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