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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2000-08-14
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
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 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
12
13 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
14
15 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
16 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
17
18 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
19 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
20 to list them.
21
22 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
23 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
24
25 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
26 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
27
28 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
29 support 64-bit executables. See etc/MACHINES for instructions.
30
31 \f
32 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
33
34 * When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
35 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
36
37 ** Polish and German translations of Emacs' reference card have been
38 added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex' and `de-refcard.tex'.
39 Postscript files are included.
40
41 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
42 `dired-ref.tex'.
43
44 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
45 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
46
47 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
48 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
49 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
50 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
51 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
52 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
53
54 +++
55 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
56 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
57 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
58 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
59
60 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
61 a version-dependent component.
62
63 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
64 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
65 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
66 character is still bound as before.
67
68 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
69 using that menu.
70
71 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
72 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
73
74 +++
75 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
76 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
77 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
78 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
79 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
80 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
81 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
82
83 +++
84 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
85 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
86 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
87 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
88 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
89 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
90 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
91 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
92 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
93
94 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
95 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
96
97 +++
98 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
99 point in a pop-up window.
100
101 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
102 displays all characters in that character set.
103
104 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
105 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
106
107 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
108 on the context.
109
110 +++
111 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
112
113 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
114 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
115
116 +++
117 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
118 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
119 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
120 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
121
122 +++
123 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
124 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
125 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
126 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
127
128 +++
129 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
130 on the display using several methods
131
132 +++
133 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
134 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
135 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
136
137 +++
138 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
139 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
140
141 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
142
143 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
144 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
145
146 +++
147 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
148 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
149 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
150 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
151
152 +++
153 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
154 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
155 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
156
157 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
158 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
159
160 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
161 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
162 this behavior.
163
164 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
165 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
166 Emacs dump core.
167
168 +++
169 ** New X resources recognized
170
171 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
172 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
173 is useful for debugging X problems.
174
175 Example:
176
177 emacs.synchronous: true
178
179 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
180 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
181 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
182 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
183 visual class names are
184
185 TrueColor
186 PseudoColor
187 DirectColor
188 StaticColor
189 GrayScale
190 StaticGray
191
192 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
193 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
194 meaning.
195
196 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
197 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
198 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
199 visual.
200
201 Example:
202
203 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
204
205 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
206 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
207 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
208 resource values are `true' or `on'.
209
210 Example:
211
212 emacs.privateColormap: true
213
214 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
215 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
216 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
217
218 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
219 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
220 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
221 be customized.
222
223 +++
224 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
225
226 +++
227 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
228 all frames except the selected one.
229
230 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
231 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
232
233 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
234 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
235 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
236 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
237
238 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
239 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
240
241 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
242 read mail from the menu etc.
243
244 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
245 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
246
247 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
248
249 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
250 macros
251
252 Key binding Macro
253 -------------------------
254 C-c C-c C-s @strong
255 C-c C-c C-e @emph
256 C-c C-c u @url
257 C-c C-c q @quotation
258 C-c C-c m @email
259
260 ** Changes in Outline mode.
261
262 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
263 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
264 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
265
266 ** Changes to Emacs Server
267
268 *** There new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
269 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
270 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
271 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
272 buffers to kill, as before.
273
274 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
275 i.e. buffers visited which `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
276 this way.
277
278 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
279
280 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
281 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
282 use. Default is 1000.
283
284 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
285 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
286
287 +++
288 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
289 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
290 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
291 buffers.
292
293 +++
294 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
295 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
296 .emacs file.
297
298 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
299 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
300
301 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
302 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
303 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
304
305 ** Faces and frame parameters.
306
307 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
308 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
309 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
310 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
311 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
312 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
313 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
314
315 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
316 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
317 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
318 `default' face and vice versa.
319
320 ** New face `menu'.
321
322 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
323 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
324 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
325
326 +++
327 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
328
329 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
330 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
331 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
332 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
333
334 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
335 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
336 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
337
338 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
339 `ScreenGamma'.
340
341 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
342
343 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
344 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
345 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
346 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
347 the text.
348
349 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
350
351 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
352 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
353 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
354 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
355 specify a font.
356
357 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
358 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
359 under Lisp changes, below.
360
361 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
362
363 +++
364 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
365 of its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid;
366 otherwise, it is hollow.
367
368 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
369 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
370 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
371 customizing face `fringe'.
372
373 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
374 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
375
376 ** LessTif support.
377
378 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see <http://www.lesstif.org>).
379 You will need a version 0.88.1 or later.
380
381 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
382
383 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
384 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
385 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
386 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
387 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
388 Emacs.
389
390 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
391 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
392 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
393 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
394 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
395 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
396
397 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
398 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
399 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
400 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
401 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
402 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
403
404 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
405 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
406 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
407 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
408 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
409
410 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
411
412 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
413 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
414 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
415
416 +++
417 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
418
419 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
420 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
421 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
422 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
423 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
424 whitespace.
425
426 ** Busy-cursor.
427
428 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
429 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
430
431 +++
432 ** Blinking cursor
433
434 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
435 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
436 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
437 the group `cursor'.
438
439 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
440
441 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
442 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
443 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
444 details.
445
446 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
447 have to do anything to activate it.
448
449 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
450
451 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
452 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
453 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
454 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
455
456 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
457
458 +++
459 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
460
461 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
462
463 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
464 LessTif/Motif one.
465
466 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
467 LessTif and Motif.
468
469 ** Hscrolling in C code.
470
471 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
472 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
473 customized.
474
475 ** Tool bar support.
476
477 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
478 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
479
480 +++
481 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
482
483 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
484 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
485 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
486 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
487 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
488
489 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
490
491 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
492 buffers.
493
494 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
495 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
496
497 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
498
499 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
500 `*') toggles the status.
501
502 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
503
504 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
505
506 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
507 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
508 non-nil.
509
510 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
511
512 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
513 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
514 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
515 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
516 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
517 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
518 on terminals.
519
520 ** Sound support
521
522 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
523 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
524 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
525
526 +++
527 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
528 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
529 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
530 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
531 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
532 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
533
534 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
535
536 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
537
538 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
539 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
540 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
541
542 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
543 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
544
545 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
546 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
547 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
548
549 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
550
551 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
552 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
553 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
554 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
555
556 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
557 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
558 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
559 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
560
561 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
562 notably at the end of lines.
563
564 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
565 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
566
567 +++
568 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
569
570 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
571 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
572 after each match to get the replacement text.
573
574 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
575 you edit the replacement string.
576
577 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
578 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
579 lisp-complete-symbol.
580
581 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
582
583 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
584 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
585 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
586 window size by setting the following variable:
587
588 - User option: max-mini-window-height
589
590 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
591 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
592 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
593
594 Default is 0.25.
595
596 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
597
598 ** Changes to hideshow.el
599
600 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
601 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
602
603 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
604
605 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
606 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
607 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
608 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
609 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
610 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
611
612 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
613 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
614 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
615 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
616
617 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
618
619 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
620 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
621 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
622 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
623 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
624
625 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
626 something like this in your .emacs.
627
628 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
629 (lambda ()
630 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
631
632 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
633
634 +++
635 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
636 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
637 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
638
639 +++
640 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
641 buffer.
642
643 +++
644 New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries in
645 a log file.
646
647 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
648 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
649
650 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
651 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
652 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be cutomized.
653 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
654
655 ** Changes in Font Lock
656
657 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
658 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
659 mode.
660
661 ** Comint (subshell) changes
662
663 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
664 distiguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
665 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
666 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
667 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
668 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
669 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
670 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
671
672 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
673 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
674
675 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
676 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
677 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
678
679 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
680 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
681 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
682
683 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and scheme-interaction-mode
684 now highlight user input and program prompts, and support choosing
685 previous input with mouse-2. To control these feature, see the
686 user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
687
688 ** Changes to Rmail mode
689
690 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
691 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
692 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
693 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
694 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
695 as correspondent.
696
697 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
698 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
699 regexp matching your mail addresses.
700
701 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
702 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
703 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
704 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
705 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
706
707 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
708 like `j'.
709
710 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
711 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
712 digest message.
713
714 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
715 in which folder to put messages automatically.
716
717 ** Changes to TeX mode
718
719 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
720 `latex-mode'.
721
722 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
723
724 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
725 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
726 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
727 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
728 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
729 can be edited from that buffer.
730
731 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
732 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
733 `A' to use all marked entries).
734
735 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
736 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
737
738 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
739 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
740 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
741 been cited.
742
743 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
744 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
745 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
746 in column 1 are always made leaves.
