that property. Example:
2916 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
2919 ** push and pop macros.
2921 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
2922 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
2923 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
2925 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
2926 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
2927 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
2929 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
2931 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
2932 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
2934 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
2935 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
2936 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
2937 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2939 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
2940 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
2941 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
2942 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2945 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
2946 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
2947 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
2950 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
2951 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
2952 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
2953 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
2954 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
2956 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2958 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
2959 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2960 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2961 [:alpha:] matches letters.
2962 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2963 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2964 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2965 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2966 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
2967 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
2968 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2969 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2970 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2971 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
2972 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
2975 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2977 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2979 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2981 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2982 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2986 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2987 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2988 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2992 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2993 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2995 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2997 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2998 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2999 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
3000 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
3001 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
3003 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
3005 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
3006 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
3007 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
3011 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
3012 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
3013 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
3014 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
3015 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
3017 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
3019 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
3021 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
3023 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
3025 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
3027 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
3030 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
3032 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
3034 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
3036 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
3038 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
3040 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
3042 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
3044 Returns the size of TABLE.
3046 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
3048 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
3050 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
3052 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
3054 - Function: clrhash TABLE
3058 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
3060 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
3063 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
3065 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
3066 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
3068 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
3070 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
3072 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
3074 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
3075 arguments KEY and VALUE.
3077 - Function: sxhash OBJ
3079 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
3081 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
3083 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
3084 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
3085 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
3086 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
3087 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
3089 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
3091 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
3092 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
3093 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
3095 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
3096 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
3098 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
3099 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
3101 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
3102 (sxhash (upcase a)))
3104 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
3105 'case-fold-string-hash))
3107 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
3110 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
3112 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
3113 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
3114 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
3117 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
3119 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
3120 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
3123 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
3124 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
3125 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
3126 is too short to reach that column.
3129 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
3130 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
3131 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
3132 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
3134 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
3135 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
3136 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
3139 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
3140 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
3143 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
3144 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
3147 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
3148 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
3149 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
3150 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
3151 temporary-file-directory instead.
3154 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
3155 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
3156 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
3157 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
3160 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
3161 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
3164 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
3166 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
3167 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
3168 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
3171 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
3173 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
3174 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
3175 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
3176 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
3177 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
3178 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
3180 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
3181 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
3182 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
3183 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
3186 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
3188 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
3189 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
3190 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
3193 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
3194 string where arguments appear in the result string.
3198 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
3200 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
3201 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
3204 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
3207 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
3209 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
3210 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
3213 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
3215 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
3216 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
3222 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
3223 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
3225 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
3226 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
3227 to enable sound support.
3229 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
3230 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
3231 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
3232 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
3233 sound to play, before playing the sound.
3235 The following sound properties are supported:
3239 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
3240 searched relative to `data-directory'.
3244 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
3245 may be present, but not both.
3249 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
3250 0..1. This property is optional.
3254 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
3255 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
3257 Other properties are ignored.
3259 An alternative interface is called as
3260 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
3262 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
3265 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
3268 ** Changes to garbage collection
3270 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
3271 of live and free strings.
3273 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
3274 strings that have been consed so far.
3277 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
3281 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
3285 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
3286 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
3287 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
3289 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
3292 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
3295 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
3298 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
3300 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
3302 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
3303 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
3304 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
3305 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
3306 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
3309 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
3312 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
3314 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
3315 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
3316 or omitted means use the selected frame.
3319 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
3320 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
3323 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
3327 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
3331 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
3333 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
3334 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
3335 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
3336 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
3338 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
3339 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
3341 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
3342 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
3343 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
3344 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
3345 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
3346 just display it black instead.
3348 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
3351 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
3355 ** New face implementation.
3357 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
3358 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
3363 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
3365 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
3367 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
3368 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
3370 3. Font height in 1/10pt
3372 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
3374 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
3376 6. Foreground color.
3378 7. Background color.
3380 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
3382 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
3384 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
3386 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
3388 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
3391 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
3392 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
3394 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
3395 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
3396 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
3397 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
3398 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
3399 attributes mentioned above.
3401 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
3402 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
3405 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
3406 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
3412 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
3413 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
3414 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
3415 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
3416 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
3417 results in a fully-specified face.
3420 *** Face realization.
3422 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
3423 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
3424 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
3425 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
3426 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
3427 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
3429 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
3430 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
3431 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
3432 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
3434 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
3435 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
3436 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
3437 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
3438 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
3440 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
3441 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
3442 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
3443 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
3444 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
3447 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
3448 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
3449 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
3450 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
3453 **** Clearing face caches.
3455 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
3456 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
3462 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
3463 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
3464 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
3466 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
3467 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
3468 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
3469 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
3470 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
3472 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
3473 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
3474 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
3476 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
3478 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
3479 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
3480 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
3481 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
3482 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
3483 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
3484 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
3486 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3487 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
3490 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3491 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
3494 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
3497 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
3503 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
3504 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
3507 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
3508 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
3509 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
3510 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
3511 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
3514 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
3516 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
3519 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
3521 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
3523 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
3524 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
3525 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
3527 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
3528 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
3529 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
3530 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
3531 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
3532 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
3533 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
3534 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
3535 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
3536 of the face font sort order.
3538 - Function: x-font-family-list
3540 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
3541 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
3542 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
3543 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
3545 - Variable: font-list-limit
3547 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
3548 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
3549 matching font. The default is currently 100.
3552 *** Setting face attributes.
3554 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
3555 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
3556 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
3559 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
3560 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
3562 The following attributes are recognized:
3566 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
3567 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
3568 and `?' are allowed.
3572 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
3573 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
3574 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
3575 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
3579 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
3580 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
3581 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
3582 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
3586 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
3587 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
3588 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
3592 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
3593 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
3596 `:foreground', `:background'
3598 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
3602 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
3603 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
3604 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
3609 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
3610 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
3611 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
3616 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
3617 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
3618 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
3619 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
3623 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
3624 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
3625 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
3626 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
3627 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
3628 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
3629 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
3630 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
3631 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
3632 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
3633 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
3634 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
3635 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
3636 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
3637 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
3638 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
3643 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
3644 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
3648 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
3649 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
3650 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
3651 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
3652 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
3653 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
3655 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
3656 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
3660 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
3661 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
3662 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
3665 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
3666 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
3667 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
3669 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
3674 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
3675 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
3676 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
3678 *** Face attributes and X resources
3680 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
3683 Face attribute X resource class
3684 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
3685 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
3686 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
3687 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
3688 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
3689 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
3690 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
3691 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
3692 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
3693 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
3694 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
3695 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
3696 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
3697 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
3698 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
3699 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
3700 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
3701 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
3702 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
3703 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
3706 *** Text property `face'.
3708 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
3709 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
3710 specification can be
3712 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
3714 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
3715 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
3716 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
3717 for face attribute names.
3719 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
3720 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
3721 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
3724 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
3726 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
3727 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
3728 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
3729 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
3730 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
3731 used to clear the mapping table.
3733 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
3735 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
3736 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
3737 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
3738 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
3739 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
3740 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
3741 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
3742 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
3743 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
3744 modify their color-related behavior.
3746 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
3749 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
3751 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
3752 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
3753 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
3754 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
3755 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
3756 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
3757 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
3758 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
3759 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
3761 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
3762 display can display image files.
3765 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
3767 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
3768 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
3769 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
3770 `Inviolable' option.
3772 The function minibuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
3773 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
3774 Otherwise, it returns zero.
3776 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
3778 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
3779 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
3780 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
3782 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
3783 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
3784 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
3785 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
3786 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
3787 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
3788 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
3791 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
3792 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
3793 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
3795 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
3797 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
3799 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
3801 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3802 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
3803 constrained position if that is different.
