1 Emacs TODO List -*-outline-*-
3 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
4 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
5 See the end of the file for license conditions.
8 If you are ready to start working on any of these TODO items, we
9 appreciate your help; please write to emacs-devel@gnu.org so we can be
10 aware that the problem is being addressed, and talk with you how to do
11 it best. Since Emacs is an FSF-copyrighted package, please be
12 prepared to sign legal papers to transfer the copyright on your work
15 * Small but important fixes needed in existing features:
17 ** "Options -> Save Options" should save the font set via "Set Font/Fontset"
18 I.e. mouse-set-font should use customize-face.
20 ** Compute the list of active keymaps *after* reading the first event.
22 ** mouse-autoselect-window should wait to select the window until
23 the mouse is put to rest or after a delay or both, so that moving over
24 a window doesn't select it.
26 ** In C-x d, the default if you type RET should be the directory name,
27 but if you type M-n you should get the visited file name of the
30 ** Distribute a bar cursor of width > 1 evenly between the two glyphs
31 on each side of the bar (what to do at the edges?).
33 ** Make vc-checkin avoid reverting the buffer if has not changed after
34 the checkin. Comparing (md5 BUFFER) to (md5 FILE) should be enough.
36 ** buffer-offer-save should be a permanent local.
38 ** revert-buffer should eliminate overlays and the mark.
40 ** erase-buffer should perhaps disregard read-only properties of text.
42 ** Make occur correctly handle matches that span more than one line,
43 as well as overlapping matches.
45 ** Fix the kill/yank treatment of invisible text. At the moment,
46 invisible text is placed in the kill-ring, so that the contents of
47 the ring may not correspond to the text as displayed to the user.
48 It ought to be possible to omit text which is invisible (due to a
49 text-property, overlay, or selective display) from the kill-ring.
51 ** Change the way define-minor-mode handles autoloading.
52 It should not generate :require. Or :require in defcustom
53 should not be recorded in the user's custom-set-variables call.
55 ** Feature to change cursor shape when Emacs is idle (for more than
58 ** The buttons at the top of a custom buffer should not omit
59 variables whose values are currently hidden.
61 ** Clean up the variables in browse-url. Perhaps use a shell command string to
62 specify the browser instead of the mushrooming set of functions.
63 See also ESR's proposal for a BROWSER environment variable
64 <URL:http://www.catb.org/~esr/BROWSER/browse-url.patch>.
66 ** Enhance scroll-bar to handle tall line (similar to line-move).
68 ** Make occur handle multi-line matches cleanly with context.
70 ** In Custom buffers, put the option that turns a mode on or off first,
71 using a heuristic of some kind?
73 ** Define recompute-arg and recompute-arg-if for fix_command to use.
74 See rms message of 11 Dec 05.
76 ** Height returned by frame-parameter ... and height given to
77 make-frame does not mean the same thing. The former includes menu and
78 tool bar lines, the latter don't. frame-parameter should return height
79 without menu and tool bar lines.
81 ** In Emacs Info, examples of using Customize should be clickable
82 and they should create Custom buffers.
84 ** The toolbar should show keyboard equivalents in its tooltips.
86 ** Add function to redraw the tool bar.
88 ** M-! M-n should fetch the buffer-file-name as the default.
90 ** Redesign the load-history data structure so it can cope better
91 with evaluating definitions of the same function from different files,
92 recording which file the latest definition came from.
94 ** make back_comment use syntax-ppss or equivalent.
96 ** Consider improving src/sysdep.c's search for a fqdn.
97 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2007-04/msg00782.html
99 ** Find a proper fix for rcirc multiline nick adding.
100 http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2007-04/msg00684.html
102 * Important features:
104 ** Provide user-friendly ways to list all available font families,
105 list fonts, display a font as a sample, etc. [fx is looking at
106 multilingual font selection for the Unicode branch of Emacs.]
108 ** Provide a convenient way to select a color with the mouse.
110 ** Rewrite the face code to be simpler, clearer and faster.