747
748 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
749 has the following new features:
750
751 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
752 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
753 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
754 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
755
756 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
757 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
758 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
759 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
760 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
761 defaults to 1.
762
763 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
764 file names.
765
766 +++
767 ** Tooltips.
768
769 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
770 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
771 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
772
773 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
774 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
775 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
776 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
777
778 +++
779 ** Customize changes
780
781 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
782 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
783 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
784
785 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
786 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
787 default).
788
789 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
790 between custom options. Example:
791
792 (defcustom default-input-method nil
793 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
794 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
795 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
796 :group 'mule
797 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
798 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
799
800 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
801 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
802 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
803
804 ** New features in evaluation commands
805
806 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
807 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
808 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
809 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
810 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
811
812 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
813 code when called with a prefix argument.
814
815 ** Ispell changes
816
817 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
818 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
819 spell-checks the current buffer.
820
821 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
822 added.
823
824 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
825 correction is made and re-checked.
826
827 *** An Italian and a Portuguese dictionary definition has been added.
828
829 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
830 cases.
831
832 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
833 on syntax errors.
834
835 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
836 end of the buffer.
837
838 ** Dired changes
839
840 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
841 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
842 is, delete only empty directories.
843
844 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
845 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
846 copy directories recursively.
847
848 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
849 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
850 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
851
852 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
853 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
854 directory.
855
856 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
857 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
858 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
859 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
860 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
861
862 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
863 from ls switches.
864
865 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
866 use the -f option when sending mail.
867
868 ** CC mode changes.
869
870 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
871 current user setups (although it's believed that these
872 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
873 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
874 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
875 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
876 release.
877
878 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
879 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
880 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
881 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
882 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
883 have to bother.
884
885 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
886 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
887 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
888 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
889 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
890 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
891
892 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
893 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
894 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
895 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
896 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
897 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
898 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
899 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
900
901 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
902 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
903 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
904 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
905 above.
906
907 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
908 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
909 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
910 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
911 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
912 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
913 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
914 function documentation for more info.
915
916 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
917 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
918 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
919 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
920 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
921 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
922 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
923 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
924
925 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
926
927 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
928 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
929
930 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
931 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
932 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
933 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
934 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
935 style system.
936
937 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
938 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
939 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
940 as far as possible.
941
942 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
943 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
944 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
945 chapter about this in the manual.
946
947 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
948 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
949 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
950 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
951 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
952
953 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
954 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
955 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
956
957 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
958 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
959
960 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
961 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
962 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
963 inside CC Mode.
964
965 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
966 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
967 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
968 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
969 cc-mode/).
970
971 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
972 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
973 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
974 literals.
975
976 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
977 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
978 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
979 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
980 this function.
981
982 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
983 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
984 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
985 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
986 Thanks to Eric Eide.
987
988 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
989 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
990 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
991
992 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
993
994 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
995 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
996 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
997 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
998
999 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1000 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1001 the column specified by comment-column.
1002
1003 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1004 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1005 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1006 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1007 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1008 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1009
1010 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1011 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1012 arguments.
1013
1014 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1015
1016 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1017 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1018 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1019 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1020 Provan).
1021
1022 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1023
1024 ** Makefile mode changes
1025
1026 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1027
1028 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1029 Fontlock mode is active.
1030
1031 ** Isearch changes
1032
1033 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1034 so that searches can be resumed.
1035
1036 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1037 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1038 that started the search.
1039
1040 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1041 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1042
1043 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1044
1045 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1046 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1047 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1048 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1049 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1050 `secondary-selection'.
1051
1052 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1053 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1054 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1055 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1056 usual snappy response.
1057
1058 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1059 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1060 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1061 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1062
1063 ** Changes in sort.el
1064
1065 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1066 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1067 new user-option sort-numberic-base can be used to specify a default
1068 numeric base.
1069
1070 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1071
1072 +++
1073 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1074 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1075 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1076
1077 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1078 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1079
1080 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1081 output ^M at the end of lines.
1082
1083 ** Shell script mode changes.
1084
1085 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1086 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1087 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1088
1089 ** Etags changes.
1090
1091 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1092
1093 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1094 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1095 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1096 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1097 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1098
1099 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1100 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1101
1102 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1103 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1104
1105 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1106 types.
1107
1108 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1109
1110 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1111
1112 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1113 are now tagged.
1114
1115 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1116 variables are tagged.
1117
1118 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1119
1120 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1121 for PSWrap.
1122
1123 ** Changes in etags.el
1124
1125 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1126 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1127 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1128
1129 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1130 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1131
1132 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1133 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1134 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1135 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1136
1137 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1138
1139 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1140 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1141
1142 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1143
1144 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1145 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1146 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1147
1148 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1149 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1150
1151 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1152 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1153
1154 +++
1155 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1156 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1157 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1158
1159 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1160 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1161 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1162 There is currently no specific input method support for them.
1163
1164 +++
1165 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1166 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1167 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1168
1169 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1170
1171 +++
1172 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1173
1174 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignore-regexps'
1175 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1176 expression from that list, are not checked.
1177
1178 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1179 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1180 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1181 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1182
1183 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1184
1185 ** New modes and packages
1186
1187 +++
1188 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1189 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1190 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1191 on certain projects.
1192
1193 *** The new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1194 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1195
1196 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1197
1198 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1199 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1200 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1201 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1202 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1203 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1204 corresponding file is read.
1205
1206 +++
1207 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1208 Emacs is idle.
1209
1210 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1211 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1212
1213 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1214 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1215 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1216
1217 +++
1218 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1219 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1220 separate Texinfo file.
1221
1222 +++
1223 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1224 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1225 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1226 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1227 enter checkin log messages.
1228
1229 +++
1230 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1231 without invoking external programs.
1232
1233 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1234 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1235 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1236 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1237 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1238
1239 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1240 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1241
1242 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1243 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1244
1245 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1246 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1247 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1248 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1249 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1250 single step.
1251
1252 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1253 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1254 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1255 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1256
1257 +++
1258 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1259 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1260 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1261
1262 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1263 PostScript.
1264
1265 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1266
1267 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1268
1269 ; comment (until end of line)
1270 A non-terminal
1271 "C" terminal
1272 ?C? special
1273 $A default non-terminal
1274 $"C" default terminal
1275 $?C? default special
1276 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1277 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1278 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1279 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1280 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1281 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1282 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1283 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1284 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1285 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1286 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1287 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1288 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1289 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1290 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1291
1292 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1293
1294 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1295 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1296 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1297 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1298 equal signs of assignments.
1299
1300 +++
1301 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1302 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1303
1304 +++
1305 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1306 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1307 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1308 customize the package.
1309
1310 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1311
1312 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1313 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1314 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1315 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1316 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1317 which answers different needs.
1318
1319 +++
1320 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1321 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1322 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1323 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1324 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1325 to be enabled.
1326
1327 +++
1328 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1329 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1330
1331 +++
1332 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1333
1334 +++
1335 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1336
1337 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1338
1339 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1340 Pascal) language.
1341
1342 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1343 the text at point.
1344
1345 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1346
1347 +++
1348 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1349
1350 *** whitespace.el ???
1351
1352 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1353 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1354 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1355 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1356 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1357 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1358 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1359
1360 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1361
1362 Here is an example of columns:
1363
1364 horse apple bus
1365 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1366 porcupine strawberry airplane
1367
1368 Doing the following settings:
1369
1370 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1371 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1372 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1373 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1374
1375
1376 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1377
1378 M-x delimit-columns-region
1379
1380 It results:
1381
1382 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1383 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1384 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1385
1386 delim-col has the following options:
1387
1388 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1389 before all columns.
1390
1391 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1392 between each column.
1393
1394 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1395 after all columns.
1396
1397 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1398 each column.
1399
1400 delim-col has the following commands:
1401
1402 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1403 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1404
1405 +++
1406 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1407 were operated on recently.
1408
1409 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1410
1411 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1412 recentf at Emacs startup.
1413
1414 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1415 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1416 file list can be displayed:
1417
1418 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1419 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1420 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1421
1422 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1423 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1424
1425 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1426 text.
1427
1428 +++
1429 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1430 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1431 specific to Message mode.
1432
1433 +++
1434 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1435 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1436 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1437
1438 +++
1439 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1440 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1441 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1442
1443 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1444 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1445
1446 +++
1447 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1448
1449 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1450 minibuffer with completion.
1451
1452 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1453 with the diary features.
1454
1455 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1456 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1457
1458 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1459 Fill mode.