3805 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
3806 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
3807 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
3808 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
3809 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3810 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
3811 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
3812 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
3813 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
3815 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
3816 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
3817 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
3818 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
3819 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
3821 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
3822 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
3824 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
3826 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
3828 Delete the field surrounding POS.
3829 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3830 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3832 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3834 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
3835 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3836 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3837 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
3838 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
3840 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3842 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
3843 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3844 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3845 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
3846 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
3848 - Function: field-string &optional POS
3850 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
3851 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3852 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3854 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
3856 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
3857 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3858 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3863 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
3864 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
3865 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
3866 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
3868 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
3869 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
3870 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
3871 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
3874 IMAGE is an image specification.
3876 *** Image specifications
3878 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
3879 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
3880 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
3881 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
3882 described below are ignored.
3884 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
3888 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
3889 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
3890 to use for its ascent.
3892 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
3893 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
3895 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
3896 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
3897 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
3898 overlays that apply to the image.
3902 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
3903 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
3904 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
3908 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
3913 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
3915 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
3916 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
3918 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
3919 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
3920 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
3921 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
3922 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
3923 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
3924 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
3925 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
3928 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
3930 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
3932 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
3933 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
3934 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
3935 of the factors' absolute values.
3937 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
3943 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
3949 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
3954 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
3955 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
3956 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
3957 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
3958 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
3959 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
3960 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
3963 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
3964 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
3969 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
3970 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
3971 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
3972 may be present in the image specification.
3976 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
3977 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
3978 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
3979 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
3981 *** Supported image types
3983 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
3985 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
3986 properties supported are
3990 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
3991 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
3995 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
3996 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
3998 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
3999 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
4000 instead of a `:file' property.
4004 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
4008 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
4014 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
4015 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
4017 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
4019 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
4022 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
4023 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
4026 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
4028 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
4029 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
4030 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
4031 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
4033 Additional image properties supported are:
4035 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
4037 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
4038 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
4041 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
4042 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
4044 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
4045 to display compressed images.
4047 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
4049 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
4050 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
4055 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4056 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
4060 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4061 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
4063 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
4065 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
4066 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
4069 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
4071 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
4072 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
4075 **** GIF, image type `gif'
4077 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
4078 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
4080 Additional image properties supported are:
4084 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
4085 multi-image GIF file. An error is signaled if INDEX is too large.
4087 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
4088 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
4089 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
4092 (defun show-anim (file max)
4093 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
4094 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
4096 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
4099 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
4102 (goto-char (point-min))
4103 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
4104 (insert-image img "x"))
4105 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
4107 **** PNG, image type `png'
4109 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
4110 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
4113 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
4115 Additional image properties supported are:
4119 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
4120 integer. This is a required property.
4124 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
4125 must be a integer. This is an required property.
4129 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
4130 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
4131 files. This is an required property.
4133 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
4138 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
4139 which are supported in the current configuration.
4141 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
4142 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
4143 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
4144 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
4145 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
4147 *** Simplified image API, image.el
4149 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
4150 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
4151 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
4152 define an image based on available image types. The functions
4153 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
4159 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
4162 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
4163 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
4164 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
4165 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
4166 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4167 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4168 of the display margins.
4170 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
4171 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
4172 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
4173 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
4179 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
4180 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
4181 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
4182 that have a `help-echo' property.
4184 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
4185 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
4186 the window in which the help was found.
4188 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
4189 `help-echo' text property was found.
4191 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
4192 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
4194 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
4195 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
4198 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
4199 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
4201 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
4202 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
4203 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
4204 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
4205 used as help string.
4207 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
4208 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
4209 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
4212 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
4214 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
4215 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
4217 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
4218 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
4219 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
4220 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
4223 (global-set-key [A-down]
4226 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4227 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
4228 (global-set-key [A-up]
4231 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4232 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
4235 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
4237 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
4238 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
4239 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
4240 is called with one argument, POS.
4242 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
4243 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
4244 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
4245 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
4246 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
4249 ** Tool bar support.
4251 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
4252 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
4253 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
4254 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
4255 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
4256 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
4258 *** Tool bar item definitions
4260 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4261 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
4262 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
4264 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
4265 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
4266 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
4267 property (see below).
4269 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
4270 binding are currently ignored.
4272 The following properties are recognized:
4276 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
4281 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
4285 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
4286 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
4287 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
4289 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
4291 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
4292 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
4296 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
4297 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
4298 meaning of each of the four elements:
4300 Index Use when item is
4301 ----------------------------------------
4302 0 enabled and selected
4303 1 enabled and deselected
4304 2 disabled and selected
4305 3 disabled and deselected
4307 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
4308 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
4310 `:help HELP-STRING'.
4312 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
4313 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
4315 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
4316 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
4317 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
4320 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
4321 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
4322 buffer-locally to override the global map.
4324 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
4326 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
4327 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
4328 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
4330 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
4331 raised when the mouse moves over them.
4333 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
4334 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
4335 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
4336 vertical margins . Default is 1.
4338 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
4339 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
4341 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
4343 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
4346 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
4347 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
4348 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
4350 is the original tool bar item definition, then
4352 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
4354 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
4357 ** Mode line changes.
4360 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
4362 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
4363 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
4364 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
4366 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
4367 a `local-map' text property.
4369 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
4370 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
4372 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
4373 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
4374 `local-map' property.
4376 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
4377 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
4380 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
4381 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
4384 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
4385 variable mode-line-format to nil.
4388 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
4390 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
4391 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
4392 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
4393 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
4396 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
4399 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
4400 position in the header-line.
4403 ** Text property `display'
4405 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
4406 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
4407 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
4408 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
4409 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
4411 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
4413 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
4414 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
4416 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
4417 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
4418 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
4419 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
4420 simpler form STRING as property value.
4422 *** Variable width and height spaces
4424 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
4425 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
4426 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
4427 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
4428 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
4429 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
4430 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
4432 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
4433 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
4434 properties described below.
4436 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
4437 characters having the `display' property.
4441 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
4442 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
4444 - :relative-width FACTOR
4446 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
4447 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
4448 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
4449 width of that character by FACTOR.
4453 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
4454 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
4456 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
4460 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
4463 - :relative-height FACTOR
4465 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
4466 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
4470 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
4471 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
4472 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
4475 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
4479 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
4480 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
4481 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
4482 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
4483 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
4484 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
4485 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
4486 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
4487 as display specification.
4489 *** Other display properties
4491 - (space-width FACTOR)
4493 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
4494 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
4499 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
4501 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
4502 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
4503 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
4504 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
4505 a font is available counts as a step.
4507 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
4508 as tall as the frame's default font.
4510 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
4511 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
4513 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
4514 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
4518 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
4519 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
4520 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
4521 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
4522 `height' subproperty.
4524 *** Conditional display properties
4526 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
4527 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
4528 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
4529 During evaluation, point is temporarily set to the end position of
4530 the text having the `display' property.
4532 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
4536 ** New menu separator types.
4538 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
4539 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
4540 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
4541 to specify other menu separator types.
4543 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
4545 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
4548 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
4550 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
4552 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
4554 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
4556 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
4558 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4560 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
4562 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4564 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
4566 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
4567 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
4569 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
4571 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
4573 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
4575 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
4577 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
4579 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
4581 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
4583 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4585 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
4587 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
4589 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
4591 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4593 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
4595 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
4597 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
4598 the corresponding single-line separators.
4601 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
4603 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
4604 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
4605 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
4606 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
4607 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
4608 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
4609 default foreground is black.
4611 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
4612 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
4613 `ScrollBarBackground').
4615 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
4616 settings for scroll bar colors.
4619 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
4620 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
4623 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
4624 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
4625 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
4626 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
4627 the original window start.
