1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2000-08-14
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 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 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
13 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
15 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
16 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
18 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
19 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
22 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
23 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
25 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
26 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
28 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
29 support 64-bit executables. See etc/MACHINES for instructions.
32 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
34 * When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
35 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
37 ** Polish and German translations of Emacs' reference card have been
38 added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex' and `de-refcard.tex'.
39 Postscript files are included.
41 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
44 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
45 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
47 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
48 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
49 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
50 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
51 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
52 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
55 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
56 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
57 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
58 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
60 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
61 a version-dependent component.
63 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
64 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
65 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
66 character is still bound as before.
68 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
71 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
72 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
75 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
76 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
77 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
78 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
79 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
80 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
81 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
84 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
85 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
86 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
87 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
88 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
89 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
90 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
91 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
92 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
94 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
95 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
98 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
99 point in a pop-up window.
102 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
103 displays all characters in that character set.
105 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
106 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
109 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
110 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
111 defined on newcomment.el.
114 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
116 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
117 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
120 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
121 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
122 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
123 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
126 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
127 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
128 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
129 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
132 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
133 on the display using several methods
136 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
137 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
138 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
141 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
142 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
144 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
146 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
147 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
150 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
151 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
152 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
153 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
156 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
157 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
158 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
160 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
161 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
163 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
164 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
167 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
168 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
172 ** New X resources recognized
174 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
175 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
176 is useful for debugging X problems.
180 emacs.synchronous: true
182 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
183 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
184 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
185 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
186 visual class names are
195 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
196 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
199 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
200 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
201 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
206 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
208 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
209 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
210 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
211 resource values are `true' or `on'.
215 emacs.privateColormap: true
217 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
218 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
219 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
221 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
222 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
223 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
227 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
230 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
231 all frames except the selected one.
233 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
234 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
236 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
237 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
238 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
239 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
241 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
242 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
244 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
245 read mail from the menu etc.
247 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
248 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
250 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
252 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
256 -------------------------
263 ** Changes in Outline mode.
265 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
266 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
267 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
269 ** Changes to Emacs Server
271 *** There new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
272 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
273 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
274 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
275 buffers to kill, as before.
277 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
278 i.e. buffers visited which `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
281 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
283 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
284 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
285 use. Default is 1000.
287 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
288 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
291 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
292 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
293 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
297 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
298 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
301 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
302 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
304 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
305 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
306 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
308 ** Faces and frame parameters.
310 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
311 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
312 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
313 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
314 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
315 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
316 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
318 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
319 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
320 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
321 `default' face and vice versa.
325 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
326 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
327 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
330 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
332 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
333 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
334 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
335 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
337 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
338 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
339 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
341 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
344 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
346 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
347 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
348 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
349 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
352 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
354 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
355 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
356 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
357 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
360 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
361 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
362 under Lisp changes, below.
364 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
367 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
368 of its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid;
369 otherwise, it is hollow.
371 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
372 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
373 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
374 customizing face `fringe'.
376 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
377 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
381 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see <http://www.lesstif.org>).
382 You will need a version 0.88.1 or later.
384 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
386 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
387 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
388 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
389 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
390 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
393 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
394 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
395 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
396 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
397 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
398 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
400 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
401 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
402 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
403 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
404 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
405 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
407 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
408 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
409 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
410 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
411 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
413 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
415 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
416 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
417 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
420 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
422 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
423 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
424 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
425 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
426 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
431 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
432 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
437 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
438 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
439 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
442 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
444 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
445 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
446 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
449 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
450 have to do anything to activate it.
452 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
454 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
455 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
456 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
457 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
459 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
462 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
464 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
466 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
469 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
472 ** Hscrolling in C code.
474 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
475 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
480 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
481 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
484 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
486 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
487 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
488 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
489 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
490 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
492 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
494 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
497 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
498 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
500 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
502 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
503 `*') toggles the status.
505 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
507 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
509 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
510 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
513 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
515 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
516 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
517 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
518 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
519 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
520 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
525 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
526 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
527 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
530 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
531 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
532 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
533 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
534 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
535 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
537 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
539 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
541 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
542 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
543 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
545 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
546 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
548 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
549 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
550 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
552 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
554 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
555 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
556 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
557 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
559 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
560 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
561 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
562 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
564 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
565 notably at the end of lines.
567 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
568 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
571 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
573 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
574 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
575 after each match to get the replacement text.
577 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
578 you edit the replacement string.
580 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
581 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
582 lisp-complete-symbol.
584 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
586 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
587 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
588 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
589 window size by setting the following variable:
591 - User option: max-mini-window-height
593 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
594 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
595 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
599 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
601 ** Changes to hideshow.el
603 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
604 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
606 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
608 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
609 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
610 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
611 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
612 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
613 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
615 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
616 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
617 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
618 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
620 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
622 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
623 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
624 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
625 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
626 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
628 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
629 something like this in your .emacs.
631 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
633 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
635 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
638 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
639 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
640 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
643 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
647 New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries in
650 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
651 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
653 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
654 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
655 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be cutomized.
656 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
658 ** Changes in Font Lock
660 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
661 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
664 ** Comint (subshell) changes
666 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
667 distiguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
668 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
669 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
670 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
671 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
672 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
673 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
675 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
676 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
678 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
679 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
680 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
682 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
683 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
684 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
686 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and scheme-interaction-mode
687 now highlight user input and program prompts, and support choosing
688 previous input with mouse-2. To control these feature, see the
689 user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
691 ** Changes to Rmail mode
693 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
694 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
695 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
696 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
697 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
700 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
701 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
702 regexp matching your mail addresses.
704 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
705 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
706 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
707 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
708 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
710 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
713 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
714 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
717 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
718 in which folder to put messages automatically.
720 ** Changes to TeX mode
722 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
725 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
727 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
728 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
729 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
730 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
731 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
732 can be edited from that buffer.
734 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
735 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
736 `A' to use all marked entries).
738 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
739 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
741 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
742 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
743 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
746 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
747 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
748 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
749 in column 1 are always made leaves.
751 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
752 has the following new features:
754 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
755 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
756 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
757 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
759 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
760 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
761 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
762 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
763 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
766 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
772 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
773 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
774 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
776 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
777 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
778 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
779 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
784 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
785 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
786 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
788 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
789 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
792 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
793 between custom options. Example:
795 (defcustom default-input-method nil
796 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
797 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
798 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
800 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
801 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
803 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
804 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
805 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
807 ** New features in evaluation commands
809 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
810 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
811 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
812 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
813 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
815 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
816 code when called with a prefix argument.
820 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
821 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
822 spell-checks the current buffer.
824 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
827 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
828 correction is made and re-checked.
830 *** An Italian and a Portuguese dictionary definition has been added.
832 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
835 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
838 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
843 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
844 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
845 is, delete only empty directories.
847 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
848 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
849 copy directories recursively.
851 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
852 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
853 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
855 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
856 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
859 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
860 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
861 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
862 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
863 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
865 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
868 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
869 use the -f option when sending mail.
873 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
874 current user setups (although it's believed that these
875 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
876 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
877 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
878 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
881 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
882 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
883 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
884 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
885 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
888 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
889 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
890 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
891 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
892 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
893 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
895 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
896 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
897 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
898 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
899 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
900 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
901 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
902 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
904 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
905 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
906 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
907 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
910 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
911 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
912 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
913 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
914 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
915 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
916 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
917 function documentation for more info.
919 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
920 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
921 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
922 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
923 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
924 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
925 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
926 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
928 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
930 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
931 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
933 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
934 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
935 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
936 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
937 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
940 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
941 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
942 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
945 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
946 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
947 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
948 chapter about this in the manual.
950 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
951 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
952 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
953 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
954 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
956 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
957 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
958 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
960 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
961 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
963 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
964 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
965 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
968 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
969 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
970 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
971 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
974 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
975 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
976 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
979 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
980 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
981 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
982 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
985 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
986 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
987 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
988 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
991 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
992 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
993 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
995 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
997 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
998 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
999 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1000 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1002 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1003 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1004 the column specified by comment-column.
1006 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1007 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1008 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1009 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1010 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1011 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1013 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1014 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1017 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1019 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1020 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1021 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1022 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1025 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1027 ** Makefile mode changes
1029 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1031 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1032 Fontlock mode is active.
1036 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1037 so that searches can be resumed.
1039 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1040 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1041 that started the search.
1043 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1044 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1046 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1048 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1049 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1050 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1051 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1052 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1053 `secondary-selection'.
1055 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1056 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1057 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1058 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1059 usual snappy response.
1061 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1062 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1063 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1064 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1066 ** Changes in sort.el
1068 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1069 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1070 new user-option sort-numberic-base can be used to specify a default
1073 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1076 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1077 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1078 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1080 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1081 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1083 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1084 output ^M at the end of lines.
1086 ** Shell script mode changes.