1460
1461 ** Withdrawn packages
1462
1463 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1464 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1465
1466 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1467
1468 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1469
1470 \f
1471 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1472 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1473
1474 +++
1475 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
1476 is running in batch mode. For example,
1477
1478 (message "%s" (read t))
1479
1480 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
1481 to standard output.
1482
1483 +++
1484 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
1485 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
1486
1487 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1488 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1489 frame or window.
1490
1491 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1492 were added
1493
1494 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1495
1496 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1497 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1498
1499 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1500
1501 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1502 comparison is done with `eq'.
1503
1504 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1505
1506 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1507 has been changed.
1508
1509 +++
1510 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1511 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1512 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1513
1514 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1515 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1516
1517 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1518 function was declared obsolete.
1519
1520 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1521 retained as an alias).
1522
1523 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1524 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1525 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1526
1527 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1528
1529 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1530
1531 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1532 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1533
1534 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1535
1536 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1537
1538 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1539
1540 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1541 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1542 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1543 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1544 returned.
1545
1546 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1547 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1548 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1549 minibuffer even if it is active.
1550
1551 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1552 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1553 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1554 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1555 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1556 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1557
1558 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1559 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1560 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1561 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1562 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1563 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1564 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1565
1566 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1567 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1568 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1569
1570 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1571 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1572 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1573 Default value is nil.
1574
1575 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1576 meaning no limit.
1577
1578 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1579 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1580 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1581
1582 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1583 of a primitive.
1584
1585 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1586 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1587 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1588 than replacing the local map.
1589
1590 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1591 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1592
1593 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1594
1595 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1596 promised long ago.
1597
1598 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1599 \f
1600 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1601
1602 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1603 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1604 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1605 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1606
1607 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
1608 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
1609 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
1610 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
1611
1612 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1613 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1614 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1615 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1616
1617 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1618 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1619 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1620
1621 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1622 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1623 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1624 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1625 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1626 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1627 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1628 eight-bit-graphic.
1629
1630 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1631
1632 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1633 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1634 character set as previously.
1635
1636 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1637 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1638 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1639
1640 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1641 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1642 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1643 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1644
1645 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1646 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1647
1648 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1649 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1650 "fontset-default".
1651
1652 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1653 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1654
1655 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1656 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1657 buffers and strings.
1658
1659 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1660 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1661 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1662 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1663 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1664 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1665 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1666 also been deleted.
1667
1668 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1669 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1670 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1671
1672 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1673 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1674 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1675 may differ between buffer and string text.
1676
1677 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1678 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1679
1680 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1681 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1682 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1683 `composition' from STRING.
1684
1685 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1686 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1687
1688 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1689 obsolete.
1690
1691 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1692 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1693 character set is not used.
1694
1695 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1696 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1697 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1698
1699 +++
1700 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1701 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1702 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1703
1704 +++
1705 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1706 that offset in the file before writing.
1707
1708 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1709 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1710
1711 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1712 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1713 from which the command was issued.
1714
1715 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1716 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1717 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1718 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1719 operate on.
1720
1721 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1722 to `window-buffer-height'.
1723
1724 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1725
1726 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1727 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1728 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1729
1730 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1731 respectively.
1732
1733 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1734 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1735
1736 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1737 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1738 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1739
1740 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1741 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1742 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1743 is currently displayed in some window.
1744
1745 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1746 argument function's results.
1747
1748 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1749 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1750
1751 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1752 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1753
1754 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1755 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1756
1757 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1758 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1759 as follows:
1760
1761 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1762 nil don't display a cursor
1763 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1764 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1765 others display a box cursor.
1766
1767 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1768 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1769 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1770 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1771
1772 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1773 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1774 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1775 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1776
1777 Example:
1778
1779 (string-to-syntax "()")
1780 => (4 . 41)
1781
1782 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1783 other than 10.
1784
1785 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1786 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1787
1788 #b1111
1789 => 15
1790 #b-1111
1791 => -15
1792
1793 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1794
1795 #o666
1796 => 438
1797
1798 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1799
1800 #xbeef
1801 => 48815
1802
1803 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1804
1805 #2R-111
1806 => -7
1807 #25rah
1808 => 267
1809
1810 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1811 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1812 and isn't a string.
1813
1814 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1815 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1816 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1817 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1818
1819 +++
1820 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1821
1822 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1823 for a regexp in a string.
1824
1825 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1826 `mouse-position-function'.
1827
1828 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1829 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1830
1831 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1832 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1833
1834 +++
1835 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1836 returns it.
1837
1838 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1839 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1840
1841 +++
1842 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1843 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1844 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1845 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1846 mode.
1847
1848 +++
1849 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1850 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1851
1852 +++
1853 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1854 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1855 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1856 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1857 been performed."
1858
1859 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1860 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1861 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1862 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1863
1864 +++
1865 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1866 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1867 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1868
1869 +++
1870 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1871 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1872 specified table.
1873
1874 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1875
1876 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1877 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1878 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1879 what BODY returns.
1880
1881 +++
1882 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1883 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1884
1885 +++
1886 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1887 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1888
1889 +++
1890 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1891 instead of being optional.
1892
1893 +++
1894 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1895 modify read-only text.
1896
1897 +++
1898 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1899
1900 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1901 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1902 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1903 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1904 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1905
1906 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1907 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1908 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1909 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1910 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1911 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1912 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1913
1914 +++
1915 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1916 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1917 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1918 start sequences.
1919
1920 +++
1921 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1922 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1923
1924 +++
1925 ** New function `propertize'
1926
1927 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1928 strings with text properties.
1929
1930 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1931
1932 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1933 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1934 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1935 specified value of that property. Example:
1936
1937 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1938
1939 +++
1940 ** push and pop macros.
1941
1942 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1943 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1944 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1945
1946 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1947 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1948 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1949
1950 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1951
1952 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1953 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1954
1955 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1956 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1957 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1958 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1959
1960 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1961 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1962 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1963 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1964
1965 +++
1966 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1967 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1968
1969 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1970 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1971 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1972 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1973 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1974 space, and DEL.
1975 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1976 and DEL.
1977 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1978 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1979 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1980 [:alpha:] matches letters.
1981 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1982 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1983 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
1984 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
1985 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
1986 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
1987 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1988 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
1989 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
1990 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
1991 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
1992
1993 +++
1994 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
1995
1996 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
1997
1998 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
1999
2000 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2001 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2002
2003 :test TEST
2004
2005 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2006 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2007 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2008
2009 :size SIZE
2010
2011 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2012 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2013
2014 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2015
2016 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2017 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2018 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2019 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2020 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2021
2022 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2023
2024 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2025 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2026 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2027
2028 :weakness WEAK
2029
2030 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2031 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2032 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2033 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2034 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2035
2036 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2037
2038 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2039
2040 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2041
2042 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2043
2044 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2045
2046 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2047 values are shared.
2048
2049 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2050
2051 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2052
2053 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2054
2055 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2056
2057 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2058
2059 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2060
2061 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2062
2063 Returns the size of TABLE.
2064
2065 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2066
2067 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2068
2069 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2070
2071 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2072
2073 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2074
2075 Clear TABLE.
2076
2077 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2078
2079 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2080 not found.
2081
2082 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2083
2084 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2085 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2086
2087 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2088
2089 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2090
2091 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2092
2093 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2094 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2095
2096 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2097
2098 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2099
2100 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2101
2102 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2103 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2104 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2105 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2106 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2107
2108 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2109
2110 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2111 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2112 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
2113
2114 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
2115 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
2116
2117 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
2118 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
2119
2120 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2121 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2122
2123 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2124 'case-fold-string-hash))
2125
2126 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2127
2128 +++
2129 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2130
2131 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2132 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2133 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2134
2135 +++
2136 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2137
2138 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2139 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2140
2141 +++
2142 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2143 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2144 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2145 is too short to reach that column.
2146
2147 +++
2148 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2149 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2150 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2151 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2152
2153 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2154 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2155 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2156
2157 +++
2158 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2159 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2160
2161 +++
2162 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2163 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2164
2165 +++
2166 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2167 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2168 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2169 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2170 temporary-file-directory instead.
2171
2172 +++
2173 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2174 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2175 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2176 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2177
2178 +++
2179 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2180 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2181
2182 +++
2183 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2184
2185 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2186 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2187 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2188
2189 +++
2190 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2191
2192 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2193 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2194 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2195 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2196 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2197 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2198
2199 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2200 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2201 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2202 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2203
2204 +++
2205 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2206
2207 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2208 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2209 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2210 result string.
2211
2212 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2213 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2214
2215 Example:
2216
2217 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2218 (s2 "world"))
2219 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2220 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2221 (format s1 s2))
2222
2223 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2224
2225 +++
2226 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2227
2228 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2229 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2230 argument in it.