112 ** Program Enriched mode to read and save in RTF. [Is there actually a
113 decent single definition of RTF? Maybe see info at
114 http://latex2rtf.sourceforge.net/.] This task seems to be addressed
115 by http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/emacs-rtf/, which is still in
118 ** Implement something better than the current Refill mode. This
119 probably needs some primitive support.
121 ** Add a command to make a "Local Variables" section in the current buffer
122 and/or add a variable to the list.
124 ** Implement primitive and higher-level functions to allow filling
125 properly with variable-pitch faces.
127 ** Implement a smoother vertical scroll facility, one that allows
128 C-v to scroll through a tall image. The primitive operations
129 posn-at-point and posn-at-x-y should now make it doable in elisp.
131 ** Implement intelligent search/replace, going beyond query-replace
132 (see http://graphics.csail.mit.edu/~rcm/chi04.pdf).
134 ** Implement other text formatting properties.
135 *** Footnotes that can appear either in place or at the end of the page.
136 *** text property that says "don't break line in middle of this".
137 Don't break the line between two characters that have the
138 same value of this property.
139 *** Discretionary hyphens that are not visible when they are at end of line.
141 ** Internationalize Emacs's messages.
143 ** Set up a facility to save backtraces when errors happen during
144 specified filters, specified timers, and specified hooks.
146 ** Install mmc@maruska.dyndns.org's no-flicker change.
148 ** Add a "current vertical pixel level" value that goes with point,
149 so that motion commands can also move through tall images.
150 This value would be to point as window-vscroll is to window-start.
152 ** Address internationalization of symbols names essentially
153 as documentation, e.g. in command names and Custom.
155 ** Make the Lucid menu widget display multilingual text. [This
156 probably needs to be done from actual Emacs buffers, either directly
157 in the menu or by rendering in an unmapped window and copying the
158 pixels. The current code assumes a specific locale; that isn't good
159 enough even if X can render the arbitrary text] [The gtk
160 port now displays multilingual text in menus, but only insofar as
161 Emacs can encode it as utf-8 and gtk can display the result.]
162 Maybe making Lucid menus work like Gtk's (i.e. just force utf-8) is good
163 enough now that Emacs can encode most chars into utf-8.
165 ** Remove the limitation that window and frame widths and heights can
166 be only full columns/lines.
168 * Other features we would like:
170 ** Remove the default toggling behavior of minor modes when called from elisp
171 rather than interactively. This a trivial one-liner in easy-mode.el.
173 ** Create a category of errors called `user-error' for errors which are
174 typically due to pilot errors and should thus be in debug-ignored-errors.
176 ** Give Tar mode all the features of Archive mode.
178 ** Create a category of errors called `process-error'
179 for some or all errors associated with using subprocesses.
181 ** Maybe reinterpret `parse-error' as a category of errors
182 and put some other errors under it.
184 ** A function to tell you the argument pattern of functions.
185 See `function-arity' in http://www.loveshack.ukfsn.org/emacs/fx-misc.el.
187 ** Make byte-compile warn when a doc string is too wide.
189 ** Make byte-optimization warnings issue accurate line numbers.
191 ** A function to check for customizable options that have been
192 set but not saved, and ask the user whether to save them.
193 This could go in kill-emacs-query-functions, to remind people
194 to save their changes. If the user says yes, show them
195 in a Custom buffer using customize-customized.
197 ** Record the sxhash of the default value for customized variables
198 and notify the user (maybe by adding a menu item or toolbar button,
199 as the detection can occur during autoload time) when the default
200 changes (meaning that new versions of the Lisp source with a changed
201 default value got installed) and offer ediff on the respective
202 customization buffers.
204 ** Emacs Lisp mode could put an overlay on the defun for every
205 function that has advice. The overlay could have `after-text' like
206 " [Function has advice]". It might look like (defun foo [Function
207 has advice] (x y) The overlay could also be a button that you could
208 use to view the advice.
210 ** Add a function to get the insertion-type of the markers in an overlay.
214 This is hard to make work because sftp doesn't print status
217 *** Use MLS for ange-ftp-insert-directory if a list of files is specified.
219 ** Ability to map a key, including all modified-combinations.