1088 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1089 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1090 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1094 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1096 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1097 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1098 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1099 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1100 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1102 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1103 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1105 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1106 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1108 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1111 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1113 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1115 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1118 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1119 variables are tagged.
1121 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1123 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1126 ** Changes in etags.el
1128 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1129 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1130 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1132 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1133 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1135 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1136 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1137 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1138 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1140 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1142 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1143 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1145 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1147 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1148 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1149 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1151 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1152 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1154 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1155 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1158 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1159 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1160 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1162 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1163 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1164 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1165 There is currently no specific input method support for them.
1168 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1169 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1170 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1172 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1175 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1177 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignore-regexps'
1178 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1179 expression from that list, are not checked.
1181 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1182 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1183 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1184 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1186 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1188 ** New modes and packages
1191 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1192 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1193 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1194 on certain projects.
1196 *** The new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1197 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1199 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1201 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1202 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1203 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1204 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1205 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1206 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1207 corresponding file is read.
1210 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1213 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1214 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1216 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1217 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1218 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1221 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1222 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1223 separate Texinfo file.
1226 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1227 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1228 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1229 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1230 enter checkin log messages.
1233 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1234 without invoking external programs.
1236 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1237 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1238 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1239 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1240 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1242 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1243 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1245 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1246 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1248 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1249 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1250 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1251 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1252 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1255 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1256 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1257 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1258 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1261 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1262 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1263 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1265 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1268 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1270 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1272 ; comment (until end of line)
1276 $A default non-terminal
1277 $"C" default terminal
1278 $?C? default special
1279 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1280 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1281 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1282 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1283 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1284 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1285 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1286 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1287 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1288 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1289 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1290 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1291 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1292 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1293 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1295 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1297 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1298 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1299 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1300 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1301 equal signs of assignments.
1304 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1305 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1308 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1309 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1310 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1311 customize the package.
1313 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1315 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1316 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1317 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1318 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1319 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1320 which answers different needs.
1323 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1324 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1325 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1326 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1327 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1331 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1332 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1335 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1338 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1340 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1342 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1345 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1348 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1351 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1353 *** whitespace.el ???
1355 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1356 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1357 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1358 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1359 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1360 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1361 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1363 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1365 Here is an example of columns:
1368 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1369 porcupine strawberry airplane
1371 Doing the following settings:
1373 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1374 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1375 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1376 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1379 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1381 M-x delimit-columns-region
1385 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1386 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1387 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1389 delim-col has the following options:
1391 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1394 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1395 between each column.
1397 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1400 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1403 delim-col has the following commands:
1405 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1406 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1409 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1410 were operated on recently.
1412 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1414 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1415 recentf at Emacs startup.
1417 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1418 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1419 file list can be displayed:
1421 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1422 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1423 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1425 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1426 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1428 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1432 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1433 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1434 specific to Message mode.
1437 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1438 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1439 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1442 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1443 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1444 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1446 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1447 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1450 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1452 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1453 minibuffer with completion.
1455 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1456 with the diary features.
1458 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1459 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1461 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1464 ** Withdrawn packages
1466 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1467 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1469 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1471 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1474 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1475 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1478 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
1479 is running in batch mode. For example,
1481 (message "%s" (read t))
1483 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
1487 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
1488 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
1490 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1491 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1494 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1497 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1499 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1500 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1502 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1504 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1505 comparison is done with `eq'.
1507 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1509 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1513 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1514 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1515 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1517 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1518 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1520 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1521 function was declared obsolete.
1523 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1524 retained as an alias).
1526 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1527 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1528 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1530 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1532 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1534 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1535 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1537 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1539 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1541 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1543 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1544 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1545 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1546 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1549 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1550 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1551 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1552 minibuffer even if it is active.
1554 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1555 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1556 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1557 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1558 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1559 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1561 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1562 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1563 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1564 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1565 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1566 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1567 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1569 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1570 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1571 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1573 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1574 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1575 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1576 Default value is nil.
1578 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1581 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1582 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1583 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1585 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1588 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1589 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1590 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1591 than replacing the local map.
1593 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1594 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1596 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1598 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1601 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1603 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1605 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1606 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1607 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1608 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1610 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
1611 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
1612 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
1613 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
1615 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1616 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1617 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1618 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1620 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1621 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1622 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1624 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1625 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1626 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1627 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1628 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1629 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1630 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1633 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1635 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1636 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1637 character set as previously.
1639 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1640 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1641 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1643 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1644 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1645 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1646 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1648 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1649 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1651 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1652 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1655 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1656 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1658 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1659 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1660 buffers and strings.
1662 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1663 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1664 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1665 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1666 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1667 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1668 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1671 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1672 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1673 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1675 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1676 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1677 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1678 may differ between buffer and string text.
1680 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1681 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1683 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1684 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1685 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1686 `composition' from STRING.
1688 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1689 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1691 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1694 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1695 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1696 character set is not used.
1698 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1699 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1700 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1703 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1704 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1705 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1708 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1709 that offset in the file before writing.
1711 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1712 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1714 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1715 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1716 from which the command was issued.
1718 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1719 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1720 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1721 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1724 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1725 to `window-buffer-height'.
1727 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1729 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1730 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1731 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1733 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1736 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1737 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1739 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1740 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1741 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1743 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1744 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1745 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1746 is currently displayed in some window.
1748 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1749 argument function's results.
1751 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1752 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1754 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1755 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1757 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1758 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1760 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1761 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1764 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1765 nil don't display a cursor
1766 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1767 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1768 others display a box cursor.
1770 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1771 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1772 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1773 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1775 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1776 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1777 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1778 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1782 (string-to-syntax "()")
1785 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1788 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1789 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1796 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1801 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1806 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1813 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1814 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1817 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1818 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1819 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1820 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1823 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1825 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1826 for a regexp in a string.
1828 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1829 `mouse-position-function'.
1831 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1832 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1834 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1835 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1838 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1841 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1842 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1845 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1846 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1847 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1848 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1852 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1853 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1856 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1857 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1858 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1859 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1862 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1863 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1864 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1865 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1868 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1869 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1870 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1873 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1874 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1877 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1879 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1880 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1881 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1885 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1886 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1889 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1890 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1893 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1894 instead of being optional.
1897 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1898 modify read-only text.
1901 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1903 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1904 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1905 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1906 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1907 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1909 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1910 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1911 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1912 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1913 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1914 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1915 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1918 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1919 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1920 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1924 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1925 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1928 ** New function `propertize'
1930 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1931 strings with text properties.
1933 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1935 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1936 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1937 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1938 specified value of that property. Example:
1940 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1943 ** push and pop macros.
1945 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1946 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1947 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1949 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1950 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1951 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1953 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1955 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1956 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1958 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1959 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1960 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1961 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1963 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1964 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1965 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1966 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1969 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1970 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1972 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1973 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1974 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1975 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1976 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1978 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1980 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1981 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1982 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1983 [:alpha:] matches letters.
1984 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1985 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1986 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
1987 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
1988 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
1989 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
1990 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1991 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
1992 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
1993 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
1994 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
1997 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
1999 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2001 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2003 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2004 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2008 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2009 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2010 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2014 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2015 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2017 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2019 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2020 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2021 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2022 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2023 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2025 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2027 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2028 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2029 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2033 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2034 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2035 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2036 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2037 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2039 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2041 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2043 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2045 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2047 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2049 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2052 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2054 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2056 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2058 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2060 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2062 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2064 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2066 Returns the size of TABLE.
2068 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2070 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2072 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2074 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2076 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2080 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2082 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2085 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2087 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2088 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2090 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2092 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2094 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2096 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2097 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2099 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2101 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2103 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2105 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2106 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2107 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2108 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2109 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2111 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2113 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2114 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2115 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
2117 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
2118 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
2120 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
2121 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
2123 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2124 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2126 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2127 'case-fold-string-hash))
2129 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2132 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2134 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2135 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2136 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2139 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2141 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2142 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2145 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2146 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2147 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2148 is too short to reach that column.
2151 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2152 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2153 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2154 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2156 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2157 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2158 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2161 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2162 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2165 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2166 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2169 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2170 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2171 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2172 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2173 temporary-file-directory instead.
2176 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2177 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2178 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2179 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2182 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2183 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2186 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2188 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2189 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2190 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2193 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2195 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2196 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2197 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2198 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2199 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2200 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2202 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2203 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2204 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2205 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2208 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2210 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2211 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2212 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2215 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2216 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2220 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2222 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2223 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2226 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2229 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2231 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2232 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2235 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2237 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2238 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2244 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2245 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2247 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2248 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2249 to enable sound support.
2251 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2252 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2253 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2254 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2255 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2257 The following sound properties are supported:
2261 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2262 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2266 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2267 may be present, but not both.
2271 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2272 0..1. This property is optional.
2274 Other properties are ignored.
2276 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2278 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2281 ** Changes to garbage collection
2283 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2284 of live and free strings.
2286 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2287 strings that have been consed so far.