2231
2232 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2233 (arg "world"))
2234 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2235 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2236 (message msg arg))
2237
2238 +++
2239 ** Sound support
2240
2241 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2242 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2243
2244 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2245 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2246 to enable sound support.
2247
2248 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2249 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2250 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2251 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2252 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2253
2254 The following sound properties are supported:
2255
2256 - `:file FILE'
2257
2258 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2259 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2260
2261 - `:data DATA'
2262
2263 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2264 may be present, but not both.
2265
2266 - `:volume VOLUME'
2267
2268 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2269 0..1. This property is optional.
2270
2271 Other properties are ignored.
2272
2273 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2274
2275 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2276 a keyword symbol.
2277
2278 ** Changes to garbage collection
2279
2280 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2281 of live and free strings.
2282
2283 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2284 strings that have been consed so far.
2285
2286 \f
2287 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2288 Lisp Manual
2289
2290 +++
2291 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2292
2293 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2294 image.
2295
2296 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2297
2298 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2299
2300 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2301 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2302 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2303 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2304 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2305
2306 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2307 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2308
2309 +++
2310 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2311 optional.
2312
2313 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center'.
2314
2315 When this property is specified, the image is vertically centered
2316 around a centerline which would be the vertical center of text drawn
2317 at the position of the image, in the manner specified by the text
2318 properties and overlays that apply to the image.
2319
2320 \f
2321 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2322
2323 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2324 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2325 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2326 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2327
2328 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2329 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2330
2331 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2332 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2333 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2334 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2335 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2336 just display it black instead.
2337
2338 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2339 a line like
2340
2341 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2342
2343 in your `.emacs'.
2344
2345 ** New face implementation.
2346
2347 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2348 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2349
2350 +++
2351 *** New faces.
2352
2353 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2354
2355 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2356
2357 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2358 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2359
2360 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2361
2362 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2363
2364 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2365
2366 6. Foreground color.
2367
2368 7. Background color.
2369
2370 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2371
2372 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2373
2374 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2375
2376 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2377
2378 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2379 color.
2380
2381 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2382 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2383
2384 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2385 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2386 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2387 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2388 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2389 attributes mentioned above.
2390
2391 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2392 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2393 created frames.
2394
2395 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2396 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2397 `fully-specified'.
2398
2399 +++
2400 *** Face merging.
2401
2402 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2403 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2404 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2405 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2406 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2407 results in a fully-specified face.
2408
2409 +++
2410 *** Face realization.
2411
2412 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2413 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2414 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2415 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2416 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2417 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2418
2419 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2420 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2421 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2422 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2423
2424 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2425 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2426 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2427 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2428 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2429
2430 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2431 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2432 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2433 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2434 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2435 Emacs.
2436
2437 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2438 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2439 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2440 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2441
2442 ++++
2443 **** Clearing face caches.
2444
2445 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2446 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2447 unused fonts.
2448
2449 +++
2450 *** Font selection.
2451
2452 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2453 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2454 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2455
2456 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2457 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2458 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2459 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2460 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2461
2462 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2463 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2464 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2465
2466 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2467
2468 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2469 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2470 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2471 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2472 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2473 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2474 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2475
2476 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2477 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2478 face doesn't exist.
2479
2480 +++
2481 **** Scalable fonts
2482
2483 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2484 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2485 servers.
2486
2487 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2488 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2489 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2490 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2491 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2492 that list. Example:
2493
2494 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2495
2496 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2497
2498 +++
2499 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2500
2501 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2502
2503 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2504 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2505 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2506
2507 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2508 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2509 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2510 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2511 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2512 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2513 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2514 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2515 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2516 of the face font sort order.
2517
2518 - Function: x-font-family-list
2519
2520 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2521 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2522 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2523 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2524
2525 - Variable: font-list-limit
2526
2527 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2528 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2529 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2530
2531 +++
2532 *** Setting face attributes.
2533
2534 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2535 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2536 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2537 `face-attribute'.
2538
2539 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2540 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2541
2542 The following attributes are recognized:
2543
2544 `:family'
2545
2546 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2547 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2548 and `?' are allowed.
2549
2550 `:width'
2551
2552 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2553 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2554 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2555 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2556
2557 `:height'
2558
2559 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
2560 1/10 pt.
2561
2562 `:weight'
2563
2564 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2565 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2566 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2567
2568 `:slant'
2569
2570 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2571 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2572 `reverse-oblique'.
2573
2574 `:foreground', `:background'
2575
2576 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2577
2578 `:underline'
2579
2580 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2581 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2582 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2583 don't underline.
2584
2585 `:overline'
2586
2587 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2588 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2589 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2590 overline.
2591
2592 `:strike-through'
2593
2594 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2595 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2596 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2597 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2598
2599 `:box'
2600
2601 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2602 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2603 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2604 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2605 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2606 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2607 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2608 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2609 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2610 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2611 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2612 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2613 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2614 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2615 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2616 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2617 box.
2618
2619 `:inverse-video'
2620
2621 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2622 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2623
2624 `:stipple'
2625
2626 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2627 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2628 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2629 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2630 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2631 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2632
2633 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2634 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2635
2636 `:font'
2637
2638 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2639 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2640 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2641 versions of Emacs.
2642
2643 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2644 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2645 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2646
2647 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2648 `defface'.
2649
2650 *** Face attributes and X resources
2651
2652 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2653 from X resources:
2654
2655 Face attribute X resource class
2656 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2657 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2658 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2659 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2660 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2661 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2662 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2663 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2664 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2665 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2666 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2667 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2668 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2669 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2670 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2671 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2672 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2673 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2674 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2675 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2676
2677 +++
2678 *** Text property `face'.
2679
2680 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2681 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2682 specification can be
2683
2684 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2685
2686 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2687 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2688 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2689 for face attribute names.
2690
2691 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2692 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2693 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2694
2695 +++
2696 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2697
2698 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2699 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2700 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2701 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2702 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2703 used to clear the mapping table.
2704
2705 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2706
2707 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2708 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2709 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2710 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2711 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2712 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2713 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2714 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2715 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2716 modify their color-related behavior.
2717
2718 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2719 any frame type.
2720
2721 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2722
2723 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2724 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2725 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2726 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2727 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2728 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2729 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2730 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2731 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2732
2733 +++
2734 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2735
2736 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2737
2738 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2739 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2740 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2741
2742 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2743
2744 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2745 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2746 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
2747
2748 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2749 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2750 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2751 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2752 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2753 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2754 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2755 functions.
2756
2757 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2758 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2759 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2760
2761 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2762
2763 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
2764
2765 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2766
2767 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2768 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2769 constrained position if that is is different.
2770
2771 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2772 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2773 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2774 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
2775 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2776 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2777 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
2778 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
2779 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
2780
2781 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2782 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2783 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2784 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2785 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2786
2787 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
2788 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
2789
2790 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
2791
2792 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
2793
2794 Delete the field surrounding POS.
2795 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2796 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2797
2798 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2799
2800 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
2801 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2802 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2803 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
2804 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2805
2806 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2807
2808 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2809 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2810 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2811 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
2812 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2813
2814 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2815
2816 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2817 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2818 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2819
2820 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2821
2822 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2823 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2824 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2825
2826 +++
2827 ** Image support.
2828
2829 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2830 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2831 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2832 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2833
2834 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2835 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2836 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2837 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2838 area.
2839
2840 IMAGE is an image specification.
2841
2842 *** Image specifications
2843
2844 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
2845 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
2846 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
2847 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
2848 described below are ignored.
2849
2850 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
2851
2852 `:ascent ASCENT'
2853
2854 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
2855 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
2856 to use for its ascent.
2857
2858 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
2859 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
2860
2861 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
2862 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
2863 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
2864 overlays that apply to the image.
2865
2866 `:margin MARGIN'
2867
2868 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2869 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2870
2871 `:relief RELIEF'
2872
2873 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2874 around an image.
2875
2876 `:algorithm ALGO'
2877
2878 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2879 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2880 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2881 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2882
2883 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2884
2885 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2886 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2887 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2888 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2889 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2890 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2891 background of the image.
2892
2893 `:file FILE'
2894
2895 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2896 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2897 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2898 may be present in the image specification.
2899
2900 `:data DATA'
2901
2902 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2903 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2904 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2905 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2906
2907 *** Supported image types
2908
2909 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2910
2911 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2912 properties supported are
2913
2914 `:foreground FG'
2915
2916 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2917 is the frame's foreground.
2918
2919 `:background FG'
2920
2921 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2922 the frame's background color.