4630 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
4631 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
4632 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
4635 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
4637 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
4638 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
4639 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
4640 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
4642 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
4643 fixed-width and fixed-height.
4645 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
4647 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
4648 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
4649 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
4650 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
4651 temporarily to nil, for example
4653 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
4654 (enlarge-window 10))
4656 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
4657 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
4659 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
4660 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
4661 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
4662 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
4663 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
4664 support a vertical-bar cursor).
4668 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
4670 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
4673 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
4675 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
4677 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
4678 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
4679 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
4680 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
4681 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
4683 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
4687 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
4689 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
4693 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
4695 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
4696 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
4698 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
4700 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
4702 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
4703 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
4704 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
4706 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
4707 is the one that is used.
4709 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
4710 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
4711 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
4712 separate from the command's regular output.
4713 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
4714 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
4715 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
4718 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
4719 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
4720 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
4721 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
4723 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
4724 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
4725 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
4726 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
4728 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
4729 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
4730 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
4731 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
4733 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
4734 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
4735 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
4736 they never ignore case.
4738 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
4739 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
4740 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
4741 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
4742 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
4743 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
4744 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
4746 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
4747 the same format that was used in the file before.
4749 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
4750 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
4752 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
4753 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
4754 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
4756 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
4757 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
4758 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
4759 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
4760 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
4761 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
4762 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
4764 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
4765 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
4766 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
4767 format. You can now customize these variables.
4769 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
4770 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
4771 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
4772 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
4774 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
4775 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
4776 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
4778 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
4779 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
4780 doesn't have any effect.
4782 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
4785 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
4786 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
4787 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
4789 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
4790 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
4791 `auto-show-mode' command.
4793 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
4794 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
4795 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
4796 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
4797 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
4799 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
4800 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
4802 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
4803 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
4804 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
4806 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
4807 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
4808 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
4809 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
4811 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
4813 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
4814 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
4815 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
4816 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
4817 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
4819 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
4820 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
4822 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
4823 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
4824 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
4825 `?' on other systems.
4827 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
4828 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
4831 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
4832 current codepage when it starts.
4836 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
4837 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
4838 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
4839 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
4840 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
4841 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
4845 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
4846 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
4848 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
4849 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
4850 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
4851 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
4852 buffer-file-coding-system.
4854 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
4855 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
4858 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
4859 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
4860 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
4861 list of possible coding systems.
4865 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
4866 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
4867 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
4868 docstring for details.
4870 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
4871 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
4872 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
4873 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
4874 lineup functions use this feature currently.
4876 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
4877 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
4879 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
4880 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
4882 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
4883 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
4884 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
4885 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
4888 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
4889 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
4891 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
4892 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
4893 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
4894 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
4896 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
4897 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
4898 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
4899 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
4900 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
4902 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
4904 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
4906 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
4907 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
4909 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
4911 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
4912 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
4913 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
4914 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
4915 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
4919 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
4920 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
4921 Gnus manual for the full story.
4923 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
4924 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
4925 group, which is created automatically.
4927 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
4930 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
4932 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
4933 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
4935 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
4938 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
4940 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
4941 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
4943 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
4945 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
4946 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
4948 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
4949 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
4951 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
4952 control over simplification.
4954 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
4956 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
4959 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
4961 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
4963 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
4964 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
4965 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
4967 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
4968 `a' forces normal posting method.
4970 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
4973 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
4976 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
4977 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
4979 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
4982 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
4984 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
4986 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
4987 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
4989 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
4990 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
4992 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
4994 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
4997 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
4998 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
5000 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
5001 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
5003 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
5005 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
5007 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
5009 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
5011 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
5012 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
5013 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
5015 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
5016 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
5017 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
5018 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
5019 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
5021 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
5022 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
5023 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
5024 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
5026 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
5027 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
5028 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
5031 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5033 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
5034 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
5036 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
5037 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
5038 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
5039 removed from the label.
5041 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
5042 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
5044 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
5045 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
5047 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
5048 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
5051 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
5053 ** New/deleted modes and packages
5055 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
5056 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
5058 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
5059 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
5060 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
5062 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
5063 changes with a special face.
5065 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
5066 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
5067 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
5069 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
5071 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
5072 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
5073 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
5074 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
5075 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
5077 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
5078 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
5079 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
5081 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
5082 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
5083 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
5084 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
5085 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
5086 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
5087 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
5088 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
5089 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
5091 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
5092 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
5093 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
5094 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
5095 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
5098 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
5099 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
5100 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
5101 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
5102 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
5103 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
5105 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
5106 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
5107 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
5108 was not documented clearly before.
5110 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
5111 This includes Tetris and Snake.
5113 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
5115 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
5116 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
5117 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
5118 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
5120 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
5121 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
5122 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
5124 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
5126 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
5127 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
5129 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
5130 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
5133 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
5134 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
5135 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
5136 file names and attributes are returned.
5138 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
5139 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
5140 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
5141 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
5144 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
5145 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
5147 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
5149 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
5150 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
5151 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
5154 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
5155 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
5158 The new function process-running-child-p
5159 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
5160 terminal to its own child process.
5162 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
5163 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
5164 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
5165 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
5167 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
5168 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
5170 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
5171 :included is an alias for :visible.
5173 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
5174 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
5175 to move or copy menu entries.
5177 ** Multibyte editing changes
5179 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
5180 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
5181 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
5182 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
5183 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
5184 (setq char (sref str idx)
5185 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
5186 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
5188 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
5189 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
5190 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
5192 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
5193 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
5194 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
5196 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
5198 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
5199 across the boundary.
5201 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
5202 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
5203 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
5204 contains 8-bit characters.
5205 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
5206 contains invalid characters.
5208 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
5209 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
5210 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
5211 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
5214 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
5215 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
5216 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
5217 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
5219 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
5220 compose Thai characters in a string.
5222 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
5223 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
5224 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
5225 menus should always use the third argument.
5227 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
5228 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
5229 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
5230 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
5232 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
5233 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
5234 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
5235 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
5237 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
5238 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
5239 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
5242 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
5244 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
5245 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
5246 requested feature cannot be loaded.
5248 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
5249 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
5250 means to clear out that attribute.
5252 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
5253 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
5255 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
5256 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
5257 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
5258 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
5260 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
5261 the gap of the current buffer.
5263 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
5264 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
5267 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
5268 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
5269 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
5270 it back in after any modifications have been made.
5272 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
5274 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
5275 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
5276 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
5277 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
5278 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
5280 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
5281 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
5282 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
5283 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
5284 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
5286 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
5287 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
5288 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
5290 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
5291 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
5292 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
5293 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
5294 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
5297 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
5298 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
5299 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
5300 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
5302 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
5304 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
5305 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
5306 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
5307 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
5309 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
5310 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
5311 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
5312 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
5313 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
5314 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
5315 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
5318 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
5321 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
5322 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
5323 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
5324 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
5325 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
5327 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
5328 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
5329 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
5330 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
5332 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
5333 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
5334 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
5335 something that most users not do.
5337 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
5338 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
5339 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
5342 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
5345 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
5346 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
5347 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
5348 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
5351 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
5352 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
5353 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
5354 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
5355 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
5358 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
5359 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
5360 to be confused by TeX commands.
5362 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
5363 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
5364 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
5365 of various alternative replacements and actions.
5367 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
5368 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
5369 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
5370 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
5371 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
5373 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
5374 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
5376 ** Changes in input method usage.
5378 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
5379 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
5382 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
5384 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
5385 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
5387 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
5388 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
5390 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
5392 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
5394 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
5395 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
5397 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
5398 given in the following case:
5399 o When you are using a complex input method.
5400 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
5402 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
5403 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
5404 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
5405 setting it to t is helpful.