2290 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2294 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2296 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2299 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2301 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2303 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2304 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2305 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2306 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2307 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2309 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2310 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2313 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2316 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center'.
2318 When this property is specified, the image is vertically centered
2319 around a centerline which would be the vertical center of text drawn
2320 at the position of the image, in the manner specified by the text
2321 properties and overlays that apply to the image.
2324 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2326 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2327 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2328 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2329 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2331 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2332 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2334 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2335 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2336 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2337 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2338 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2339 just display it black instead.
2341 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2344 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2348 ** New face implementation.
2350 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2351 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2356 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2358 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2360 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2361 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2363 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2365 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2367 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2369 6. Foreground color.
2371 7. Background color.
2373 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2375 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2377 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2379 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2381 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2384 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2385 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2387 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2388 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2389 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2390 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2391 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2392 attributes mentioned above.
2394 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2395 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2398 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2399 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2405 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2406 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2407 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2408 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2409 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2410 results in a fully-specified face.
2413 *** Face realization.
2415 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2416 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2417 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2418 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2419 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2420 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2422 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2423 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2424 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2425 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2427 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2428 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2429 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2430 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2431 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2433 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2434 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2435 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2436 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2437 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2440 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2441 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2442 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2443 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2446 **** Clearing face caches.
2448 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2449 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2455 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2456 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2457 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2459 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2460 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2461 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2462 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2463 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2465 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2466 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2467 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2469 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2471 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2472 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2473 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2474 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2475 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2476 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2477 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2479 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2480 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2486 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2487 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2490 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2491 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2492 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2493 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2494 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2497 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2499 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2502 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2504 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2506 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2507 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2508 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2510 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2511 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2512 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2513 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2514 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2515 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2516 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2517 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2518 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2519 of the face font sort order.
2521 - Function: x-font-family-list
2523 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2524 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2525 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2526 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2528 - Variable: font-list-limit
2530 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2531 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2532 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2535 *** Setting face attributes.
2537 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2538 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2539 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2542 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2543 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2545 The following attributes are recognized:
2549 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2550 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2551 and `?' are allowed.
2555 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2556 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2557 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2558 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2562 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
2567 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2568 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2569 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2573 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2574 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2577 `:foreground', `:background'
2579 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2583 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2584 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2585 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2590 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2591 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2592 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2597 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2598 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2599 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2600 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2604 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2605 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2606 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2607 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2608 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2609 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2610 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2611 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2612 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2613 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2614 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2615 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2616 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2617 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2618 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2619 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2624 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2625 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2629 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2630 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2631 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2632 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2633 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2634 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2636 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2637 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2641 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2642 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2643 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2646 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2647 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2648 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2650 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2653 *** Face attributes and X resources
2655 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2658 Face attribute X resource class
2659 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2660 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2661 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2662 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2663 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2664 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2665 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2666 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2667 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2668 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2669 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2670 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2671 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2672 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2673 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2674 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2675 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2676 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2677 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2678 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2681 *** Text property `face'.
2683 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2684 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2685 specification can be
2687 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2689 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2690 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2691 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2692 for face attribute names.
2694 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2695 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2696 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2699 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2701 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2702 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2703 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2704 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2705 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2706 used to clear the mapping table.
2708 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2710 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2711 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2712 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2713 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2714 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2715 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2716 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2717 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2718 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2719 modify their color-related behavior.
2721 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2724 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2726 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2727 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2728 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2729 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2730 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2731 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2732 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2733 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2734 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2737 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2739 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2741 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2742 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2743 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2745 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2747 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2748 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2749 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
2751 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2752 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2753 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2754 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2755 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2756 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2757 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2760 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2761 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2762 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2764 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2766 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
2768 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2770 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2771 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2772 constrained position if that is is different.
2774 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2775 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2776 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2777 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
2778 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2779 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2780 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
2781 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
2782 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
2784 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2785 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2786 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2787 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2788 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2790 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
2791 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
2793 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
2795 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
2797 Delete the field surrounding POS.
2798 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2799 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2801 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2803 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
2804 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2805 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2806 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
2807 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2809 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2811 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2812 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2813 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2814 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
2815 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2817 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2819 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2820 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2821 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2823 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2825 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2826 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2827 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2832 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2833 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2834 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2835 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2837 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2838 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2839 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2840 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2843 IMAGE is an image specification.
2845 *** Image specifications
2847 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
2848 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
2849 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
2850 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
2851 described below are ignored.
2853 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
2857 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
2858 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
2859 to use for its ascent.
2861 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
2862 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
2864 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
2865 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
2866 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
2867 overlays that apply to the image.
2871 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2872 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2876 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2881 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2882 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2883 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2884 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2886 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2888 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2889 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2890 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2891 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2892 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2893 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2894 background of the image.
2898 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2899 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2900 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2901 may be present in the image specification.
2905 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2906 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2907 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2908 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2910 *** Supported image types
2912 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2914 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2915 properties supported are
2919 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2920 is the frame's foreground.
2924 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2925 the frame's background color.
2927 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2928 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2929 instead of a `:file' property.
2933 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2937 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2943 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2944 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2946 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2948 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2951 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
2952 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
2955 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2957 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2958 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2959 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2960 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2962 Additional image properties supported are:
2964 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2966 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2967 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2970 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2971 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2973 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2974 to display compressed images.
2976 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2978 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
2979 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
2982 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
2984 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
2985 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
2988 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
2990 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
2991 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2994 **** GIF, image type `gif'
2996 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
2997 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
2999 Additional image properties supported are:
3003 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3004 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
3006 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3007 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3008 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3011 (defun show-anim (file max)
3012 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3013 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3015 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
3018 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
3021 (goto-char (point-min))
3022 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
3023 (insert-image img "x"))
3024 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
3026 **** PNG, image type `png'
3028 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
3029 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3032 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
3034 Additional image properties supported are:
3038 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
3039 integer. This is a required property.
3043 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
3044 must be a integer. This is an required property.
3048 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
3049 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
3050 files. This is an required property.
3052 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
3057 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
3058 which are supported in the current configuration.
3060 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
3061 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
3062 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
3063 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
3064 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
3066 *** Simplified image API, image.el
3068 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
3069 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
3070 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
3071 define an image based on available image types. The functions
3072 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
3078 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
3081 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
3082 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
3083 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
3084 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
3085 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3086 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3087 of the display margins.
3089 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
3090 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
3091 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
3092 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
3098 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
3099 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
3100 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
3101 that have a `help-echo' property.
3103 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
3104 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
3105 the window in which the help was found.
3107 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
3108 `help-echo' text property was found.
3110 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
3111 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
3113 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
3114 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
3117 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
3118 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
3120 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
3121 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
3122 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
3123 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
3124 used as help string.
3126 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
3127 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
3128 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
3131 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3133 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3134 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3136 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3137 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3138 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3139 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3142 (global-set-key [A-down]
3145 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3146 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3147 (global-set-key [A-up]
3150 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3151 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3154 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3156 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3157 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3158 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3159 is called with one argument, POS.
3161 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3162 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3163 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3164 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3165 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3168 ** Tool bar support.
3170 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3171 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3172 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3173 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3174 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3175 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3177 *** Tool bar item definitions
3179 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3180 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3181 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3183 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3184 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3185 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3186 property (see below).
3188 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3189 binding are currently ignored.
3191 The following properties are recognized:
3195 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3200 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3204 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3205 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3206 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3208 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3210 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3211 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3215 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3216 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3217 meaning of each of the four elements:
3219 Index Use when item is
3220 ----------------------------------------
3221 0 enabled and selected
3222 1 enabled and deselected
3223 2 disabled and selected
3224 3 disabled and deselected
3226 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3227 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3229 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3231 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3232 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3234 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3236 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3237 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3238 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3240 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3241 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3243 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3244 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3245 pixels. Default is 1.
3247 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3248 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3250 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3252 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3255 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3256 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3257 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3259 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3261 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3263 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3266 ** Mode line changes.
3269 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3271 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3272 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3273 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3275 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3276 a `local-map' text property.
3278 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3279 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3281 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3282 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3283 `local-map' property.
3285 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3286 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3289 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3290 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3293 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3294 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3297 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3299 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3300 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3301 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3302 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3305 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3308 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3309 position in the header-line.
3312 ** Text property `display'
3314 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3315 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3316 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3317 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3319 *** Variable width and height spaces
3321 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3322 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3323 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3324 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3325 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3326 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3327 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3329 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3330 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3331 properties described below.
3333 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3334 characters having the `display' property.
3338 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3339 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3341 - :relative-width FACTOR
3343 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3344 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3345 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3346 width of that character by FACTOR.
3350 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3351 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3353 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3357 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3360 - :relative-height FACTOR
3362 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3363 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3367 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3368 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3369 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3372 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3376 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3377 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3378 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3379 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3380 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3381 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3382 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3383 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3384 as display specification.