220 E.g map mouse-4 to wheel-up as well as M-mouse-4 -> M-wheel-up
221 M-C-mouse-4 -> M-C-wheel-up, H-S-C-M-s-double-mouse-4 ->
222 H-S-C-M-s-double-wheel-up, ...
224 ** Beefed-up syntax-tables.
225 *** recognize multi-character syntactic entities like `begin' and `end'.
226 *** nested string-delimiters (for Postscript's (foo(bar)baz) strings).
227 *** support for infix operators (with precedence).
228 *** support for the $ (paired delimiter) in parse-partial-sexp.
229 *** support for hook-chars whose effect on the parsing-state is specified
230 by elisp code. Thus a char could both close a string and open a comment
231 at the same time and do it in a context-sensitive way.
232 *** ability to add mode-specific data to the partial-parse-state.
234 ** Add a way to convert a keyboard macro to equivalent Lisp code.
236 ** Have a command suggestion help system that recognizes patterns
237 of commands which could be replaced with a simpler common command.
238 It should not make more than one suggestion per 10 minutes.
240 ** Add a way to define input methods by computing them (when first used)
241 from other input methods. Then redefine C-x 8 to use a
242 user-selected input method, with the default being the union of
243 latin-1-prefix and latin-1-postfix.
245 ** Switch the Windows port to using Unicode keyboard input (maybe).
246 Based on http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms633586.aspx,
247 this boils down to (1) calling RegisterClassW function to register
248 Emacs windows, and (2) modifying ALL system messages to use Unicode.
249 In particular, WM_CHAR messages, which result from keyboard input,
250 will then come in encoded in UTF-16.
252 One advantage of switching to Unicode is to toss encoded-kbd usage,
253 which will solve the problem with binding non-ASCII keys with
256 Problem: using this on Windows 9x/ME requires installing the
257 Microsoft Layer for Unicode (MSLU), which might not implement all
258 the required functionality that is available built-in on Windows XP
259 and later. We should not make this change if it would pressure
260 users of unauthorized copies of older versions of Windows to
261 downgrade to versions that require activation.
263 ** Implement a clean way to use different major modes for
264 different parts of a buffer. This could be useful in editing
265 Bison input files, for instance, or other kinds of text
266 where one language is embedded in another language. See
267 http://www.loveshack.ukfsn.org/emacs/multi-mode.el and also
268 mmm-mode, as reference for approaches took by others.
270 ** Arrange a way for an input method to return the first character
271 immediately, then replace it later. So that C-s a with
272 input method latin-1-postfix would immediately search for an a.
274 ** Give start-process the ability to direct standard-error
275 output to a different filter.
277 ** Make desktop.el save the "frame configuration" of Emacs (in some
280 ** Give desktop.el a feature to switch between different named
283 ** Replace finder.el with something that generates an Info file
284 which gives the same information through a menu structure. [Dave
285 Love started on this.]
287 ** Add a cpio mode, more or less like tar mode.
289 ** Implement a variant of uncompress.el or jka-compr.el that works with
290 GNU Privacy Guard for encryption. [Code exists but isn't assigned.
291 See the Gnus development sources for assigned code concerning GPG
292 use with mail, which is probably a good start.] See also
293 http://www.loveshack.ukfsn.org/emacs/auto-crypt.tgz.
295 ** Save undo information in special temporary files, and reload it
296 when needed for undoing. This could extend undo capacity.
298 ** Change the Windows NT menu code
299 so that it handles the deep_p argument and avoids
300 regenerating the whole menu bar menu tree except
301 when the user tries to use the menubar.
303 This requires the RIT to forward the WM_INITMENU message to
304 the main thread, and not return from that message until the main
305 thread has processed the MENU_BAR_ACTIVATE_EVENT and regenerated
306 the whole menu bar. In the mean time, it should process other messages.
308 ** Get some major packages installed: W3 (development version needs
309 significant work), PSGML. Check the assignments file for other
310 packages which might go in and have been missed.
312 ** Make keymaps a first-class Lisp object (this means a rewrite of
313 keymap.c). What should it do apart from being opaque ?