5407 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
5409 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
5411 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
5412 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
5413 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
5414 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
5417 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
5418 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
5419 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
5422 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
5424 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
5426 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
5427 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
5429 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
5430 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
5431 its owner and group.
5433 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
5434 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
5436 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
5437 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
5439 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
5440 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
5441 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
5442 by the left edge of the rectangle.
5444 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
5445 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
5446 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
5447 for writing keyboard macros.
5449 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
5450 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
5451 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
5452 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
5453 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
5456 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
5458 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
5459 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
5462 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
5463 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
5464 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
5465 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
5467 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
5468 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
5469 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
5471 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
5472 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
5473 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
5474 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
5476 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
5477 failure if the command produces no output.
5479 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
5480 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
5483 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
5484 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
5485 function and variable names.
5487 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
5488 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
5489 file-coding-system-alist.
5491 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
5492 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
5493 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
5494 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
5495 according to the current fontset.
5497 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
5499 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
5500 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
5501 nonascii-insert-offset.
5503 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
5504 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
5505 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
5506 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
5508 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
5509 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
5511 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
5512 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
5514 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
5515 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
5518 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
5519 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
5521 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
5522 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
5523 all variables that have documentation.
5525 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
5526 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
5527 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
5528 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
5529 it should show; the default is 20.
5531 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
5532 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
5535 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
5536 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
5537 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
5538 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
5539 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
5540 Newly added options are included as well.
5542 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
5543 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
5544 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
5546 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
5549 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
5550 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
5552 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
5553 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
5556 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
5557 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
5560 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
5561 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
5562 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
5563 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
5566 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
5568 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
5569 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
5570 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
5572 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
5573 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
5574 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
5579 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
5580 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
5582 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
5583 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
5585 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
5586 read and post multi-lingual articles.
5588 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
5589 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
5590 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
5591 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
5592 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
5593 made invisible again.
5595 ** Mail reading and sending changes
5597 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
5598 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
5599 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
5602 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
5603 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
5604 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
5605 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
5606 rmail-default-body-file.
5608 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
5609 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
5610 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
5612 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
5613 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
5614 is evaluated to insert the signature.
5616 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
5617 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
5618 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
5619 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
5620 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
5621 especially interested in trying feedmail.
5623 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
5624 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
5625 provided by feedmail are:
5627 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
5628 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
5629 there is also a queue for draft messages
5631 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
5632 be prompted for confirmation
5634 **** does smart filling of address headers
5636 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
5637 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
5638 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
5640 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
5641 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
5642 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
5643 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
5647 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
5648 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
5650 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
5651 run Dired on the directory name at point.
5653 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
5654 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
5655 for a specified regexp.
5659 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
5662 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
5663 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
5666 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
5667 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
5668 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
5669 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
5671 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
5672 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
5673 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
5674 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
5675 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
5677 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
5678 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
5679 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
5680 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
5681 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
5683 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
5684 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
5685 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
5686 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
5688 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
5689 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
5690 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
5692 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
5693 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
5694 session to resolve them.
5696 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
5697 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
5698 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
5701 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
5702 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
5703 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
5704 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
5705 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
5706 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
5709 ** Changes in Font Lock
5711 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
5712 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
5713 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
5714 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
5715 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
5717 ** Frame name display changes
5719 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
5720 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
5721 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
5722 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
5724 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
5725 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
5728 ** Comint (subshell) changes
5730 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
5731 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
5732 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
5734 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
5736 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
5737 that is, the line after the last line you got.
5738 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
5740 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
5741 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
5744 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
5745 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
5746 previously sent input.
5748 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
5749 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
5750 as the search string.
5752 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
5753 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
5757 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
5758 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
5759 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
5762 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
5763 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
5764 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
5765 style is still the default however.
5767 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
5769 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
5770 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
5771 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
5773 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
5774 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
5776 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
5777 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
5779 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
5780 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
5782 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
5783 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
5785 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
5786 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
5787 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
5788 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
5790 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
5792 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
5793 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
5794 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
5796 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
5797 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
5798 expanding dynamically.
5800 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
5801 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
5803 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
5804 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
5805 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
5806 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
5808 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
5810 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
5812 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
5813 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
5814 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
5815 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
5816 against the first word in the title.
5818 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
5819 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
5820 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
5821 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
5822 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
5823 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
5825 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
5826 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
5827 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
5828 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
5830 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
5832 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
5833 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
5834 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
5835 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
5836 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
5837 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
5839 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
5840 Editing group once the package is loaded.
5842 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
5843 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
5844 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
5846 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
5847 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
5851 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
5852 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
5853 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
5855 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
5856 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
5857 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
5858 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
5861 o URLs are automatically skipped
5862 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
5864 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
5866 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5868 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
5869 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
5870 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
5871 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
5873 *** New recursive parser.
5875 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
5876 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
5877 recursive parser scans the individual files.
5879 *** Parsing only part of a document.
5881 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
5882 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
5883 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
5885 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
5887 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
5889 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
5891 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
5893 *** Using multiple selection buffers
5895 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
5896 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
5898 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
5900 *** References to external documents.
5902 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
5903 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
5904 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
5905 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
5906 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
5907 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
5908 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
5910 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
5912 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
5913 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
5915 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
5916 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
5918 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
5920 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
5921 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
5923 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
5925 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
5926 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
5927 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
5928 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
5929 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
5930 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
5933 *** Support for the varioref package
5935 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
5939 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
5940 and citations are created. These hooks are
5941 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
5942 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
5944 *** Citations outside LaTeX
5946 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
5947 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
5949 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
5951 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
5952 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
5955 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
5957 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
5958 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
5959 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
5960 directories that contain the same file name.
5962 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
5963 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
5964 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
5965 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
5966 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
5967 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
5968 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
5971 ** New modes and packages
5973 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
5974 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
5975 it, but some do not.
5977 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
5980 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
5981 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
5984 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
5986 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
5987 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
5988 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
5989 established system of notation similar to Chess.
5991 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
5992 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
5993 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
5995 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
5996 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
5997 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
5998 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
5999 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
6002 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
6003 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
6005 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
6006 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
6007 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
6008 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
6010 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
6012 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
6013 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
6014 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
6015 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
6016 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
6017 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
6018 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
6019 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
6020 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
6021 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
6022 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
6024 Platform-specific modes:
6026 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
6027 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
6028 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
6029 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
6030 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
6031 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
6032 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
6033 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
6034 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
6036 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
6038 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
6039 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
6040 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
6041 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
6043 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
6044 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
6045 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
6047 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
6048 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
6049 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
6050 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
6052 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
6053 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
6054 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
6057 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
6058 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
6059 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
6060 current input method for reading this one event.
6062 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
6063 now control whether to output certain characters as
6064 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
6065 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
6066 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
6067 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
6069 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
6071 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
6072 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
6074 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
6075 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
6076 always increases point by 1.
6078 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
6079 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
6081 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
6083 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
6084 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
6085 default value changed. For example,
6087 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
6092 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
6095 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
6096 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
6097 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
6098 `:version' in the top level group.
6100 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
6102 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
6103 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
6105 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
6106 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
6107 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
6110 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
6111 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
6114 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
6115 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
6116 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
6118 ** Frame-local variables.
6120 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
6121 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
6122 local bindings for that variable.
6124 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
6125 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
6126 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
6129 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
6130 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
6131 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
6132 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
6134 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
6135 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
6136 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
6137 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
6139 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
6140 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
6141 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
6142 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
6143 See the documentation in sregex.el.
6145 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
6146 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
6147 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
6148 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
6150 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
6151 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
6153 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
6154 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
6155 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
6157 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
6158 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
6159 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
6160 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
6162 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
6163 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
6166 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
6167 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
6168 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
6169 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
6170 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
6172 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
6173 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
6174 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
6175 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
6177 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
6178 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
6179 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
6180 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
6181 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
6183 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
6184 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
6185 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
6186 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
6188 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
6189 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
6190 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
6192 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
6193 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
6194 was directed to display this buffer.