2923
2924 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2925 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2926 instead of a `:file' property.
2927
2928 `:width WIDTH'
2929
2930 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2931
2932 `:height HEIGHT'
2933
2934 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2935
2936 `:data DATA'
2937
2938 DATA must be either
2939
2940 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2941 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2942
2943 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2944
2945 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2946 bitmap.
2947
2948 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
2949 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
2950 in the file.
2951
2952 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2953
2954 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2955 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2956 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2957 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2958
2959 Additional image properties supported are:
2960
2961 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2962
2963 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2964 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2965 name.
2966
2967 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2968 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2969
2970 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2971 to display compressed images.
2972
2973 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2974
2975 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
2976 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
2977 defined.
2978
2979 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
2980
2981 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
2982 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
2983 are:
2984
2985 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
2986
2987 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
2988 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2989 properties defined.
2990
2991 **** GIF, image type `gif'
2992
2993 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
2994 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
2995
2996 Additional image properties supported are:
2997
2998 `:index INDEX'
2999
3000 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3001 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
3002
3003 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3004 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3005 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3006 every 0.1 seconds.
3007
3008 (defun show-anim (file max)
3009 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3010 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3011
3012 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
3013 (when (= idx max)
3014 (setq idx 0))
3015 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
3016 (save-excursion
3017 (set-buffer buffer)
3018 (goto-char (point-min))
3019 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
3020 (insert-image img "x"))
3021 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
3022
3023 **** PNG, image type `png'
3024
3025 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
3026 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3027 properties defined.
3028
3029 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
3030
3031 Additional image properties supported are:
3032
3033 `:pt-width WIDTH'
3034
3035 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
3036 integer. This is a required property.
3037
3038 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
3039
3040 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
3041 must be a integer. This is an required property.
3042
3043 `:bounding-box BOX'
3044
3045 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
3046 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
3047 files. This is an required property.
3048
3049 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
3050 lisp/gs.el.
3051
3052 *** Lisp interface.
3053
3054 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
3055 which are supported in the current configuration.
3056
3057 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
3058 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
3059 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
3060 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
3061 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
3062
3063 *** Simplified image API, image.el
3064
3065 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
3066 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
3067 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
3068 define an image based on available image types. The functions
3069 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
3070 buffer.
3071
3072 +++
3073 ** Display margins.
3074
3075 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
3076 and images.
3077
3078 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
3079 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
3080 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
3081 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
3082 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3083 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3084 of the display margins.
3085
3086 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
3087 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
3088 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
3089 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
3090 in this file).
3091
3092 +++
3093 ** Help display
3094
3095 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
3096 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
3097 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
3098 that have a `help-echo' property.
3099
3100 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
3101 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
3102 the window in which the help was found.
3103
3104 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
3105 `help-echo' text property was found.
3106
3107 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
3108 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
3109
3110 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
3111 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
3112 mouse.
3113
3114 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
3115 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
3116
3117 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
3118 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
3119 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
3120 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
3121 used as help string.
3122
3123 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
3124 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
3125 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
3126
3127 +++
3128 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3129
3130 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3131 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3132
3133 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3134 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3135 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3136 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3137 used.
3138
3139 (global-set-key [A-down]
3140 #'(lambda ()
3141 (interactive)
3142 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3143 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3144 (global-set-key [A-up]
3145 #'(lambda ()
3146 (interactive)
3147 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3148 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3149
3150 +++
3151 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3152
3153 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3154 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3155 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3156 is called with one argument, POS.
3157
3158 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3159 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3160 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3161 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3162 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3163
3164 +++
3165 ** Tool bar support.
3166
3167 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3168 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3169 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3170 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3171 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3172 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3173
3174 *** Tool bar item definitions
3175
3176 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3177 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3178 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3179
3180 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3181 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3182 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3183 property (see below).
3184
3185 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3186 binding are currently ignored.
3187
3188 The following properties are recognized:
3189
3190 `:enable FORM'.
3191
3192 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3193 or disabled.
3194
3195 `:visible FORM'
3196
3197 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3198
3199 `:filter FUNCTION'
3200
3201 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3202 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3203 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3204
3205 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3206
3207 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3208 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3209
3210 `:image IMAGES'
3211
3212 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3213 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3214 meaning of each of the four elements:
3215
3216 Index Use when item is
3217 ----------------------------------------
3218 0 enabled and selected
3219 1 enabled and deselected
3220 2 disabled and selected
3221 3 disabled and deselected
3222
3223 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3224 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3225
3226 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3227
3228 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3229 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3230
3231 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3232
3233 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3234 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3235 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3236
3237 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3238 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3239
3240 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3241 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3242 pixels. Default is 1.
3243
3244 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3245 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3246
3247 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3248
3249 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3250 a tool bar item. If
3251
3252 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3253 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3254 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3255
3256 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3257
3258 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3259
3260 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3261 item.
3262
3263 ** Mode line changes.
3264
3265 +++
3266 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3267
3268 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3269 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3270 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3271
3272 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3273 a `local-map' text property.
3274
3275 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3276 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3277
3278 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3279 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3280 `local-map' property.
3281
3282 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3283 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3284 example.
3285
3286 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3287 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3288
3289 +++
3290 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3291 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3292
3293 +++
3294 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3295
3296 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3297 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3298 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3299 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3300 line.
3301
3302 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3303 `header-line'.
3304
3305 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3306 position in the header-line.
3307
3308 +++
3309 ** Text property `display'
3310
3311 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3312 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3313 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3314 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3315
3316 *** Variable width and height spaces
3317
3318 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3319 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3320 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3321 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3322 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3323 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3324 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3325
3326 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3327 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3328 properties described below.
3329
3330 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3331 characters having the `display' property.
3332
3333 - :width WIDTH
3334
3335 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3336 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3337
3338 - :relative-width FACTOR
3339
3340 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3341 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3342 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3343 width of that character by FACTOR.
3344
3345 - :align-to HPOS
3346
3347 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3348 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3349
3350 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3351
3352 - :height HEIGHT
3353
3354 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3355 normal line height.
3356
3357 - :relative-height FACTOR
3358
3359 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3360 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3361
3362 - :ascent ASCENT
3363
3364 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3365 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3366 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3367 equal to 100.
3368
3369 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3370
3371 *** Images
3372
3373 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3374 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3375 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3376 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3377 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3378 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3379 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3380 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3381 as display specification.
3382
3383 *** Other display properties
3384
3385 - :space-width FACTOR
3386
3387 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3388 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3389 integer or float.
3390
3391 - :height HEIGHT
3392
3393 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3394
3395 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3396 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3397 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3398 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3399 a font is available counts as a step.
3400
3401 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3402 as tall as the frame's default font.
3403
3404 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3405 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3406
3407 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3408 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3409
3410 - :raise FACTOR
3411
3412 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3413 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3414 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3415 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3416 `:height' subproperty.
3417
3418 *** Conditional display properties
3419
3420 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3421 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3422 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3423 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3424 the text having the `display' property.
3425
3426 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3427 `(:when t SPEC)'.
3428
3429 +++
3430 ** New menu separator types.
3431
3432 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3433 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3434 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3435 to specify other menu separator types.
3436
3437 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3438
3439 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3440 separator occurs.
3441
3442 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3443
3444 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3445
3446 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3447
3448 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3449
3450 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3451
3452 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3453
3454 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3455
3456 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3457
3458 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3459
3460 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3461 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3462
3463 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3464
3465 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3466
3467 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3468
3469 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3470
3471 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3472
3473 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3474
3475 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3476
3477 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3478
3479 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3480
3481 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3482
3483 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3484
3485 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3486
3487 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3488
3489 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3490
3491 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3492 the corresponding single-line separators.
3493
3494 +++
3495 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3496
3497 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3498 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3499 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3500 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3501 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3502 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3503 default foreground is black.
3504
3505 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3506 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3507 `ScrollBarBackground').
3508
3509 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3510 settings for scroll bar colors.
3511
3512 +++
3513 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3514 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3515
3516 ---
3517 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3518 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3519 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3520 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3521 the original window start.
3522
3523 ---
3524 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3525 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3526 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3527
3528 +++
3529 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3530
3531 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3532 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3533 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3534 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3535
3536 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3537 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3538
3539 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3540
3541 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3542 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3543 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3544 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3545 temporarily to nil, for example
3546
3547 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3548 (enlarge-window 10))
3549
3550 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3551 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3552
3553 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3554 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3555 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3556 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3557 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3558 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3559
3560
3561 ^L
3562 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3563
3564 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3565 input.
3566
3567 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3568
3569 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3570
3571 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3572 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3573 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3574 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3575 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3576
3577 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3578 been added.