314 multiple inheritance ? faster where-is ? no more fix_submap_inheritance ?
317 ** Provide real menus on ttys. The MS-DOS implementation can serve as
318 an example how to do part of this; see the XMenu* functions on msdos.c.
320 ** Implement popular parts of the rest of the CL functions as compiler
323 ** Make compiler warnings about functions that might be undefined at run time
324 smarter, so that they know which files are required by the file being
325 compiled and don't warn about functions defined in them.
327 ** Highlight rectangles (`mouse-track-rectangle-p' in XEmacs). Already in CUA,
328 but it's a valuable feature worth making more general.
330 ** Support simultaneous tty and X frames. [See the multi-tty branch of Emacs
331 at http://lorentey.hu/project/emacs.]
333 ** Provide MIME support for Rmail using the Gnus MIME library. [Maybe
334 not now feasible, given Gnus maintenance decisions. fx looked at
335 this and can say where some of the problems are.]
337 ** Eliminate the storm of warnings concerning char/unsigned char
338 mismatches that we get with GCC 4.x and proprietary compilers on
339 various systems. They make it difficult to spot the important
342 ** Fix anything necessary to use `long long' EMACS_INTs with GCC.
344 ** Split out parts of lisp.h and generate Makefile dependencies
349 ** Allow auto-compression-mode to use zlib calls if zlib is available.
350 [It's required for PNG, so may be linked anyhow.]
352 ** Add a --pristine startup flag which does -q --no-site-file plus
353 ignoring X resources (Doze equivalents?) and most of the
354 environment. What should not be ignored needs consideration.
356 ** Improve the GC (generational, incremental). (We may be able to use
357 the Boehm collector.) [See the Boehm-GC branch in CVS for work on
360 ** Check what hooks would help Emacspeak -- see the defadvising in W3.
362 ** Add definitions for symbol properties, for documentation purposes.
364 ** Add horizontal scroll bars.
366 ** Provide an optional feature which computes a scroll bar slider's
367 size and its position from lines instead of characters.
369 ** Add support for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) rendering to
372 ** Allow unknown image types to be rendered via an external program
373 converting them to, say, PBM (in the same way as PostScript?).
375 ** Allow displaying an X window from an external program in a buffer,
376 e.g. to render graphics from Java applets. [gerd and/or wmperry
377 thought this was feasible.]
379 ** Allow images (not just text) in the margin to be mouse-sensitive.
380 (Requires recursing through display properties). Provide some way
381 to simulate mouse-clicks on marginal text without a mouse.
383 ** Implement Lisp functions to determine properly whether a character
384 is displayable (particularly needed in XFree 4, sigh). Use it to
385 define useful glyphs that may be displayed as images or unicodes
386 (with ASCIIfied fallback via latin1-disp). Examples include
387 box-drawing graphics in Custom buffers, W3 rules and tables, and
388 tree displays generally, mode-line mail indicator. [See work done
389 already for Emacs 23 and consult fx.]
391 ** Do something to make rms happy with fx's dynamic loading, and use it
392 to implement things like auto-loaded buffer parsers and database
393 access in cases which need more than Lisp.
395 ** Extend ps-print to deal with multiple font sizes, images, and extra
398 ** Provide portable undumping using mmap (per gerd design).
400 ** Make byte-compile avoid binding an expanded defsubst's args
401 when the body only calls primitives.
403 ** Use the XIE X extension, if available, for image display.
405 ** Make monochrome images display using the foreground and background
406 colors of the applicable faces.
410 ** Make `format-time-string' preserve text properties like `format'.
412 ** Optionally make the cursor a little thinner at the end of a line
413 or the end of the buffer.
415 ** Add support for rendering antialiased text, probably using
418 ** Port the conservative stack marking code of Emacs' garbage collector
419 to more systems, so that we can completely get rid of GCPROs. Note
420 that Boehm garbage collector provides this.
422 ** Reorder defcustom's in each package so that the more important
423 options come first in the Customize buffers. This could be done by
424 either rearranging the file (since options are shown in the order
425 they appear in the *.el files), or by adding a few :set-after
428 ** Maybe document the features of libraries missing from the manual (or
429 ancillary manuals, including the Lisp manual in some cases).