6196 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
6197 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
6198 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
6199 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
6200 set-window-configuration.
6202 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
6203 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
6204 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
6205 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
6207 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
6208 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
6209 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
6211 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
6212 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
6213 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
6215 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
6216 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
6218 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
6219 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
6221 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
6222 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
6223 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
6225 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
6226 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
6227 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
6228 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
6232 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
6233 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
6236 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
6237 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
6238 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
6239 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
6240 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
6242 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
6244 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
6245 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
6246 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
6247 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
6250 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
6251 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
6252 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
6253 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
6254 The supported properties include
6256 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6258 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6259 item should appear in the menu.
6261 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
6262 which will be REAL-BINDING.
6263 It should return a binding to use instead.
6265 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
6266 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
6267 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
6268 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
6269 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
6272 This means that the command normally has no
6273 keyboard equivalent.
6274 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
6275 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
6276 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
6277 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
6278 value says whether this button is currently selected.
6280 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
6281 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
6283 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
6287 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
6288 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
6289 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
6290 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
6292 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
6294 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
6295 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
6296 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
6297 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
6298 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
6299 forward, away from the user.
6301 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6303 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
6304 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
6305 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
6306 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
6307 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
6309 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
6311 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
6312 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
6313 that were dragged and dropped.
6315 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6317 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
6319 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
6320 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
6321 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
6323 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
6324 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
6325 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
6327 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
6328 in Emacs 19 and before.
6330 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
6331 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
6333 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
6334 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
6335 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
6336 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
6338 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
6339 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
6340 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
6341 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
6342 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
6344 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
6345 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
6346 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
6347 consistent with the new representation.
6349 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
6350 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
6351 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
6352 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
6354 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
6355 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
6356 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
6358 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
6359 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
6360 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
6362 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
6363 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
6364 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
6366 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6367 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
6369 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6370 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
6372 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
6373 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
6374 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
6375 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
6377 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
6378 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
6380 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
6381 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
6382 buffer or string being searched.
6384 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
6385 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
6386 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
6387 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
6388 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
6389 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
6390 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
6392 *** Structure of coding system changed.
6394 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
6395 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
6396 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
6397 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
6398 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
6399 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
6400 define-coding-system-alias.
6402 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
6403 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
6404 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
6405 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
6406 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
6407 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
6408 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
6411 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
6412 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
6413 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
6414 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
6416 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
6417 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
6418 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
6419 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
6421 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
6422 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
6423 This function requires a user interaction.
6425 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
6426 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
6427 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
6428 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
6429 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
6430 select-safe-coding-system.
6432 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
6433 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
6434 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
6437 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
6438 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
6439 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
6441 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
6442 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
6443 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
6444 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
6446 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
6447 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
6448 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
6451 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
6452 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
6454 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
6455 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
6456 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
6457 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
6458 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
6459 range of characters.
6461 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
6462 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
6464 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
6465 in the current buffer at position POS.
6467 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
6468 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
6469 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
6470 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
6471 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
6472 binding input-method-function to nil.
6474 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
6475 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
6476 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
6477 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
6478 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
6480 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
6481 subsequent events of a key sequence.
6483 *** You can customize any language environment by using
6484 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
6486 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
6487 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
6488 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
6489 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
6490 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
6492 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
6494 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
6495 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
6496 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
6499 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
6500 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
6502 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
6503 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
6504 in your .emacs file.)
6506 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
6507 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
6509 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
6510 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
6512 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
6513 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
6516 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
6517 delete the character before point, as usual.
6519 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
6520 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
6521 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
6523 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
6524 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
6525 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
6526 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
6527 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
6530 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
6531 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
6532 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
6533 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
6534 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
6536 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
6537 and is an alias for it.
6539 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
6540 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
6542 ** Scrolling changes
6544 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
6545 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
6547 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
6548 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
6551 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
6552 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
6553 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
6554 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
6556 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
6557 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
6558 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
6559 recenters the window.
6561 ** International character set support (MULE)
6563 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
6564 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
6565 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
6566 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
6567 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
6568 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
6570 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
6571 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
6572 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
6573 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
6574 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
6576 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
6577 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
6578 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
6579 language, to make it possible to type them.
6581 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
6582 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
6584 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
6585 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
6587 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
6589 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
6591 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
6592 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
6593 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
6594 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
6595 characters for their work until they want to change.
6599 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
6600 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
6601 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
6602 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
6603 support several input methods.
6605 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
6606 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
6609 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
6610 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
6611 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
6612 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
6613 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
6616 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
6617 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
6618 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
6619 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
6620 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
6622 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
6623 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
6624 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
6625 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
6627 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
6628 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
6629 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
6630 the first guess is wrong.
6632 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
6633 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
6635 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
6636 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
6637 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
6638 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
6640 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
6641 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
6642 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
6643 translate automatically to and from either one.
6645 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
6647 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
6648 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
6649 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
6652 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
6653 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
6654 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
6655 multibyte characters in that buffer.
6657 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
6658 character conversion as well.
6660 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
6662 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
6663 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
6664 requires using many fonts.
6666 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
6667 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
6669 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
6670 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
6671 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
6672 you would use a font.
6674 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
6675 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
6676 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
6678 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
6679 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
6680 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
6681 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
6682 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
6684 *** Defining fontsets.
6686 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
6687 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
6688 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
6690 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
6691 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
6692 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
6693 standard fontset are created automatically.
6695 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
6696 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
6697 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
6698 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
6699 name is `fontset-startup'.
6701 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
6702 The resource value should have this form:
6703 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
6704 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
6705 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
6706 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
6707 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
6708 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
6709 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
6710 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
6711 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
6713 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
6714 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
6715 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
6717 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
6718 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
6720 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
6721 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
6722 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
6723 Here is the substitution rule:
6724 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
6725 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
6726 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
6727 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
6728 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
6730 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
6731 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
6732 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
6734 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
6735 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
6736 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
6737 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
6740 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
6741 defaults for a particular choice of language.
6743 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
6744 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
6745 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
6746 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
6747 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
6748 system for new files that you create.
6750 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
6751 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
6752 whole Emacs session.
6754 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
6755 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
6756 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
6758 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
6759 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
6760 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
6761 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
6762 coding systems that Emacs supports.
6764 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
6765 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
6766 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
6767 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
6768 is used for *the immediately following command*.
6770 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
6771 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
6773 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
6774 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
6776 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
6777 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
6779 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
6780 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
6781 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
6782 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
6785 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
6786 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
6787 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
6788 translated into that character code.
6790 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
6791 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
6793 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
6795 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
6796 the coding system for keyboard input.
6798 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
6799 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
6800 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
6802 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
6804 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
6805 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
6806 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
6807 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
6808 designed to work with terminals.
6810 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
6811 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
6812 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
6813 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
6814 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
6815 in the corresponding buffer.
6817 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
6819 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
6820 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
6821 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
6823 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
6824 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
6825 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
6828 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
6829 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
6831 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
6832 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
6833 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
6834 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
6836 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
6837 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
6838 related information.
6840 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
6841 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
6844 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
6845 information about the support for a particular language.