3579
3580 ^L
3581 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3582
3583 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3584
3585 ^L
3586 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3587
3588 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3589 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3590 \f
3591 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3592
3593 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3594
3595 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3596 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3597 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3598
3599 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3600 is the one that is used.
3601
3602 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3603 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3604 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3605 separate from the command's regular output.
3606 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3607 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3608 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3609 the buffer name.
3610
3611 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3612 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3613 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3614 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3615
3616 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3617 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3618 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3619 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3620
3621 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3622 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3623 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3624 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3625
3626 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3627 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3628 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3629 they never ignore case.
3630
3631 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3632 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3633 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3634 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3635 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3636 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3637 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3638
3639 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3640 the same format that was used in the file before.
3641
3642 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3643 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3644
3645 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3646 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3647 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3648
3649 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3650 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3651 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3652 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3653 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3654 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3655 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3656
3657 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3658 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3659 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3660 format. You can now customize these variables.
3661
3662 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3663 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3664 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3665 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3666
3667 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3668 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3669 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3670
3671 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3672 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3673 doesn't have any effect.
3674
3675 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3676 not one per buffer.
3677
3678 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3679 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3680 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3681
3682 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3683 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3684 `auto-show-mode' command.
3685
3686 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3687 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3688 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3689 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3690 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3691
3692 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3693 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3694
3695 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3696 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3697 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3698
3699 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3700 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3701 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3702 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3703
3704 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3705
3706 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3707 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3708 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3709 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3710 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3711
3712 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3713 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3714
3715 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3716 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3717 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3718 `?' on other systems.
3719
3720 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3721 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3722 Unix.
3723
3724 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3725 current codepage when it starts.
3726
3727 ** Mail changes
3728
3729 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3730 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3731 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3732 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3733 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3734 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3735 latin-1:
3736
3737 MIME-version: 1.0
3738 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3739 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3740
3741 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3742 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3743 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3744 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3745 buffer-file-coding-system.
3746
3747 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3748 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3749 mail.
3750
3751 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3752 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3753 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3754 list of possible coding systems.
3755
3756 ** CC Mode changes
3757
3758 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3759 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3760 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3761 docstring for details.
3762
3763 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3764 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3765 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3766 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3767 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3768
3769 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3770 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3771
3772 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3773 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3774
3775 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3776 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3777 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3778 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3779 anonymous classes.
3780
3781 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3782 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3783
3784 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3785 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3786 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3787 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3788
3789 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3790 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3791 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3792 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3793 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3794
3795 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3796
3797 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
3798
3799 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
3800 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
3801
3802 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
3803
3804 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
3805 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
3806 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
3807 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
3808 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
3809
3810 ** Gnus changes.
3811
3812 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
3813 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
3814 Gnus manual for the full story.
3815
3816 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
3817 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
3818 group, which is created automatically.
3819
3820 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
3821 values.
3822
3823 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
3824
3825 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
3826 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
3827
3828 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
3829 `C-u C-c C-c'.
3830
3831 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
3832
3833 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
3834 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
3835
3836 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
3837
3838 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
3839 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
3840
3841 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
3842 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
3843
3844 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
3845 control over simplification.
3846
3847 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
3848
3849 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
3850 limit.
3851
3852 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
3853
3854 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
3855
3856 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
3857 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
3858 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
3859
3860 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
3861 `a' forces normal posting method.
3862
3863 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
3864 -- `W d'.
3865
3866 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
3867 to a non-nil value.
3868
3869 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
3870 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
3871
3872 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
3873 has been added.
3874
3875 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
3876
3877 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
3878
3879 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
3880 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
3881
3882 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
3883 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
3884
3885 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
3886
3887 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
3888 been added.
3889
3890 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
3891 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
3892
3893 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
3894 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
3895
3896 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
3897
3898 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
3899
3900 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
3901
3902 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
3903
3904 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
3905 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
3906 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
3907
3908 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
3909 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
3910 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
3911 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
3912 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3913
3914 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3915 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3916 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3917 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3918
3919 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3920 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3921 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3922 mismatch.
3923
3924 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3925
3926 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3927 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3928
3929 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3930 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3931 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3932 removed from the label.
3933
3934 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3935 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3936
3937 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3938 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3939
3940 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3941 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3942 expressions.
3943
3944 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3945
3946 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3947
3948 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3949 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3950
3951 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3952 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3953 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3954
3955 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3956 changes with a special face.
3957
3958 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3959 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3960 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3961 \f
3962 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3963
3964 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3965 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3966 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3967 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3968 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3969
3970 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3971 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3972 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3973
3974 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3975 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
3976 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
3977 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
3978 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
3979 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
3980 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
3981 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
3982 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
3983
3984 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
3985 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
3986 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
3987 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
3988 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
3989 program.
3990
3991 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
3992 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
3993 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
3994 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
3995 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
3996 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
3997
3998 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
3999 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
4000 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
4001 was not documented clearly before.
4002
4003 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
4004 This includes Tetris and Snake.
4005 \f
4006 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
4007
4008 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
4009 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
4010 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
4011 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
4012
4013 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
4014 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
4015 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
4016
4017 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
4018
4019 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
4020 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
4021
4022 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
4023 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
4024 integers.
4025
4026 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
4027 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
4028 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
4029 file names and attributes are returned.
4030
4031 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
4032 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
4033 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
4034 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
4035 returns the result.
4036
4037 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
4038 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
4039
4040 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
4041
4042 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
4043 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
4044 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
4045 optionally.
4046
4047 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
4048 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
4049
4050 **
4051 The new function process-running-child-p
4052 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
4053 terminal to its own child process.
4054
4055 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
4056 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
4057 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
4058 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
4059
4060 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
4061 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
4062
4063 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
4064 :included is an alias for :visible.
4065
4066 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
4067 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
4068 to move or copy menu entries.
4069
4070 ** Multibyte editing changes
4071
4072 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
4073 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
4074 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
4075 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
4076 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
4077 (setq char (sref str idx)
4078 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
4079 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
4080
4081 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
4082 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
4083 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
4084
4085 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
4086 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
4087 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
4088
4089 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
4090
4091 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
4092 across the boundary.
4093
4094 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
4095 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
4096 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
4097 contains 8-bit characters.
4098 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
4099 contains invalid characters.
4100
4101 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
4102 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
4103 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
4104 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
4105 way.
4106
4107 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
4108 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
4109 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
4110 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
4111
4112 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
4113 compose Thai characters in a string.
4114
4115 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
4116 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
4117 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
4118 menus should always use the third argument.
4119
4120 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
4121 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
4122 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
4123 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
4124
4125 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
4126 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
4127 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
4128 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
4129
4130 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4131 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4132 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4133 echo area contents.
4134
4135 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4136
4137 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4138 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4139 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4140
4141 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4142 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4143 means to clear out that attribute.
4144
4145 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4146 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4147
4148 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4149 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4150 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4151 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4152
4153 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4154 the gap of the current buffer.
4155
4156 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4157 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4158 current buffer.
4159
4160 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4161 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4162 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4163 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4164 \f
4165 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4166
4167 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4168 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4169 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4170 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4171 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4172
4173 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4174 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4175 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4176 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4177 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4178
4179 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4180 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4181 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4182
4183 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4184 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4185 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4186 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4187 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4188 results.
4189
4190 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4191 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4192 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4193 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4194 \f
4195 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4196
4197 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4198 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4199 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4200 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4201
4202 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4203 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4204 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4205 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4206 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4207 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4208 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4209 region.
4210
4211 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4212 selective undo.
4213
4214 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4215 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4216 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4217 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4218 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4219
4220 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4221 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4222 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4223 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4224
4225 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4226 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4227 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4228 something that most users not do.
4229
4230 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4231 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4232 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4233 applications.
4234
4235 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4236 pasting operations.
4237
4238 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4239 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4240 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4241 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4242 `ps-printer-name'.
4243
4244 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4245 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4246 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4247 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4248 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4249 hits a new word.
4250
4251 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4252 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4253 to be confused by TeX commands.
4254
4255 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4256 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4257 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4258 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4259
4260 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4261 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4262 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4263 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4264 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4265
4266 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4267 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4268
4269 ** Changes in input method usage.
4270
4271 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4272 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4273 respectively.
4274
4275 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4276
4277 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4278 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4279
4280 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4281 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4282
4283 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4284
4285 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4286
4287 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4288 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4289
4290 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4291 given in the following case:
4292 o When you are using a complex input method.
4293 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4294
4295 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4296 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4297 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4298 setting it to t is helpful.