430 This is not worth doing for all of these packages and we need not
431 aim for completeness, but some may be worth documenting.
433 Here's a list which is probably not complete/correct: align, allout,
434 artist, ansi-color, array, battery, calculator, cdl, cmuscheme,
435 completion, cua, delim-col, dirtrack, double, echistory, elide-head,
436 easymenu, expand, flow-ctrl, format [format-alist],
437 generic/generic-x [various modes], kermit, log-edit, ledit
438 [obsolete?], makesum, midnight [other than in Kill Buffer node],
439 mouse-copy [?], mouse-drag, mouse-sel, net-utils, rcompile,
440 snmp-mode [?], soundex [should be interactive?], strokes [start from
441 the web page], talk, thingatpt [interactive functions?], type-break,
442 vcursor, xscheme, zone-mode [?], mlconvert [?], iso-cvt, iso-swed,
443 swedish, feedmail [?], uce, bruce, gametree, meese, page-ext,
444 refbib, refer, scribe, sgml-mode, spell, texinfo, underline,
445 cmacexp, hideif, mantemp [obsolete?], pcomplete, assoc, xml,
446 cvs-status (should be described in PCL-CVS manual); other progmodes,
447 probably in separate manual.
449 ** Convert the XPM bitmaps to PPM, replace the PBMs with them and scrap
450 the XPMs so that the colour versions work generally. (Requires care
451 with the colour used for the transparent regions.)
453 ** Convenient access to the `values' variable. It would be nice to have an
454 interface that would show you the printed reps of the elements of the
455 list in a menu, let you select one of the values, and put it into some
456 other variable, without changing the value of `values'.
458 ** (Controlled by a flag) make open and close syntax match exactly,
459 i.e. `(' doesn't match `]'.
461 ** Specify parameter ID-FORMAT in all calls to `file-attributes' and
462 `directory-files-and-attributes' where attributes UID or GID are used.
463 Whenever possible, use value 'string.
464 When done, change meaning of default value from 'integer to 'string.
465 If value 'integer is used nowhere, remove the parameter ID-FORMAT from
466 the definition of `file-attributes' and `directory-files-and-attributes'
469 ** Modify the emulation of `stat' for MS-Windows to support large files.
470 The current version uses the stock Windows definition of `struct
471 stat', where the file's size is returned as a 32-bit integer. That
472 overflows for files larger than 4GB. To fix, modify `stat' to use
473 64-bit size, and use a declaration of `struct stat' that supports
476 ** Make language-info-alist customizable. Currently a user can customize
477 only the variable `current-language-environment'.
479 ** Improve language environment handling so that Emacs can fit
480 better to a users locale. Currently Emacs uses utf-8 language
481 environment for all utf-8 locales, thus a user in ja_JP.UTF-8 locale
482 are also put in utf-8 lang. env. In such a case, it is
483 better to use Japanese lang. env. but prefer utf-8 coding system.
485 ** Enhance locale handling: handle language, territory and charset
486 orthogonally and de-emphasize language environments. Use the locale
487 to set up more things, such as fontsets, the default Ispell
488 dictionary, diary format, calendar holidays and display, quoting
489 characters and phrase boundaries, sentence endings, collation for
490 sorting (at least for unicodes), HTTP Accept-language, patterns for
491 directory listings and compilation messages, yes-or-no replies,
492 common menu items when the toolkit supports it ... `locale-info'
493 needs extending for LC_COLLATE &c. [fx started on this.]
495 ** Eliminate the current restriction on header printing by ps-print.
496 Currently, a header can contain only single 1-byte charset in
499 ** In ps-print, provide an user friendly interface to specify fonts.
501 ** OpenType font support for various complex scripts (e.g. Devanagari).
502 As X protocal doesn't provide a way to access OpenType Layout Tables
503 in a OpenType font of a server side, we need a way to utilize local
504 fonts (perhaps by directly using the Freetype library or indirectly
507 ** Enhance word boundary detection for such a script that doesn't use
508 space at word boundary (e.g. Thai).