3386 *** Other display properties
3388 - :space-width FACTOR
3390 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3391 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3396 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3398 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3399 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3400 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3401 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3402 a font is available counts as a step.
3404 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3405 as tall as the frame's default font.
3407 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3408 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3410 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3411 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3415 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3416 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3417 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3418 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3419 `:height' subproperty.
3421 *** Conditional display properties
3423 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3424 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3425 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3426 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3427 the text having the `display' property.
3429 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3433 ** New menu separator types.
3435 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3436 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3437 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3438 to specify other menu separator types.
3440 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3442 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3445 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3447 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3449 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3451 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3453 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3455 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3457 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3459 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3461 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3463 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3464 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3466 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3468 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3470 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3472 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3474 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3476 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3478 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3480 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3482 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3484 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3486 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3488 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3490 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3492 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3494 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3495 the corresponding single-line separators.
3498 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3500 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3501 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3502 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3503 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3504 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3505 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3506 default foreground is black.
3508 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3509 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3510 `ScrollBarBackground').
3512 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3513 settings for scroll bar colors.
3516 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3517 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3520 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3521 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3522 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3523 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3524 the original window start.
3527 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3528 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3529 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3532 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3534 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3535 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3536 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3537 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3539 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3540 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3542 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3544 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3545 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3546 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3547 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3548 temporarily to nil, for example
3550 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3551 (enlarge-window 10))
3553 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3554 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3556 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3557 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3558 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3559 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3560 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3561 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3565 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3567 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3570 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3572 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3574 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3575 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3576 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3577 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3578 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3580 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3584 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3586 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3589 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3591 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3592 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3594 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3596 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3598 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3599 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3600 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3602 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3603 is the one that is used.
3605 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3606 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3607 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3608 separate from the command's regular output.
3609 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3610 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3611 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3614 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3615 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3616 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3617 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3619 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3620 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3621 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3622 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3624 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3625 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3626 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3627 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3629 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3630 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3631 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3632 they never ignore case.
3634 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3635 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3636 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3637 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3638 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3639 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3640 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3642 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3643 the same format that was used in the file before.
3645 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3646 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3648 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3649 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3650 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3652 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3653 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3654 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3655 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3656 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3657 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3658 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3660 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3661 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3662 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3663 format. You can now customize these variables.
3665 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3666 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3667 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3668 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3670 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3671 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3672 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3674 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3675 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3676 doesn't have any effect.
3678 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3681 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3682 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3683 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3685 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3686 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3687 `auto-show-mode' command.
3689 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3690 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3691 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3692 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3693 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3695 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3696 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3698 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3699 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3700 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3702 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3703 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3704 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3705 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3707 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3709 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3710 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3711 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3712 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3713 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3715 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3716 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3718 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3719 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3720 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3721 `?' on other systems.
3723 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3724 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3727 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3728 current codepage when it starts.
3732 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3733 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3734 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3735 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3736 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3737 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3741 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3742 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3744 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3745 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3746 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3747 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3748 buffer-file-coding-system.
3750 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3751 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3754 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3755 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3756 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3757 list of possible coding systems.
3761 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3762 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3763 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3764 docstring for details.
3766 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3767 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3768 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3769 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3770 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3772 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3773 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3775 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3776 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3778 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3779 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3780 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3781 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3784 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3785 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3787 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3788 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3789 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3790 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3792 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3793 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3794 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3795 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3796 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3798 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3800 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
3802 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
3803 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
3805 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
3807 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
3808 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
3809 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
3810 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
3811 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
3815 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
3816 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
3817 Gnus manual for the full story.
3819 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
3820 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
3821 group, which is created automatically.
3823 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
3826 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
3828 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
3829 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
3831 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
3834 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
3836 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
3837 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
3839 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
3841 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
3842 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
3844 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
3845 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
3847 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
3848 control over simplification.
3850 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
3852 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
3855 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
3857 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
3859 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
3860 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
3861 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
3863 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
3864 `a' forces normal posting method.
3866 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
3869 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
3872 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
3873 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
3875 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
3878 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
3880 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
3882 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
3883 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
3885 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
3886 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
3888 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
3890 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
3893 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
3894 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
3896 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
3897 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
3899 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
3901 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
3903 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
3905 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
3907 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
3908 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
3909 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
3911 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
3912 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
3913 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
3914 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
3915 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3917 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3918 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3919 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3920 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3922 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3923 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3924 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3927 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3929 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3930 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3932 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3933 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3934 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3935 removed from the label.
3937 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3938 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3940 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3941 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3943 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3944 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3947 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3949 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3951 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3952 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3954 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3955 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3956 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3958 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3959 changes with a special face.
3961 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3962 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3963 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3965 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3967 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3968 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3969 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3970 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3971 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3973 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3974 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3975 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3977 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3978 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
3979 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
3980 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
3981 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
3982 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
3983 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
3984 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
3985 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
3987 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
3988 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
3989 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
3990 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
3991 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
3994 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
3995 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
3996 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
3997 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
3998 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
3999 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
4001 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
4002 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
4003 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
4004 was not documented clearly before.
4006 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
4007 This includes Tetris and Snake.
4009 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
4011 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
4012 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
4013 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
4014 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
4016 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
4017 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
4018 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
4020 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
4022 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
4023 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
4025 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
4026 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
4029 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
4030 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
4031 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
4032 file names and attributes are returned.
4034 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
4035 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
4036 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
4037 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
4040 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
4041 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
4043 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
4045 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
4046 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
4047 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
4050 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
4051 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
4054 The new function process-running-child-p
4055 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
4056 terminal to its own child process.
4058 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
4059 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
4060 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
4061 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
4063 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
4064 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
4066 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
4067 :included is an alias for :visible.
4069 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
4070 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
4071 to move or copy menu entries.
4073 ** Multibyte editing changes
4075 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
4076 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
4077 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
4078 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
4079 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
4080 (setq char (sref str idx)
4081 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
4082 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
4084 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
4085 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
4086 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
4088 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
4089 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
4090 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
4092 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
4094 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
4095 across the boundary.
4097 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
4098 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
4099 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
4100 contains 8-bit characters.
4101 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
4102 contains invalid characters.
4104 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
4105 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
4106 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
4107 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
4110 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
4111 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
4112 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
4113 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
4115 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
4116 compose Thai characters in a string.
4118 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
4119 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
4120 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
4121 menus should always use the third argument.
4123 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
4124 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
4125 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
4126 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
4128 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
4129 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
4130 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
4131 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
4133 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4134 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4135 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4138 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4140 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4141 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4142 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4144 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4145 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4146 means to clear out that attribute.
4148 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4149 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4151 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4152 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4153 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4154 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4156 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4157 the gap of the current buffer.
4159 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4160 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4163 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4164 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4165 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4166 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4168 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4170 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4171 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4172 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4173 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4174 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4176 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4177 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4178 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4179 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4180 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4182 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4183 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4184 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4186 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4187 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4188 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4189 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4190 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4193 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4194 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4195 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4196 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4198 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4200 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4201 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4202 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4203 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4205 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4206 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4207 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4208 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4209 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4210 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4211 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4214 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4217 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4218 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4219 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4220 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4221 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4223 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4224 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4225 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4226 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4228 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4229 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4230 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4231 something that most users not do.
4233 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4234 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4235 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4238 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4241 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4242 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4243 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4244 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4247 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4248 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4249 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4250 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4251 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4254 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4255 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4256 to be confused by TeX commands.
4258 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4259 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4260 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4261 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4263 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4264 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4265 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4266 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4267 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4269 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4270 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4272 ** Changes in input method usage.
4274 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4275 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4278 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4280 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4281 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4283 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4284 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4286 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4288 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4290 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4291 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4293 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4294 given in the following case:
4295 o When you are using a complex input method.
4296 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4298 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4299 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4300 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4301 setting it to t is helpful.
4303 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4305 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4307 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4308 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4309 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4310 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4313 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4314 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4315 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4318 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4320 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4322 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4323 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4325 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4326 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4327 its owner and group.
4329 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4330 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4332 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4333 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4335 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4336 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4337 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4338 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4340 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4341 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4342 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4343 for writing keyboard macros.
4345 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4346 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4347 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4348 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4349 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4352 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4354 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4355 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4358 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4359 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4360 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4361 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4363 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4364 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4365 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4367 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4368 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4369 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4370 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4372 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4373 failure if the command produces no output.
4375 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4376 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4379 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4380 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4381 function and variable names.
4383 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4384 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4385 file-coding-system-alist.
4387 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4388 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4389 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4390 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4391 according to the current fontset.
4393 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4395 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4396 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4397 nonascii-insert-offset.
4399 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4400 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4401 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4402 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4404 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4405 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4407 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4408 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4410 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4411 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4414 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4415 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4417 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4418 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4419 all variables that have documentation.
4421 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4422 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4423 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4424 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4425 it should show; the default is 20.