6846 You specify the language as an argument.
6848 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
6849 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
6852 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
6853 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
6854 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
6855 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
6857 A alternativnyj (Russian)
6859 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
6860 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
6861 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
6862 E euc-japan (Japanese)
6863 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6864 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
6865 K euc-korea (Korean)
6868 S shift_jis (Japanese)
6871 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
6872 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6873 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
6877 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
6878 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
6879 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
6880 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
6882 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
6883 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
6885 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
6886 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
6887 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
6888 Rmail files themselves.
6890 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
6891 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
6893 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
6896 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
6897 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
6898 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
6899 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
6900 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
6902 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
6903 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
6904 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
6907 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
6908 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
6909 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
6910 without any conversion.
6912 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
6913 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
6914 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
6915 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
6917 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
6918 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
6920 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
6921 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
6923 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
6924 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
6926 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
6927 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
6928 in the buffer before point.
6930 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
6931 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
6934 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
6935 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
6937 ** File locking works with NFS now.
6939 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
6940 in the same directory as FILENAME.
6942 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
6943 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
6944 can become a bottleneck.
6946 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
6947 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
6948 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
6949 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
6950 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
6951 so useful that the change is worth while.
6953 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
6954 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
6955 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
6956 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
6958 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
6959 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
6962 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
6963 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
6964 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
6966 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
6967 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
6968 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
6970 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
6971 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
6972 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
6974 ** Changes in View mode.
6976 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
6977 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
6979 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
6980 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
6982 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
6985 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
6986 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
6988 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
6989 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
6990 not just the selected window.
6992 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
6993 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
6994 turns View mode on or off.
6996 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
6997 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
6998 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
7000 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
7001 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
7003 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
7004 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
7005 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
7006 which version to compare with.
7008 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
7009 blocks if a match is inside the block.
7011 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
7012 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
7013 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
7014 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
7016 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
7017 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
7018 blocks, all of them or none.
7020 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
7021 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
7024 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
7025 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
7026 However, the mode will not be changed if
7027 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
7028 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
7029 not suitable for ordinary files, or
7030 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
7032 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
7034 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
7035 these commands do not change the major mode.
7037 ** M-x occur changes.
7039 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
7040 it performs a case-sensitive search.
7042 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
7043 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
7044 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
7046 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
7047 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
7048 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
7049 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
7050 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
7052 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
7053 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
7054 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
7055 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
7057 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7058 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
7059 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
7061 ** Outline mode changes.
7063 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
7065 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
7067 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
7068 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
7069 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
7072 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
7073 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
7076 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
7077 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
7079 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
7081 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7082 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
7083 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
7084 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
7086 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
7087 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
7088 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
7090 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
7091 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
7094 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
7095 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
7096 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
7097 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
7099 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
7100 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
7101 can be. The default value is 30.
7103 ** Changes in Mail mode.
7105 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
7106 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
7107 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
7108 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
7109 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
7112 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
7113 compose-mail-other-frame.
7115 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
7116 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
7117 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
7118 buffer that shows the original message.
7120 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
7121 with separator lines around the contents.
7123 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
7124 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
7125 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
7126 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
7128 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
7130 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
7131 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
7132 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
7133 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
7135 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
7136 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
7139 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
7140 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
7143 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
7144 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
7145 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
7146 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
7148 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
7149 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
7150 be taken to be magic.
7152 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
7153 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
7154 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
7156 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
7157 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
7159 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
7160 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
7162 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
7164 new key dired.el binding old key
7165 ------- ---------------- -------
7166 * c dired-change-marks c
7168 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
7169 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
7170 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
7172 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
7173 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
7174 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
7175 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
7176 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
7177 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
7181 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
7182 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
7183 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
7184 each time you run it.
7186 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
7187 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
7189 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
7190 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
7191 means to move in the opposite direction.
7193 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
7194 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
7196 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
7197 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
7198 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
7199 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
7204 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
7206 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
7209 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
7210 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
7212 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
7215 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
7217 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
7219 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
7221 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
7222 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
7223 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
7225 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
7227 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
7229 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
7230 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
7232 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
7233 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
7234 used to pick articles.
7236 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
7237 another have been added.
7239 `M-x gnus-change-server'
7241 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
7242 generating lines in buffers.
7244 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
7247 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
7249 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
7251 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
7253 *** Scores can be decayed.
7255 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
7257 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
7258 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
7260 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
7263 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
7265 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
7266 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
7268 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
7270 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
7271 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
7273 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
7274 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
7276 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
7279 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
7280 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
7282 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
7284 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
7286 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
7288 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
7290 Use the `Y c' command.
7292 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
7294 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
7296 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
7298 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
7299 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
7301 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
7303 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
7305 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
7306 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
7308 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
7310 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
7311 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
7312 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
7313 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
7316 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
7317 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
7318 particular news group. This can be done by:
7320 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
7322 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
7323 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
7324 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
7325 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
7326 for reading and posting).
7328 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
7329 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
7330 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
7331 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
7334 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
7335 default. Here are some of these default settings:
7337 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
7338 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
7339 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
7340 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
7341 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
7343 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
7344 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
7348 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
7349 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
7350 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
7351 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
7352 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
7355 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
7356 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
7357 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
7358 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
7359 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
7360 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
7362 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
7363 of the current buffer.
7365 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
7366 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
7367 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
7369 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
7370 style that the Python developers like.
7372 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
7373 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
7374 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
7378 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
7379 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
7380 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
7382 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
7383 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
7386 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
7387 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
7389 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
7390 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
7391 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
7392 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
7394 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
7395 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
7397 ** Calendar changes.
7399 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
7400 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
7401 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
7402 following/previous years.
7404 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
7405 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
7406 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
7407 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
7408 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
7409 supposed attribute of God.
7413 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
7416 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
7418 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
7419 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
7420 printer system has this behavior, set variable
7421 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
7423 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
7424 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
7425 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
7427 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
7428 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
7430 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
7431 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
7432 printing for your printer.
7434 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
7435 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7437 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
7438 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7440 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
7441 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
7442 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
7443 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
7444 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
7445 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
7446 The default value is nil.
7448 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
7449 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
7451 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
7452 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
7453 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
7454 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
7455 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
7456 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
7457 color). The default is 0 ("black").
7459 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
7460 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
7462 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
7463 The default is 0 ("black").
7465 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
7466 The default is 0 ("black").
7468 border-width Specify the border width.
7471 Any other property is ignored.
7473 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
7474 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
7477 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
7478 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
7479 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
7480 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
7481 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
7482 controlling headers.
7484 *** Color management (subgroup)
7486 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
7489 *** Face Management (subgroup)
7491 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
7492 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
7493 background should be used. Valid values are:
7495 t always use face background color.
7496 nil never use face background color.
7497 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
7499 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
7501 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
7504 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
7505 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
7507 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
7510 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
7511 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
7512 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
7514 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
7518 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
7522 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
7526 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
7530 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
7532 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
7534 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
7537 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
7538 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
7539 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
7541 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
7542 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7543 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7544 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7545 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7549 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7550 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7551 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7554 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7555 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7556 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
7557 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
7558 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
7559 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7560 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7561 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7562 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
7563 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
7564 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
7567 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7569 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
7572 *** Printer management (subgroup)
7574 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
7575 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
7576 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
7577 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
7580 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
7581 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
7582 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
7584 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
7585 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
7588 *** Page settings (subgroup)
7590 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
7591 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
7592 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
7593 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
7594 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
7595 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
7598 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
7599 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
7600 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
7602 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
7603 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
7604 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
7605 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
7606 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
7607 its TO, are ignored.
7609 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
7610 pages. Valid values are:
7612 nil print all pages.
7614 `even-page' print only even pages.
7616 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
7618 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
7619 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
7620 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
7621 print only the even sheet of paper.
7623 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
7624 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
7625 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
7626 only the odd sheet of paper.