4299
4300 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4301
4302 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4303 keys:
4304 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4305 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4306 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4307 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4308 environment.
4309
4310 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4311 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4312 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4313 get
4314
4315 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4316
4317 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4318
4319 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4320 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4321
4322 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4323 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4324 its owner and group.
4325
4326 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4327 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4328
4329 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4330 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4331
4332 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4333 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4334 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4335 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4336
4337 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4338 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4339 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4340 for writing keyboard macros.
4341
4342 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4343 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4344 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4345 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4346 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4347 info.
4348
4349 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4350
4351 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4352 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4353 contents only.
4354
4355 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4356 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4357 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4358 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4359
4360 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4361 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4362 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4363
4364 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4365 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4366 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4367 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4368
4369 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4370 failure if the command produces no output.
4371
4372 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4373 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4374 the mouse.
4375
4376 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4377 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4378 function and variable names.
4379
4380 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4381 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4382 file-coding-system-alist.
4383
4384 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4385 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4386 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4387 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4388 according to the current fontset.
4389
4390 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4391
4392 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4393 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4394 nonascii-insert-offset.
4395
4396 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4397 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4398 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4399 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4400
4401 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4402 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4403
4404 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4405 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4406
4407 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4408 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4409 command keys.
4410
4411 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4412 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4413
4414 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4415 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4416 all variables that have documentation.
4417
4418 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4419 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4420 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4421 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4422 it should show; the default is 20.
4423
4424 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4425 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4426 of your input.
4427
4428 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4429 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4430 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4431 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4432 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4433 Newly added options are included as well.
4434
4435 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4436 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4437 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4438
4439 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4440 Customize menu.
4441
4442 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4443 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4444
4445 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4446 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4447 invoked.
4448
4449 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4450 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4451 The default is 1.
4452
4453 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4454 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4455 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4456 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4457 sensibly.
4458
4459 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4460
4461 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4462 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4463 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4464
4465 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4466 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4467 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4468 every night.
4469
4470 ** Desktop changes
4471
4472 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4473 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4474
4475 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4476 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4477
4478 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4479 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4480
4481 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4482 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4483 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4484 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4485 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4486 made invisible again.
4487
4488 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4489
4490 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4491 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4492 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4493 toggle.
4494
4495 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4496 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4497 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4498 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4499 rmail-default-body-file.
4500
4501 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4502 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4503 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4504
4505 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4506 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4507 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4508
4509 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4510 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4511 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4512 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4513 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4514 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4515
4516 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4517 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4518 provided by feedmail are:
4519
4520 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4521 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4522 there is also a queue for draft messages
4523
4524 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4525 be prompted for confirmation
4526
4527 **** does smart filling of address headers
4528
4529 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4530 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4531 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4532
4533 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4534 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4535 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4536 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4537
4538 ** Dired changes
4539
4540 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4541 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4542
4543 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4544 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4545
4546 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4547 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4548 for a specified regexp.
4549
4550 ** VC Changes
4551
4552 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4553 conveniently.
4554
4555 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4556 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4557 Dired.
4558
4559 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4560 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4561 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4562 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4563
4564 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4565 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4566 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4567 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4568 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4569
4570 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4571 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4572 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4573 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4574 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4575
4576 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4577 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4578 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4579 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4580
4581 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4582 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4583 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4584
4585 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4586 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4587 session to resolve them.
4588
4589 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4590 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4591 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4592 uses as well).
4593
4594 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4595 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4596 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4597 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4598 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4599 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4600 using ediff.
4601
4602 ** Changes in Font Lock
4603
4604 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4605 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4606 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4607 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4608 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4609
4610 ** Frame name display changes
4611
4612 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4613 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4614 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4615 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4616
4617 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4618 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4619 menu.
4620
4621 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4622
4623 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4624 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4625 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4626
4627 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4628
4629 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4630 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4631 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4632
4633 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4634 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4635 the following line.
4636
4637 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4638 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4639 previously sent input.
4640
4641 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4642 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4643 as the search string.
4644
4645 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4646 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4647
4648 ** C mode changes
4649
4650 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4651 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4652 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4653 definition.
4654
4655 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4656 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4657 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4658 style is still the default however.
4659
4660 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4661
4662 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4663 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4664 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4665
4666 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4667 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4668
4669 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4670 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4671
4672 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4673 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4674
4675 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4676 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4677
4678 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4679 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4680 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4681 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4682
4683 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4684
4685 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4686 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4687 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4688
4689 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4690 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4691 expanding dynamically.
4692
4693 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4694 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4695
4696 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4697 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4698 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4699 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4700
4701 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4702
4703 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4704
4705 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4706 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4707 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4708 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4709 against the first word in the title.
4710
4711 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4712 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4713 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4714 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4715 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4716 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4717
4718 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4719 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4720 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4721 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4722
4723 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4724
4725 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4726 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4727 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4728 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4729 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4730 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4731
4732 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4733 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4734
4735 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4736 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4737 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4738
4739 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4740 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4741
4742 ** Ispell changes.
4743
4744 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4745 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4746 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4747
4748 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4749 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4750 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4751 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4752 include:
4753
4754 o URLs are automatically skipped
4755 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4756
4757 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4758
4759 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4760
4761 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4762 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4763 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4764 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4765
4766 *** New recursive parser.
4767
4768 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4769 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4770 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4771
4772 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4773
4774 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4775 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4776 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4777
4778 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4779
4780 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4781
4782 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4783
4784 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4785
4786 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4787
4788 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4789 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4790
4791 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4792
4793 *** References to external documents.
4794
4795 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4796 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4797 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
4798 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
4799 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
4800 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
4801 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
4802
4803 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
4804
4805 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
4806 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
4807
4808 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
4809 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
4810
4811 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
4812
4813 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
4814 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
4815
4816 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
4817
4818 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
4819 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
4820 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
4821 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
4822 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
4823 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
4824 more.
4825
4826 *** Support for the varioref package
4827
4828 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
4829
4830 *** New hooks
4831
4832 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
4833 and citations are created. These hooks are
4834 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
4835 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
4836
4837 *** Citations outside LaTeX
4838
4839 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
4840 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
4841
4842 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
4843
4844 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
4845 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
4846 fontified, use
4847
4848 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
4849
4850 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
4851 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
4852 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
4853 directories that contain the same file name.
4854
4855 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
4856 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
4857 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
4858 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
4859 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
4860 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
4861 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
4862 directory.
4863
4864 ** New modes and packages
4865
4866 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
4867 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
4868 it, but some do not.
4869
4870 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
4871 code.
4872
4873 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
4874 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
4875 around in a buffer.
4876
4877 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
4878
4879 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
4880 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
4881 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
4882 established system of notation similar to Chess.
4883
4884 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
4885 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
4886 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
4887
4888 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
4889 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
4890 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
4891 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
4892 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
4893 the like.
4894
4895 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
4896 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
4897
4898 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
4899 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
4900 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
4901 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
4902
4903 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
4904
4905 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
4906 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
4907 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
4908 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
4909 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
4910 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
4911 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
4912 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
4913 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
4914 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
4915 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
4916
4917 Platform-specific modes:
4918
4919 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4920 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4921 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4922 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4923 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4924 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4925 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4926 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4927 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4928 \f
4929 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4930
4931 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4932 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4933 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4934 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4935
4936 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4937 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4938 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4939
4940 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4941 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4942 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4943 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4944
4945 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4946 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4947 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4948 environment.
4949
4950 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4951 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4952 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4953 current input method for reading this one event.
4954
4955 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4956 now control whether to output certain characters as
4957 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4958 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4959 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4960 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4961 \f
4962 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4963
4964 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4965 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4966
4967 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4968 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4969 always increases point by 1.
4970
4971 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4972 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4973
4974 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4975
4976 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
4977 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
4978 default value changed. For example,
4979
4980 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
4981 :type 'integer
4982 :group 'foo
4983 :version "20.3")
4984
4985 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
4986 :version "20.3")
4987
4988 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
4989 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
4990 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
4991 `:version' in the top level group.
4992
4993 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
4994
4995 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
4996 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
4997
4998 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
4999 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
5000 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
5001 to themselves.
5002
5003 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
5004 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
5005 values whatever.
5006
5007 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
5008 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
5009 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
5010
5011 ** Frame-local variables.
5012
5013 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
5014 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
5015 local bindings for that variable.
5016
5017 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
5018 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
5019 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
5020 parameter name.