4427 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4428 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4431 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4432 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4433 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4434 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4435 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4436 Newly added options are included as well.
4438 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4439 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4440 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4442 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4445 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4446 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4448 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4449 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4452 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4453 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4456 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4457 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4458 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4459 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4462 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4464 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4465 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4466 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4468 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4469 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4470 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4475 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4476 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4478 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4479 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4481 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4482 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4484 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4485 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4486 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4487 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4488 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4489 made invisible again.
4491 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4493 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4494 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4495 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4498 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4499 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4500 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4501 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4502 rmail-default-body-file.
4504 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4505 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4506 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4508 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4509 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4510 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4512 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4513 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4514 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4515 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4516 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4517 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4519 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4520 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4521 provided by feedmail are:
4523 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4524 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4525 there is also a queue for draft messages
4527 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4528 be prompted for confirmation
4530 **** does smart filling of address headers
4532 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4533 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4534 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4536 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4537 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4538 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4539 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4543 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4544 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4546 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4547 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4549 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4550 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4551 for a specified regexp.
4555 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4558 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4559 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4562 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4563 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4564 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4565 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4567 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4568 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4569 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4570 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4571 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4573 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4574 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4575 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4576 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4577 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4579 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4580 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4581 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4582 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4584 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4585 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4586 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4588 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4589 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4590 session to resolve them.
4592 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4593 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4594 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4597 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4598 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4599 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4600 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4601 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4602 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4605 ** Changes in Font Lock
4607 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4608 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4609 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4610 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4611 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4613 ** Frame name display changes
4615 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4616 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4617 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4618 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4620 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4621 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4624 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4626 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4627 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4628 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4630 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4632 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4633 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4634 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4636 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4637 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4640 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4641 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4642 previously sent input.
4644 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4645 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4646 as the search string.
4648 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4649 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4653 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4654 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4655 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4658 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4659 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4660 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4661 style is still the default however.
4663 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4665 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4666 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4667 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4669 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4670 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4672 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4673 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4675 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4676 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4678 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4679 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4681 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4682 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4683 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4684 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4686 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4688 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4689 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4690 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4692 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4693 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4694 expanding dynamically.
4696 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4697 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4699 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4700 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4701 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4702 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4704 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4706 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4708 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4709 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4710 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4711 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4712 against the first word in the title.
4714 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4715 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4716 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4717 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4718 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4719 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4721 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4722 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4723 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4724 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4726 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4728 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4729 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4730 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4731 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4732 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4733 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4735 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4736 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4738 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4739 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4740 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4742 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4743 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4747 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4748 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4749 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4751 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4752 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4753 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4754 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4757 o URLs are automatically skipped
4758 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4760 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4762 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4764 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4765 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4766 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4767 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4769 *** New recursive parser.
4771 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4772 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4773 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4775 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4777 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4778 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4779 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4781 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4783 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4785 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4787 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4789 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4791 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4792 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4794 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4796 *** References to external documents.
4798 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4799 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4800 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
4801 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
4802 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
4803 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
4804 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
4806 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
4808 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
4809 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
4811 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
4812 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
4814 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
4816 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
4817 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
4819 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
4821 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
4822 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
4823 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
4824 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
4825 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
4826 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
4829 *** Support for the varioref package
4831 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
4835 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
4836 and citations are created. These hooks are
4837 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
4838 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
4840 *** Citations outside LaTeX
4842 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
4843 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
4845 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
4847 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
4848 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
4851 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
4853 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
4854 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
4855 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
4856 directories that contain the same file name.
4858 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
4859 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
4860 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
4861 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
4862 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
4863 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
4864 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
4867 ** New modes and packages
4869 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
4870 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
4871 it, but some do not.
4873 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
4876 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
4877 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
4880 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
4882 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
4883 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
4884 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
4885 established system of notation similar to Chess.
4887 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
4888 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
4889 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
4891 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
4892 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
4893 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
4894 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
4895 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
4898 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
4899 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
4901 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
4902 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
4903 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
4904 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
4906 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
4908 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
4909 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
4910 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
4911 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
4912 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
4913 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
4914 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
4915 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
4916 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
4917 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
4918 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
4920 Platform-specific modes:
4922 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4923 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4924 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4925 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4926 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4927 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4928 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4929 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4930 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4932 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4934 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4935 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4936 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4937 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4939 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4940 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4941 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4943 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4944 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4945 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4946 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4948 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4949 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4950 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4953 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4954 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4955 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4956 current input method for reading this one event.
4958 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4959 now control whether to output certain characters as
4960 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4961 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4962 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4963 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4965 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4967 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4968 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4970 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4971 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4972 always increases point by 1.
4974 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4975 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4977 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4979 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
4980 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
4981 default value changed. For example,
4983 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
4988 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
4991 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
4992 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
4993 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
4994 `:version' in the top level group.
4996 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
4998 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
4999 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
5001 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
5002 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
5003 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
5006 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
5007 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
5010 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
5011 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
5012 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
5014 ** Frame-local variables.
5016 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
5017 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
5018 local bindings for that variable.
5020 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
5021 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
5022 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
5025 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
5026 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
5027 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
5028 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
5030 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
5031 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
5032 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
5033 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
5035 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
5036 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
5037 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
5038 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
5039 See the documentation in sregex.el.
5041 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
5042 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
5043 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
5044 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
5046 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
5047 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
5049 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
5050 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
5051 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
5053 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
5054 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
5055 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
5056 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
5058 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
5059 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
5062 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
5063 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
5064 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
5065 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
5066 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
5068 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
5069 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
5070 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
5071 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
5073 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
5074 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
5075 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
5076 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
5077 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
5079 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
5080 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
5081 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
5082 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
5084 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
5085 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
5086 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
5088 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
5089 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
5090 was directed to display this buffer.
5092 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
5093 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
5094 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
5095 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
5096 set-window-configuration.
5098 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
5099 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
5100 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
5101 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
5103 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
5104 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
5105 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
5107 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
5108 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
5109 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
5111 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
5112 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
5114 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
5115 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
5117 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
5118 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
5119 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
5121 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
5122 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
5123 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
5124 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
5128 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
5129 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
5132 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
5133 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5134 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5135 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5136 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5138 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5140 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5141 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5142 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5143 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5146 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5147 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5148 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5149 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5150 The supported properties include
5152 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5154 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5155 item should appear in the menu.
5157 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5158 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5159 It should return a binding to use instead.
5161 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5162 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5163 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5164 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5165 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5168 This means that the command normally has no
5169 keyboard equivalent.
5170 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5171 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5172 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5173 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5174 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5176 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5177 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5179 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5183 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5184 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5185 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5186 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5188 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5190 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5191 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5192 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5193 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5194 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5195 forward, away from the user.
5197 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5199 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5200 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5201 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5202 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5203 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5205 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5207 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5208 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5209 that were dragged and dropped.
5211 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5213 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5215 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5216 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5217 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5219 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5220 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5221 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5223 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5224 in Emacs 19 and before.
5226 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5227 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5229 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5230 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5231 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5232 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5234 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5235 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5236 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5237 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5238 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5240 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5241 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5242 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5243 consistent with the new representation.
5245 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5246 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5247 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5248 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5250 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5251 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5252 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5254 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5255 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5256 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5258 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5259 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5260 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5262 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5263 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5265 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5266 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5268 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5269 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5270 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5271 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5273 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5274 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5276 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5277 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5278 buffer or string being searched.
5280 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5281 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5282 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5283 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5284 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5285 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5286 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5288 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5290 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5291 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5292 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5293 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5294 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5295 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5296 define-coding-system-alias.
5298 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5299 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5300 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5301 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5302 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5303 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5304 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5307 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5308 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5309 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5310 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5312 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5313 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5314 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5315 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5317 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5318 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5319 This function requires a user interaction.
5321 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5322 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5323 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5324 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5325 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5326 select-safe-coding-system.
5328 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5329 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5330 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5333 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5334 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5335 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5337 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5338 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5339 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5340 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5342 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5343 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5344 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5347 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5348 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5350 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5351 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5352 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5353 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5354 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5355 range of characters.
5357 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5358 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5360 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5361 in the current buffer at position POS.
5363 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5364 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5365 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5366 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5367 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5368 binding input-method-function to nil.
5370 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5371 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5372 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5373 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5374 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5376 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5377 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5379 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5380 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5382 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5383 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5384 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5385 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5386 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5388 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5390 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5391 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5392 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5395 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5396 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5398 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5399 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5400 in your .emacs file.)
5402 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5403 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5405 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5406 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5408 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5409 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5412 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5413 delete the character before point, as usual.
5415 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5416 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5417 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5419 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5420 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5421 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5422 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5423 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5426 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5427 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5428 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5429 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5430 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5432 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5433 and is an alias for it.
5435 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5436 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5438 ** Scrolling changes
5440 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5441 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5443 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5444 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5447 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5448 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5449 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5450 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5452 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5453 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5454 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5455 recenters the window.