7628 Any other value is treated as nil.
7630 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
7631 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
7632 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
7634 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
7636 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
7637 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
7639 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
7640 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
7641 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
7642 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
7643 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
7644 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
7645 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
7647 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
7648 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
7649 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
7650 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
7651 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
7652 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
7653 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
7655 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
7657 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
7658 messages should be sent.
7660 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
7661 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
7662 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
7664 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
7666 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
7667 points for line numbers.
7669 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
7670 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
7672 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
7673 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
7674 to 2, the printing will look like:
7686 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
7687 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
7690 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
7691 zebra stripe is to be printed.
7693 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
7695 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
7696 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
7697 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
7698 3, the output will look like:
7712 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
7713 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
7715 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
7716 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
7719 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
7720 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
7723 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
7725 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
7726 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
7728 ** hideshow changes.
7730 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
7733 *** Support for java-mode added.
7735 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
7736 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
7738 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
7739 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
7740 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
7742 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
7743 robust and a lot faster.
7745 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
7747 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
7748 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
7749 documentation for more details.
7751 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
7753 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
7754 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
7755 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
7756 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
7757 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
7759 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
7760 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
7761 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
7762 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
7768 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
7769 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
7770 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
7771 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
7772 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
7773 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
7775 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
7777 *** Maximum decoration
7779 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
7780 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
7781 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
7782 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
7783 to get the old behavior.
7787 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
7789 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
7790 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
7792 *** Configurable support
7794 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
7795 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
7796 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
7797 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
7798 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
7799 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
7800 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
7802 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
7803 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
7804 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
7806 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
7808 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
7809 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
7812 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
7814 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
7820 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
7821 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
7822 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
7823 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
7825 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
7827 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
7828 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
7829 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
7831 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
7833 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
7834 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
7835 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
7836 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
7837 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
7838 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
7839 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
7841 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
7842 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
7843 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
7844 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
7845 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
7846 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
7848 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
7850 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
7851 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
7852 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
7853 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
7855 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
7858 ** Ada mode changes.
7860 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
7861 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
7862 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
7863 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
7866 *** There are two new commands:
7867 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
7868 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
7870 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
7871 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
7872 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
7874 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
7875 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
7876 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
7878 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
7879 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
7880 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
7881 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
7883 ** Scheme mode changes.
7885 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
7886 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
7887 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
7888 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
7891 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
7892 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
7893 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
7894 variables as buffer-local variables.
7896 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
7899 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
7901 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
7902 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
7903 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
7904 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
7906 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
7907 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
7910 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
7911 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
7912 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
7913 option takes precedence.
7915 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
7916 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
7917 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
7919 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
7920 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
7923 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
7924 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
7926 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
7927 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
7930 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
7931 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
7932 these register values no longer become completely useless.
7933 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
7934 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
7935 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
7937 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
7938 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
7939 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
7940 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
7942 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
7943 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
7944 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
7945 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
7946 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
7948 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
7949 since it applies only to the current frame.
7951 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
7952 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
7953 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
7955 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
7956 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
7957 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
7958 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
7959 instead of just the file you are editing.
7963 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
7964 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
7965 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
7966 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
7967 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
7970 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
7971 knows which kind of label is needed.
7973 C-c ) reftex-reference
7974 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
7975 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
7977 C-c [ reftex-citation
7978 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
7979 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
7981 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
7982 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
7985 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
7986 can quickly jump to every section.
7988 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
7989 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
7990 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
7991 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
7992 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
7994 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7996 *** Info documentation is now available.
7998 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
7999 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
8001 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
8002 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
8004 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
8005 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
8007 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
8008 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
8009 appropriate functions.
8011 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
8012 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
8014 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
8017 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
8018 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
8020 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
8023 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
8024 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
8025 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
8027 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
8028 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
8029 prefixed with `ALT'.
8031 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
8032 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
8033 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
8036 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
8037 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
8038 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
8040 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
8041 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
8043 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
8044 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
8045 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
8047 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
8049 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
8051 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
8054 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
8055 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
8058 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
8061 *** Added support for imenu.
8063 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
8064 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
8065 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
8066 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
8068 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
8069 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
8071 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
8073 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
8075 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
8076 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
8077 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
8080 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
8081 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
8083 ** browse-url changes
8085 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
8086 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
8087 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
8088 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
8089 customization variables.
8091 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
8093 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
8094 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
8095 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
8099 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
8100 pops up the Info file for this command.
8102 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
8103 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
8104 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
8107 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
8108 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
8109 files in the same directory.
8111 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
8112 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
8113 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
8117 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
8118 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
8120 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
8121 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
8122 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
8123 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
8124 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
8125 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
8126 color when Viper is in insert state.
8127 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
8128 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
8129 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
8133 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
8134 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
8135 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
8136 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
8137 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
8139 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
8141 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
8142 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
8144 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
8145 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
8146 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
8148 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
8149 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
8150 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
8151 methods and protocols.
8153 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
8154 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
8155 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
8158 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
8159 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
8160 at least M times and as many as N times.
8162 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
8163 in files has changed slightly.
8165 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
8166 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
8167 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
8168 with old time-stamp-format values.
8170 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
8171 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
8172 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
8175 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
8176 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
8177 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
8178 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
8179 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
8180 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
8182 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
8183 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
8184 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
8186 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
8187 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
8188 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
8189 recommended now will continue to work then.
8191 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
8194 ** There are some additional major modes:
8196 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
8197 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
8198 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
8200 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
8201 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
8204 ** New Lisp packages include:
8206 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
8208 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
8209 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
8211 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
8213 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
8216 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
8217 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
8220 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
8221 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
8222 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
8223 strings or comments.
8225 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
8226 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
8227 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
8228 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
8231 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
8232 can visit them by short forms of their names.
8234 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
8235 Emacs Lisp function at point.
8237 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
8239 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
8240 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
8242 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
8244 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
8246 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
8248 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
8249 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
8251 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
8252 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
8253 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
8254 original place after inserting the copy.
8256 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
8259 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
8260 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
8261 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
8263 Enable mouse-drag with:
8264 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
8266 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
8268 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
8269 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
8271 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
8272 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
8276 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
8277 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
8278 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
8279 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
8280 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
8281 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
8282 instance) and vice versa.
8284 To use this package load it using
8285 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
8286 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
8287 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
8288 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
8289 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
8290 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
8292 *** Interface to ph.
8294 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
8296 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
8297 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
8300 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
8302 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
8303 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
8304 while the real cursor does not move.
8306 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
8307 for visiting your favorite web sites.
8309 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
8310 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
8314 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
8315 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
8316 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
8317 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
8319 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
8321 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
8323 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
8325 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
8326 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
8327 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
8328 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
8329 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
8331 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
8332 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
8333 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
8334 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
8335 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
8336 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
8338 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
8340 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
8341 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
8342 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
8343 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
8345 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
8346 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
8348 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
8349 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
8352 ** Basic Lisp changes
8354 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
8355 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
8357 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
8358 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
8361 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
8363 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
8365 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
8366 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
8368 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
8369 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
8372 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
8374 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
8376 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
8378 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
8379 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
8380 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
8383 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
8384 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
8385 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
8387 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
8388 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
8389 adding one of these suffixes.
8391 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
8392 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
8393 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
8395 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
8396 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
8398 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
8400 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
8401 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
8403 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
8404 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
8406 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
8408 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
8409 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
8411 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
8412 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
8413 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
8414 works using `save-current-buffer'.
8416 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
8417 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
8420 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
8421 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
8422 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
8425 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
8426 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
8429 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
8431 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
8432 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
8433 Then it returns that string.
8435 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
8437 (with-output-to-string
8438 (princ "The buffer is ")
8439 (princ (buffer-name)))
8441 returns "The buffer is foo".