510 ** Implement interface programs with major Japanese conversion server
511 in lib-src so that they can be used from the input method
512 "japanese". Currently, most Japanese users are using external
513 packages (e.g. tamago, anthy) or an input method via XIM.
515 ** Let LEIM handle the Mode_switch key like XIM does (i.e. a toggle like C-\
516 but which can also be used as a modifier).
518 ** Improve Help buffers: Change the face of previously visited links (like
519 Info, but also with regard to namespace), add a forward button to make the
520 Help buffer more browser like and gives the value of lisp expressions
521 e.g auto-mode-alist, the right face. [nickrob@snap.net.nz has a patch
522 for this for inclusion after 22.1].
524 ** Possibly make `list-holidays' eval items in the calendar-holidays variable.
526 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2006-02/msg01034.html>.
527 [rgm@gnu.org will look at this after 22.1]
529 ** Possibly make cal-dst use the system timezone database directly.
531 <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-pretest-bug/2006-11/msg00060.html>
535 ** Cleanup all the GC_ mark bit stuff -- there is no longer any distinction
536 since the mark bit is no longer stored in the Lisp_Object itself.
538 ** Refine the `predicate' arg to read-file-name.
539 Currently, it mixes up the predicate to apply when doing completion and the
540 one to use when terminating the selection.
542 ** Merge ibuffer.el and buff-menu.el.
543 More specifically do what's needed to make ibuffer.el the default,
544 or just an extension of buff-menu.el.
546 ** Use pcomplete by default in shell-mode.
547 This means to make it behave (by default) more like the current code.
548 Use it also for read-shell-command, M-x compile, ...
550 ** Merge sendmail.el and messages.el.
551 Probably not a complete merge, but at least arrange for messages.el to be
552 a derived mode of sendmail.el. Or arrange for messages.el to be split
553 into a small core and "the rest" so that we use less resources as long as
554 we stick to the features provided in sendmail.el.
556 ** Replace gmalloc.c with the modified Doug Lea code from the current
557 GNU libc so that the special mmapping of buffers can be removed --
558 that apparently loses under Solaris, at least. [fx has mostly done
561 ** Rewrite make-docfile to be clean and maintainable.
563 ** Add an inferior-comint-minor-mode to capture the common set of operations
564 offered by major modes that offer an associated inferior
565 comint-derived mode. I.e. basically make cmuscheme.el/inf-lisp.el generic.
566 For use by sml-mode, python-mode, tex-mode, scheme-mode, lisp-mode,
567 haskell-mode, tuareg-mode, ...
569 ** Make SYNC_INPUT the default.
570 All loops using immediate_quit need to be checked to ensure that
571 C-g can interrupt them, in case of an infinite loop. Once we
572 switch to using SYNC_INPUT, we can remove the BLOCK_INPUTs in the
573 allocation functions (allocate_string etc.) without worrying about
576 ** Add "link" button class
577 Add a standard button-class named "link", and make all other link-like
578 button classes inherit from it. Set the default face of the "link" button
579 class to the standard "link" face.
583 ** The \\{...} keymap dump output does not correctly remove shadowed entries:
584 From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
586 (define-key minibuffer-local-map [(control ?=)] 'foo)
587 (define-key minibuffer-local-completion-map [(control ?=)] 'foo)
589 (defun toto () "\\{minibuffer-local-completion-map}" 4)
591 C-h f toto shows a duplicate entry for C-=:
593 toto is a Lisp function.
599 C-g abort-recursive-edit
600 TAB minibuffer-complete
604 SPC minibuffer-complete-word
605 ? minibuffer-completion-help
610 ** a two-char comment-starter whose two chars are symbol constituents will
611 not be noticed if it appears within a word.
613 ** Fix unexelf.c to handle the .data.rel and .data.rel.local
614 sections made by GCC 3.4 on IRIX.
617 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
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620 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
621 the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
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625 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
626 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
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634 ;;; arch-tag: b0a3e40b-726a-457d-9999-ba848321b036