5457 ** International character set support (MULE)
5459 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5460 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5461 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5462 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5463 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5464 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5466 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5467 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5468 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5469 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5470 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5472 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5473 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5474 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5475 language, to make it possible to type them.
5477 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5478 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5480 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5481 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5483 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5485 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5487 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5488 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5489 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5490 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5491 characters for their work until they want to change.
5495 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5496 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5497 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5498 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5499 support several input methods.
5501 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5502 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5505 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5506 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5507 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5508 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5509 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5512 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5513 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5514 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5515 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5516 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5518 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5519 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5520 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5521 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5523 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5524 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5525 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5526 the first guess is wrong.
5528 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5529 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5531 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5532 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5533 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5534 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5536 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5537 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5538 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5539 translate automatically to and from either one.
5541 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5543 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5544 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5545 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5548 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5549 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5550 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5551 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5553 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5554 character conversion as well.
5556 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5558 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5559 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5560 requires using many fonts.
5562 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5563 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5565 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5566 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5567 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5568 you would use a font.
5570 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5571 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5572 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5574 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5575 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5576 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5577 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5578 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5580 *** Defining fontsets.
5582 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5583 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5584 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5586 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5587 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5588 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5589 standard fontset are created automatically.
5591 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5592 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5593 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5594 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5595 name is `fontset-startup'.
5597 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5598 The resource value should have this form:
5599 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5600 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5601 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5602 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5603 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5604 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5605 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5606 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5607 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5609 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5610 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5611 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5613 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5614 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5616 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5617 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5618 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5619 Here is the substitution rule:
5620 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5621 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5622 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5623 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5624 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5626 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5627 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5628 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5630 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5631 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5632 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5633 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5636 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5637 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5639 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5640 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5641 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5642 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5643 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5644 system for new files that you create.
5646 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5647 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5648 whole Emacs session.
5650 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5651 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5652 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5654 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5655 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5656 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5657 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5658 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5660 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5661 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5662 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5663 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5664 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5666 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5667 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5669 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5670 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5672 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5673 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5675 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5676 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5677 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5678 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5681 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5682 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5683 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5684 translated into that character code.
5686 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5687 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5689 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5691 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5692 the coding system for keyboard input.
5694 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5695 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5696 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5698 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5700 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5701 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5702 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5703 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5704 designed to work with terminals.
5706 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5707 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5708 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5709 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5710 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5711 in the corresponding buffer.
5713 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5715 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5716 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5717 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5719 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5720 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5721 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5724 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5725 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5727 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5728 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5729 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5730 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5732 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5733 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5734 related information.
5736 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5737 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5740 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5741 information about the support for a particular language.
5742 You specify the language as an argument.
5744 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5745 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5748 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5749 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5750 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5751 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5753 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5755 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5756 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5757 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5758 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5759 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5760 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5761 K euc-korea (Korean)
5764 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5767 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5768 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5769 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5773 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5774 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5775 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5776 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5778 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5779 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5781 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5782 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5783 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5784 Rmail files themselves.
5786 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5787 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5789 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5792 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5793 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5794 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5795 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5796 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5798 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5799 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5800 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
5803 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
5804 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
5805 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
5806 without any conversion.
5808 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
5809 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
5810 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
5811 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
5813 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
5814 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
5816 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
5817 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
5819 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
5820 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
5822 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
5823 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
5824 in the buffer before point.
5826 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
5827 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
5830 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
5831 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
5833 ** File locking works with NFS now.
5835 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
5836 in the same directory as FILENAME.
5838 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
5839 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
5840 can become a bottleneck.
5842 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
5843 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
5844 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
5845 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
5846 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
5847 so useful that the change is worth while.
5849 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
5850 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
5851 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
5852 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
5854 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
5855 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
5858 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
5859 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
5860 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
5862 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
5863 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
5864 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
5866 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
5867 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
5868 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
5870 ** Changes in View mode.
5872 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
5873 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
5875 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
5876 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
5878 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
5881 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
5882 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
5884 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
5885 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
5886 not just the selected window.
5888 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
5889 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
5890 turns View mode on or off.
5892 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
5893 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
5894 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
5896 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
5897 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
5899 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
5900 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
5901 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
5902 which version to compare with.
5904 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
5905 blocks if a match is inside the block.
5907 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
5908 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
5909 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
5910 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
5912 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
5913 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
5914 blocks, all of them or none.
5916 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
5917 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
5920 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5921 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5922 However, the mode will not be changed if
5923 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5924 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5925 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5926 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5928 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5930 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5931 these commands do not change the major mode.
5933 ** M-x occur changes.
5935 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5936 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5938 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5939 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5940 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5942 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5943 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5944 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5945 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5946 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5948 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5949 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5950 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5951 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5953 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5954 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5955 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5957 ** Outline mode changes.
5959 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5961 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5963 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5964 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5965 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5968 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5969 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5972 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5973 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5975 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5977 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5978 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
5979 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
5980 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
5982 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
5983 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
5984 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
5986 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
5987 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
5990 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
5991 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
5992 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
5993 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
5995 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
5996 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
5997 can be. The default value is 30.
5999 ** Changes in Mail mode.
6001 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
6002 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
6003 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
6004 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
6005 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
6008 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
6009 compose-mail-other-frame.
6011 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
6012 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
6013 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
6014 buffer that shows the original message.
6016 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
6017 with separator lines around the contents.
6019 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
6020 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
6021 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
6022 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
6024 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
6026 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
6027 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
6028 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
6029 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
6031 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
6032 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
6035 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
6036 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
6039 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
6040 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
6041 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
6042 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
6044 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
6045 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
6046 be taken to be magic.
6048 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
6049 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
6050 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
6052 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
6053 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
6055 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
6056 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
6058 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
6060 new key dired.el binding old key
6061 ------- ---------------- -------
6062 * c dired-change-marks c
6064 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
6065 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
6066 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
6068 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
6069 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
6070 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
6071 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
6072 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
6073 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
6077 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
6078 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
6079 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
6080 each time you run it.
6082 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
6083 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
6085 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
6086 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
6087 means to move in the opposite direction.
6089 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
6090 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
6092 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
6093 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
6094 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
6095 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
6100 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
6102 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
6105 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
6106 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
6108 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
6111 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
6113 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
6115 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
6117 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
6118 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
6119 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
6121 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
6123 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
6125 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
6126 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
6128 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
6129 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
6130 used to pick articles.
6132 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
6133 another have been added.
6135 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6137 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6138 generating lines in buffers.
6140 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6143 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6145 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6147 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6149 *** Scores can be decayed.
6151 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6153 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6154 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6156 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6159 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6161 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6162 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6164 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6166 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6167 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6169 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6170 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6172 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6175 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6176 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6178 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6180 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6182 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6184 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6186 Use the `Y c' command.
6188 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6190 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6192 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6194 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6195 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6197 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6199 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6201 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6202 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6204 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6206 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6207 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6208 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6209 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6212 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6213 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6214 particular news group. This can be done by:
6216 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6218 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6219 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6220 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6221 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6222 for reading and posting).
6224 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6225 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6226 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6227 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6230 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6231 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6233 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6234 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6235 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6236 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6237 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6239 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6240 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6244 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6245 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6246 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6247 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6248 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6251 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6252 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6253 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6254 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6255 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6256 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6258 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6259 of the current buffer.
6261 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6262 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6263 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6265 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6266 style that the Python developers like.
6268 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6269 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6270 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6274 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6275 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6276 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6278 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6279 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6282 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6283 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6285 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6286 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6287 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6288 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6290 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6291 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6293 ** Calendar changes.
6295 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6296 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6297 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6301 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6303 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6305 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6306 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6307 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6308 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6309 It defaults to `letter'.
6310 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6312 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6313 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6314 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6316 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6317 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6320 *** Horizontal layout
6322 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6323 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6324 All are measured in points.
6328 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6329 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6330 All are measured in points.
6334 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6335 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6336 margin above the text.
6338 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6339 framing box is printed around the header.
6341 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6342 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6344 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6345 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6346 `ps-header-font-size'.
6350 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6351 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6352 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6353 elements to this alist.
6355 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6356 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6358 ** hideshow changes.
6360 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6363 *** Support for java-mode added.
6365 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6366 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6368 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6369 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6370 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6372 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6373 robust and a lot faster.
6375 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6377 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6378 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6379 documentation for more details.
6381 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6383 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6384 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6385 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6386 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6387 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6389 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6390 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6391 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6392 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6398 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6399 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6400 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6401 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6402 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6403 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6405 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6407 *** Maximum decoration
6409 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6410 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6411 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6412 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6413 to get the old behavior.