8443 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
8446 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
8447 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
8448 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
8450 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
8451 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
8453 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
8454 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
8455 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
8456 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
8457 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
8458 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
8460 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
8461 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
8462 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
8465 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
8466 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
8467 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
8468 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
8469 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
8471 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
8472 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
8473 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
8474 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
8476 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
8477 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
8479 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
8481 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
8482 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
8483 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
8484 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
8487 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
8488 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
8491 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
8493 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
8494 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
8495 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
8496 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
8497 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
8499 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
8501 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
8502 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
8503 more than the number of characters.
8505 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
8506 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
8507 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
8508 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
8509 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
8510 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
8512 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
8513 and returns a string containing those characters.
8515 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
8516 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
8517 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
8518 character, sref signals an error.
8520 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
8521 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
8522 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
8524 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
8525 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
8526 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
8528 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
8529 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
8530 to a vector of the characters in it.
8532 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
8533 of a string. You call it as follows:
8535 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
8537 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
8538 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
8539 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
8540 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
8541 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
8543 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
8544 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
8546 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
8547 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
8549 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
8550 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
8551 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
8552 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
8554 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
8556 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
8558 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
8559 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
8560 are not included in the resulting value.
8562 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
8563 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
8564 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
8565 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
8567 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
8568 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
8569 character extends across that column), then the padding character
8570 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
8571 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
8572 column START-COLUMN.
8574 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
8575 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
8576 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
8577 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
8578 changed text, before the change.
8580 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
8581 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
8582 one character set for each script, not for each language.
8584 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
8586 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
8588 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
8589 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
8591 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
8592 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
8593 which identify the character within that character set.
8595 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
8596 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
8597 opposite of split-char.
8599 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
8600 of all the characters between BEG and END.
8602 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
8603 of all the characters in a string.
8605 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
8606 and specifying coding systems.
8608 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
8609 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
8610 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
8611 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
8612 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
8613 as what to do about code conversion.)
8615 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
8616 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
8618 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
8619 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
8620 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
8622 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
8623 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
8624 to match against a file name.
8626 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
8627 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
8628 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
8629 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
8630 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
8631 specifies the coding system for encoding.
8633 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
8634 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
8636 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
8637 the coding system to use for network sockets.
8639 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
8640 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
8641 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
8644 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
8645 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
8646 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
8647 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
8648 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
8649 specifies the coding system for encoding.
8651 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
8652 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
8654 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
8655 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
8656 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
8657 start the subprocess.
8659 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
8660 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
8661 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
8662 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
8663 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
8665 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
8666 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
8669 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
8670 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
8671 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
8672 connection permanently or until overridden.
8674 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
8675 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
8676 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
8677 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
8678 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
8679 system for one operation at a time.
8681 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
8682 files, subprocesses or network connections.
8684 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
8685 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
8686 The value is a cons cell,
8687 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
8688 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
8689 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
8690 input to the subprocess.
8692 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
8693 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
8695 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
8696 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
8697 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
8699 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
8700 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
8701 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
8702 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
8705 Thus, instead of writing
8707 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
8708 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
8710 you would now write this:
8712 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
8713 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
8717 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
8718 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
8719 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
8720 for a description of them.
8722 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
8723 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
8725 (defgroup ispell nil
8726 "Spell checking using Ispell."
8729 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
8730 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
8731 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
8732 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
8733 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
8735 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
8736 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
8737 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
8738 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
8739 first-level subgroups.
8741 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
8743 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
8744 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
8748 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
8749 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
8750 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
8751 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
8752 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
8753 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
8755 ** Text property changes
8757 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
8760 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
8761 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
8762 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
8763 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
8764 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
8766 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
8767 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
8768 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
8769 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
8771 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
8772 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
8773 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
8775 ** Changes in invisibility features
8777 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
8778 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
8779 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
8780 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
8781 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
8782 make the overlay visible.
8784 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
8785 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
8786 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
8787 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
8788 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
8789 t when it should hide it.
8791 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
8793 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
8794 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
8795 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
8796 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
8797 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
8798 Here is an example of how to do this:
8800 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
8801 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
8802 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
8803 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
8806 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
8809 ;; When done with the overlays:
8810 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
8812 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
8814 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
8816 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
8817 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
8818 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
8819 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
8821 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
8822 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
8823 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
8825 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
8826 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
8828 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
8829 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
8831 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
8832 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
8833 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
8835 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
8836 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
8837 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
8838 determine the syntax type of the character.
8840 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
8841 of the current buffer.
8843 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
8844 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
8845 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
8847 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
8848 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
8849 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
8850 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
8851 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
8853 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
8856 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
8857 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
8858 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
8860 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
8861 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
8862 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
8863 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
8864 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
8866 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
8867 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
8868 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
8870 ** Changes in face features
8872 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
8873 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
8875 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
8876 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
8878 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
8879 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
8881 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
8882 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
8884 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
8885 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
8886 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
8887 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
8890 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
8891 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
8893 ** Changes in file-handling functions
8895 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
8896 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
8897 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
8898 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
8900 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
8903 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
8904 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
8906 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
8907 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
8909 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
8910 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
8912 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
8913 character code conversion as well as other things.
8915 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
8916 (formerly it did not).
8918 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
8919 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
8921 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
8922 instead of constant strings.
8924 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
8925 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
8926 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
8928 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
8929 in the same way as before.
8931 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
8932 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
8933 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
8935 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
8936 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
8937 else, and returns nil.
8939 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
8940 directory cannot be listed.
8942 ** Changes in minibuffer input
8944 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
8945 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
8946 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
8947 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
8950 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
8951 It is available through the history command M-n.
8953 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
8954 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
8955 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
8956 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
8957 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
8959 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
8960 argument in this way.
8962 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
8963 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
8964 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
8966 ** Echo area features
8968 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
8969 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
8970 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
8971 after the echo area is cleared.
8973 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
8974 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
8976 ** Keyboard input features
8978 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
8979 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
8981 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
8982 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
8985 ** Frame-related changes
8987 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
8988 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
8989 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
8991 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
8992 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
8993 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
8995 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
8996 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
8997 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
8998 in the selected frame.
9000 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
9001 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
9002 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
9004 ** X Windows features
9006 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
9007 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
9008 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
9010 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
9011 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
9013 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
9014 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
9015 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
9017 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
9018 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
9020 ** Subprocess features
9022 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
9023 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
9026 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
9027 and returns the output from the command as a string.
9029 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
9030 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
9032 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
9033 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
9035 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
9036 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
9037 goes after the other menu items.
9039 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
9040 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
9041 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
9044 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
9045 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
9047 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
9048 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
9051 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
9052 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
9053 but its hook is still run.
9055 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
9056 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
9058 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
9059 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
9060 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
9062 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
9063 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
9064 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
9067 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
9068 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
9070 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
9071 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
9072 functions like display-time.
9074 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
9075 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
9077 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
9078 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
9079 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
9081 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
9082 if there is an error in compilation.
9084 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
9085 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
9086 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
9087 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
9089 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
9090 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
9091 the *scratch* buffer.
9093 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
9094 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
9095 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
9096 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
9098 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
9099 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
9100 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
9102 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
9103 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
9104 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
9105 and compose-mail-other-frame.
9107 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
9108 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
9109 full name of the specified user will be returned.
9111 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
9112 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
9113 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
9114 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
9115 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
9118 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
9119 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
9120 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
9121 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
9123 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
9124 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
9125 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
9126 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
9128 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
9130 ** imenu.el changes.
9132 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
9133 item from menu created by imenu.
9135 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
9136 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
9137 select one of those items.
9139 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
9141 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
9142 Copyright information:
9144 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
9146 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
9147 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
9148 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
9149 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
9151 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
9152 of this document, or of portions of it,
9153 under the above conditions, provided also that they
9154 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
9158 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"