6417 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6419 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6420 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6422 *** Configurable support
6424 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6425 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6426 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6427 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6428 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6429 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6430 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6432 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6433 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6434 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6436 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6438 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6439 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6442 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6444 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6450 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6451 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6452 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6453 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6455 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6457 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6458 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6459 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6461 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6463 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6464 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6465 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6466 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6467 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6468 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6469 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6471 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6472 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6473 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6474 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6475 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6476 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6478 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6480 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6481 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6482 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6483 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6485 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6488 ** Ada mode changes.
6490 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6491 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6492 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6493 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6496 *** There are two new commands:
6497 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6498 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6500 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6501 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6502 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6504 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6505 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6506 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6508 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6509 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6510 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6511 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6513 ** Scheme mode changes.
6515 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6516 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6517 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6518 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6521 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6522 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6523 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6524 variables as buffer-local variables.
6526 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6529 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6531 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6532 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6533 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6534 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6536 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6537 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6540 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6541 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6542 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6543 option takes precedence.
6545 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6546 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6547 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6549 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6550 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6553 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6554 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6556 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6557 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6560 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6561 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6562 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6563 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6564 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6565 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6567 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6568 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6569 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6570 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6572 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6573 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6574 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6575 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6576 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6578 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6579 since it applies only to the current frame.
6581 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6582 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6583 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6585 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6586 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6587 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6588 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6589 instead of just the file you are editing.
6593 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6594 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6595 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6596 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6597 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6600 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6601 knows which kind of label is needed.
6603 C-c ) reftex-reference
6604 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6605 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6607 C-c [ reftex-citation
6608 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6609 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6611 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6612 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6615 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6616 can quickly jump to every section.
6618 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6619 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6620 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6621 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6622 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6624 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6626 *** Info documentation is now available.
6628 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6629 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6631 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6632 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6634 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6635 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6637 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6638 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6639 appropriate functions.
6641 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6642 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6644 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6647 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6648 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6650 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6653 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6654 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6655 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6657 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6658 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6659 prefixed with `ALT'.
6661 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6662 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6663 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6666 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6667 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6668 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6670 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6671 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6673 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6674 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6675 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6677 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6679 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6681 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6684 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6685 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6688 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6691 *** Added support for imenu.
6693 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6694 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6695 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6696 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6698 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6699 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6701 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6703 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6705 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6706 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6707 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6710 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6711 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6713 ** browse-url changes
6715 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6716 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6717 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6718 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6719 customization variables.
6721 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6723 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6724 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6725 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6729 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6730 pops up the Info file for this command.
6732 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6733 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6734 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6737 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6738 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6739 files in the same directory.
6741 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6742 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6743 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6747 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6748 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6750 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6751 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6752 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6753 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6754 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6755 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6756 color when Viper is in insert state.
6757 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6758 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6759 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6763 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6764 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6765 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6766 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6767 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6769 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6771 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6772 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6774 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6775 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6776 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6778 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6779 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6780 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6781 methods and protocols.
6783 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6784 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6785 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6788 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6789 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6790 at least M times and as many as N times.
6792 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6793 in files has changed slightly.
6795 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6796 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6797 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6798 with old time-stamp-format values.
6800 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
6801 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
6802 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
6805 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
6806 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
6807 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
6808 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
6809 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
6810 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
6812 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
6813 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
6814 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
6816 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
6817 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
6818 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
6819 recommended now will continue to work then.
6821 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
6824 ** There are some additional major modes:
6826 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
6827 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
6828 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
6830 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
6831 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
6834 ** New Lisp packages include:
6836 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
6838 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
6839 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
6841 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
6843 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
6846 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
6847 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
6850 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
6851 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
6852 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
6853 strings or comments.
6855 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
6856 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
6857 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
6858 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
6861 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
6862 can visit them by short forms of their names.
6864 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
6865 Emacs Lisp function at point.
6867 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
6869 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
6870 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
6872 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
6874 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
6876 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
6878 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
6879 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
6881 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
6882 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
6883 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
6884 original place after inserting the copy.
6886 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
6889 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
6890 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
6891 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
6893 Enable mouse-drag with:
6894 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
6896 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
6898 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
6899 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
6901 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
6902 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
6906 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
6907 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
6908 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
6909 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
6910 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
6911 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
6912 instance) and vice versa.
6914 To use this package load it using
6915 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
6916 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
6917 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
6918 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
6919 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
6920 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6922 *** Interface to ph.
6924 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6926 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6927 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6930 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6932 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6933 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6934 while the real cursor does not move.
6936 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6937 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6939 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6940 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6944 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6945 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6946 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6947 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6949 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6951 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6953 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6955 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6956 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6957 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6958 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6959 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6961 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6962 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6963 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6964 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6965 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6966 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6968 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6970 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6971 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6972 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6973 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6975 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6976 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6978 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
6979 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
6982 ** Basic Lisp changes
6984 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
6985 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
6987 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
6988 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
6991 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
6993 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
6995 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
6996 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
6998 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
6999 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
7002 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
7004 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
7006 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
7008 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
7009 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
7010 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
7013 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
7014 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
7015 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
7017 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
7018 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
7019 adding one of these suffixes.
7021 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
7022 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
7023 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
7025 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
7026 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
7028 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
7030 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
7031 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
7033 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
7034 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
7036 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
7038 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
7039 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
7041 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
7042 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
7043 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
7044 works using `save-current-buffer'.
7046 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
7047 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
7050 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
7051 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
7052 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
7055 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
7056 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
7059 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
7061 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
7062 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
7063 Then it returns that string.
7065 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
7067 (with-output-to-string
7068 (princ "The buffer is ")
7069 (princ (buffer-name)))
7071 returns "The buffer is foo".
7073 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
7076 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
7077 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
7078 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
7080 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
7081 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
7083 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
7084 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
7085 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
7086 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
7087 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
7088 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
7090 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
7091 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
7092 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
7095 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
7096 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
7097 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
7098 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
7099 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
7101 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
7102 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
7103 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
7104 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
7106 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
7107 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
7109 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
7111 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
7112 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
7113 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
7114 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
7117 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
7118 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
7121 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
7123 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
7124 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
7125 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
7126 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
7127 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
7129 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
7131 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
7132 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
7133 more than the number of characters.
7135 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7136 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7137 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7138 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7139 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7140 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7142 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7143 and returns a string containing those characters.
7145 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7146 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7147 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7148 character, sref signals an error.
7150 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7151 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7152 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7154 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7155 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7156 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7158 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7159 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7160 to a vector of the characters in it.
7162 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7163 of a string. You call it as follows:
7165 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7167 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7168 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7169 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7170 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7171 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7173 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7174 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7176 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7177 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7179 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7180 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7181 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7182 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7184 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7186 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7188 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7189 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7190 are not included in the resulting value.
7192 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7193 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7194 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7195 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7197 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7198 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7199 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7200 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7201 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7202 column START-COLUMN.
7204 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7205 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7206 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7207 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7208 changed text, before the change.
7210 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7211 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7212 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7214 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7216 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7218 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7219 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7221 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7222 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7223 which identify the character within that character set.
7225 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7226 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7227 opposite of split-char.
7229 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7230 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7232 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7233 of all the characters in a string.
7235 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7236 and specifying coding systems.
7238 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7239 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7240 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7241 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7242 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7243 as what to do about code conversion.)
7245 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7246 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7248 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7249 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7250 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7252 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7253 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7254 to match against a file name.
7256 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7257 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7258 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7259 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7260 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7261 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7263 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7264 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7266 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7267 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7269 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7270 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7271 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7274 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7275 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7276 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7277 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7278 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7279 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7281 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7282 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7284 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7285 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7286 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7287 start the subprocess.
7289 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7290 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7291 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7292 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7293 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7295 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7296 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7299 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7300 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7301 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7302 connection permanently or until overridden.
7304 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7305 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7306 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7307 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7308 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7309 system for one operation at a time.
7311 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7312 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7314 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7315 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7316 The value is a cons cell,
7317 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7318 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7319 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7320 input to the subprocess.
7322 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7323 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7325 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7326 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7327 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7329 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7330 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7331 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7332 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7335 Thus, instead of writing
7337 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7338 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7340 you would now write this:
7342 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7343 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7347 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7348 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7349 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7350 for a description of them.
7352 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7353 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7355 (defgroup ispell nil
7356 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7359 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7360 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7361 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7362 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7363 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7365 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7366 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7367 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7368 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7369 first-level subgroups.
7371 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7373 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7374 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7378 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7379 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7380 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7381 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7382 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7383 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7385 ** Text property changes
7387 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7390 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7391 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7392 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7393 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7394 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7396 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7397 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7398 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7399 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7401 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7402 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7403 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7405 ** Changes in invisibility features
7407 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7408 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7409 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7410 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7411 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7412 make the overlay visible.
7414 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7415 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7416 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7417 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7418 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7419 t when it should hide it.
7421 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7423 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7424 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7425 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7426 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7427 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7428 Here is an example of how to do this:
7430 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7431 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7432 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7433 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7436 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7439 ;; When done with the overlays:
7440 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7442 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7444 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7446 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7447 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7448 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7449 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7451 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7452 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7453 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7455 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7456 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7458 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7459 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7461 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7462 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7463 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7465 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7466 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7467 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7468 determine the syntax type of the character.
7470 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7471 of the current buffer.
7473 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7474 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7475 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7477 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7478 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7479 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7480 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7481 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7483 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7486 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7487 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7488 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7490 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7491 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7492 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7493 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7494 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7496 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7497 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7498 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7500 ** Changes in face features
7502 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7503 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7505 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7506 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7508 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7509 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7511 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7512 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7514 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7515 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7516 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7517 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7520 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7521 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7523 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7525 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7526 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7527 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7528 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7530 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7533 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7534 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7536 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7537 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7539 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7540 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7542 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7543 character code conversion as well as other things.
7545 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7546 (formerly it did not).
7548 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7549 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7551 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7552 instead of constant strings.
7554 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7555 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7556 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7558 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7559 in the same way as before.
7561 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7562 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7563 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7565 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7566 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7567 else, and returns nil.
7569 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7570 directory cannot be listed.
7572 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7574 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7575 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7576 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7577 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7580 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7581 It is available through the history command M-n.
7583 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7584 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7585 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7586 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7587 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7589 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7590 argument in this way.
7592 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7593 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7594 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7596 ** Echo area features
7598 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7599 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7600 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7601 after the echo area is cleared.
7603 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7604 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7606 ** Keyboard input features
7608 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7609 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7611 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7612 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7615 ** Frame-related changes
7617 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7618 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7619 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7621 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7622 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7623 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7625 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7626 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7627 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7628 in the selected frame.
7630 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7631 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7632 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7634 ** X Windows features
7636 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7637 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7638 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7640 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7641 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7643 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7644 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7645 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7647 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7648 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7650 ** Subprocess features
7652 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7653 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7656 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7657 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7659 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7660 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7662 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7663 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7665 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7666 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7667 goes after the other menu items.
7669 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7670 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7671 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7674 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7675 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7677 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7678 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7681 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7682 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7683 but its hook is still run.
7685 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7686 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7688 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7689 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7690 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7692 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7693 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7694 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7697 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7698 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7700 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7701 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7702 functions like display-time.
7704 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7705 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7707 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7708 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7709 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7711 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7712 if there is an error in compilation.
7714 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7715 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7716 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7717 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7719 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7720 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7721 the *scratch* buffer.
7723 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7724 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7725 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7726 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7728 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7729 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7730 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7732 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7733 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7734 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7735 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7737 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7738 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7739 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7741 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7742 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7743 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7744 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7745 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7748 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7749 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7750 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7751 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7753 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7754 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7755 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7756 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7758 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7760 ** imenu.el changes.
7762 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7763 item from menu created by imenu.
7765 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7766 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7767 select one of those items.
7769 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7771 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7773 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7774 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7776 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7777 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7778 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7780 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7782 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7783 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7785 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7786 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7787 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7788 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7789 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7792 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7793 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7795 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7796 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7797 as in previous Emacs versions.
7799 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7800 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
7801 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
7804 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
7805 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
7806 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
7807 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
7810 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
7811 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
7812 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
7813 line and then executing the macro.
7815 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
7817 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
7818 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
7819 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
7824 *** Font Lock support modes
7826 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
7827 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
7828 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
7829 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
7830 Font Lock mode is enabled.
7832 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
7834 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
7840 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
7841 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
7842 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
7843 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
7844 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
7845 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
7846 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
7848 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
7850 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
7852 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
7854 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7856 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
7859 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
7864 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
7865 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
7866 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
7867 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
7869 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
7870 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
7872 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
7873 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
7876 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
7877 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
7879 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
7881 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
7883 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
7885 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
7888 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
7890 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
7892 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
7894 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
7896 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
7899 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
7901 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
7903 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
7905 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
7907 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
7909 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
7911 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
7913 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
7916 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
7918 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
7921 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7923 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7924 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7926 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7928 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7930 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7932 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7934 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7937 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7939 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7940 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7942 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7943 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7944 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7946 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7947 articles with the `*' command.
7949 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7951 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7953 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7955 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7957 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7958 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7960 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7963 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7965 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7967 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7969 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7971 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7973 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7975 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7977 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7979 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
7981 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
7982 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
7984 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
7987 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
7989 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
7990 buffer to allow easier treatment.
7992 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
7994 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
7996 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
7998 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
8001 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
8003 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
8005 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
8006 cited text to hide is now customizable.
8008 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
8010 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
8012 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
8014 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
8016 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
8018 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
8021 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
8023 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
8024 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
8025 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
8028 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
8031 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
8034 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
8035 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
8038 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
8039 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
8040 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
8041 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
8042 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
8045 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
8047 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
8049 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
8050 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
8051 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
8052 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
8053 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
8055 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
8056 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
8057 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
8059 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
8061 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
8062 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
8063 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
8064 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
8065 chapter of the manual for details.
8067 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
8068 customization variables take effect.
8070 ** Marking with the mouse.
8072 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
8073 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
8074 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
8076 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
8078 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
8080 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
8081 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
8083 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
8084 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
8085 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
8086 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
8087 applications, these problems are significant.
8089 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
8090 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
8091 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
8092 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
8093 other DOS application as a subprocess.
8095 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
8096 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
8098 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
8099 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
8100 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
8101 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
8102 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
8103 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
8105 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
8107 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
8108 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
8109 minibuffer contains.
8111 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
8113 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
8114 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
8115 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
8116 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
8118 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
8119 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
8120 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
8121 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
8123 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
8124 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
8126 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
8127 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
8128 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
8130 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
8131 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
8132 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
8133 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8135 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8137 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8138 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8140 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8142 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8143 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8144 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8145 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8146 immediately after the selected one.
8148 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8149 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8151 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8153 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8154 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8155 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8156 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8159 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8160 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8163 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8164 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8165 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8166 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8167 now that the bug is fixed.
8169 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8171 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8172 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8173 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8174 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8176 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8177 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8178 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8179 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8181 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8182 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8183 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8185 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8186 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8187 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8188 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8191 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8192 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8194 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8195 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8196 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8197 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8199 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8200 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8201 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8202 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8203 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8204 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8206 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8207 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8208 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8209 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8211 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8212 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8213 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8215 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8216 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8217 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8218 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8219 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8220 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8221 to a limitation in font-lock).
8223 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8225 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8226 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8227 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8230 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8231 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8233 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8235 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8237 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8239 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8241 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8242 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8243 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8244 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8245 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8246 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8248 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8251 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8252 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8254 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8259 *** Global Font Lock mode
8261 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8262 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8263 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8264 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8265 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8267 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8269 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8273 *** Local Refontification
8275 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8276 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8277 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8278 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8280 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8281 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8282 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8283 above and below point.
8285 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8289 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8290 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8291 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8292 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8293 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8296 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8298 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8299 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8301 ** hide-show changes.
8303 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8304 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8307 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8308 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8310 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8311 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8312 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8316 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8317 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8319 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8320 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8322 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8324 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8325 pressing both mouse buttons.
8327 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8328 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8331 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8334 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8336 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8337 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8339 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8341 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8343 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8345 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8347 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8349 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8351 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8352 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8353 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8354 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8355 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8357 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8359 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8360 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8361 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8364 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8367 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8369 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8370 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8372 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8373 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8375 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8376 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8377 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8379 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8380 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8383 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8385 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8386 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8387 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8389 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8390 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8391 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8393 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8394 up if too much time passes.
8396 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8398 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8399 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8400 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8403 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8404 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8405 call looks like this:
8407 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8409 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8410 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8411 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8414 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8415 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8418 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8419 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8420 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8421 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8423 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8424 idle for SECS seconds.
8426 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8427 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8428 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8431 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8432 there is no answer within a certain time.
8434 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8436 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8437 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8438 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8440 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8441 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8442 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8443 arguments in between are ignored.
8445 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8446 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8448 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8449 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8450 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8451 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8454 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8455 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8456 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8457 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8458 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8459 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8461 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8462 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8463 systems with limited file name syntax.
8465 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8466 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8467 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8470 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8471 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8472 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8474 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8475 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8476 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8477 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8478 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8480 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8481 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8482 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8484 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8485 marker from its buffer position.
8487 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8488 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8489 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8491 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8492 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8493 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8494 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8495 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8496 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8498 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8499 errors that happen often during editing.
8501 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8502 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8503 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8505 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8506 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8508 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8509 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8510 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8511 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8512 and not get-buffer-window.
8514 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8515 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8516 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8518 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8519 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8520 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8521 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8522 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8523 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8524 over and over for the same text.
8526 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8528 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8529 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8531 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8534 in addition to the normal
8538 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8539 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8540 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8544 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
8546 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8547 Copyright information:
8549 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8551 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8552 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8553 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8554 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8556 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8557 of this document, or of portions of it,
8558 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8559 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8563 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"