5021
5022 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
5023 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
5024 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
5025 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
5026
5027 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
5028 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
5029 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
5030 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
5031
5032 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
5033 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
5034 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
5035 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
5036 See the documentation in sregex.el.
5037
5038 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
5039 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
5040 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
5041 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
5042
5043 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
5044 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
5045
5046 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
5047 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
5048 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
5049
5050 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
5051 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
5052 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
5053 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
5054
5055 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
5056 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
5057 empty input.
5058
5059 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
5060 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
5061 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
5062 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
5063 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
5064
5065 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
5066 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
5067 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
5068 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
5069
5070 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
5071 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
5072 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
5073 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
5074 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
5075
5076 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
5077 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
5078 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
5079 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
5080
5081 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
5082 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
5083 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
5084
5085 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
5086 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
5087 was directed to display this buffer.
5088
5089 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
5090 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
5091 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
5092 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
5093 set-window-configuration.
5094
5095 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
5096 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
5097 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
5098 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
5099
5100 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
5101 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
5102 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
5103
5104 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
5105 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
5106 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
5107
5108 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
5109 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
5110
5111 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
5112 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
5113
5114 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
5115 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
5116 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
5117
5118 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
5119 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
5120 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
5121 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
5122
5123 ** Menu changes
5124
5125 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
5126 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
5127 better supported.
5128
5129 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
5130 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5131 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5132 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5133 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5134
5135 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5136
5137 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5138 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5139 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5140 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5141
5142 The format is:
5143 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5144 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5145 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5146 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5147 The supported properties include
5148
5149 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5150 item is enabled.
5151 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5152 item should appear in the menu.
5153 :filter FILTER-FN
5154 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5155 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5156 It should return a binding to use instead.
5157 :keys DESCRIPTION
5158 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5159 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5160 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5161 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5162 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5163 keyboard binding.
5164 :key-sequence nil
5165 This means that the command normally has no
5166 keyboard equivalent.
5167 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5168 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5169 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5170 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5171 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5172
5173 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5174 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5175
5176 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5177
5178 ** New event types
5179
5180 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5181 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5182 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5183 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5184
5185 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5186
5187 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5188 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5189 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5190 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5191 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5192 forward, away from the user.
5193
5194 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5195
5196 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5197 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5198 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5199 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5200 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5201
5202 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5203
5204 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5205 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5206 that were dragged and dropped.
5207
5208 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5209
5210 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5211
5212 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5213 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5214 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5215
5216 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5217 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5218 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5219
5220 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5221 in Emacs 19 and before.
5222
5223 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5224 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5225
5226 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5227 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5228 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5229 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5230
5231 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5232 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5233 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5234 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5235 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5236
5237 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5238 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5239 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5240 consistent with the new representation.
5241
5242 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5243 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5244 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5245 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5246
5247 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5248 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5249 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5250
5251 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5252 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5253 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5254
5255 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5256 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5257 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5258
5259 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5260 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5261
5262 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5263 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5264
5265 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5266 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5267 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5268 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5269
5270 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5271 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5272
5273 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5274 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5275 buffer or string being searched.
5276
5277 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5278 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5279 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5280 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5281 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5282 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5283 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5284
5285 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5286
5287 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5288 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5289 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5290 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5291 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5292 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5293 define-coding-system-alias.
5294
5295 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5296 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5297 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5298 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5299 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5300 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5301 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5302 `iso-8859-1'.
5303
5304 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5305 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5306 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5307 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5308
5309 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5310 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5311 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5312 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5313
5314 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5315 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5316 This function requires a user interaction.
5317
5318 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5319 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5320 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5321 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5322 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5323 select-safe-coding-system.
5324
5325 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5326 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5327 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5328 was done.
5329
5330 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5331 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5332 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5333
5334 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5335 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5336 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5337 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5338
5339 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5340 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5341 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5342 converted.
5343
5344 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5345 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5346
5347 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5348 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5349 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5350 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5351 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5352 range of characters.
5353
5354 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5355 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5356
5357 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5358 in the current buffer at position POS.
5359
5360 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5361 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5362 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5363 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5364 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5365 binding input-method-function to nil.
5366
5367 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5368 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5369 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5370 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5371 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5372
5373 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5374 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5375
5376 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5377 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5378
5379 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5380 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5381 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5382 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5383 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5384 \f
5385 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5386
5387 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5388 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5389 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5390 tree structure.
5391
5392 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5393 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5394
5395 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5396 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5397 in your .emacs file.)
5398
5399 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5400 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5401
5402 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5403 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5404
5405 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5406 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5407 kills the region.
5408
5409 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5410 delete the character before point, as usual.
5411
5412 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5413 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5414 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5415
5416 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5417 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5418 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5419 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5420 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5421 past.)
5422
5423 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5424 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5425 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5426 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5427 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5428
5429 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5430 and is an alias for it.
5431
5432 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5433 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5434
5435 ** Scrolling changes
5436
5437 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5438 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5439
5440 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5441 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5442 where it started.
5443
5444 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5445 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5446 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5447 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5448
5449 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5450 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5451 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5452 recenters the window.
5453
5454 ** International character set support (MULE)
5455
5456 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5457 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5458 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5459 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5460 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5461 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5462
5463 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5464 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5465 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5466 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5467 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5468
5469 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5470 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5471 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5472 language, to make it possible to type them.
5473
5474 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5475 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5476
5477 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5478 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5479
5480 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5481
5482 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5483
5484 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5485 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5486 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5487 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5488 characters for their work until they want to change.
5489
5490 *** Input methods
5491
5492 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5493 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5494 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5495 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5496 support several input methods.
5497
5498 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5499 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5500 work.
5501
5502 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5503 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5504 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5505 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5506 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5507 letter.
5508
5509 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5510 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5511 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5512 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5513 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5514
5515 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5516 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5517 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5518 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5519
5520 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5521 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5522 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5523 the first guess is wrong.
5524
5525 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5526 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5527
5528 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5529 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5530 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5531 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5532
5533 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5534 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5535 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5536 translate automatically to and from either one.
5537
5538 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5539
5540 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5541 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5542 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5543 what you want.
5544
5545 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5546 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5547 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5548 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5549
5550 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5551 character conversion as well.
5552
5553 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5554
5555 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5556 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5557 requires using many fonts.
5558
5559 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5560 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5561
5562 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5563 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5564 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5565 you would use a font.
5566
5567 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5568 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5569 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5570
5571 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5572 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5573 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5574 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5575 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5576
5577 *** Defining fontsets.
5578
5579 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5580 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5581 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5582
5583 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5584 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5585 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5586 standard fontset are created automatically.
5587
5588 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5589 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5590 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5591 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5592 name is `fontset-startup'.
5593
5594 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5595 The resource value should have this form:
5596 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5597 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5598 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5599 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5600 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5601 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5602 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5603 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5604 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5605
5606 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5607 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5608 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5609
5610 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5611 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5612 following resource,
5613 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5614 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5615 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5616 Here is the substitution rule:
5617 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5618 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5619 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5620 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5621 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5622
5623 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5624 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5625 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5626
5627 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5628 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5629 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5630 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5631 fontsets.
5632
5633 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5634 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5635
5636 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5637 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5638 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5639 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5640 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5641 system for new files that you create.
5642
5643 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5644 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5645 whole Emacs session.
5646
5647 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5648 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5649 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5650
5651 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5652 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5653 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5654 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5655 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5656
5657 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5658 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5659 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5660 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5661 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5662
5663 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5664 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5665
5666 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5667 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5668
5669 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5670 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5671
5672 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5673 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5674 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5675 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5676 of the file.
5677
5678 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5679 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5680 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5681 translated into that character code.
5682
5683 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5684 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5685
5686 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5687
5688 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5689 the coding system for keyboard input.
5690
5691 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5692 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5693 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5694
5695 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5696
5697 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5698 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5699 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5700 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5701 designed to work with terminals.
5702
5703 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5704 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5705 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5706 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5707 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5708 in the corresponding buffer.
5709
5710 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5711
5712 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5713 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5714 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5715
5716 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5717 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5718 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5719 want to use.
5720
5721 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5722 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5723
5724 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5725 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5726 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5727 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5728
5729 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5730 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5731 related information.
5732
5733 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5734 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5735 scripts.
5736
5737 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5738 information about the support for a particular language.
5739 You specify the language as an argument.
5740
5741 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5742 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5743 first dash.
5744
5745 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5746 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5747 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5748 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5749
5750 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5751 B big5 (Chinese)
5752 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5753 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5754 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5755 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5756 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5757 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5758 K euc-korea (Korean)
5759 R koi8 (Russian)
5760 Q tibetan
5761 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5762 T lao
5763 T tis620 (Thai)
5764 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5765 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5766 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5767 v viqr (Vietnamese)
5768 z hz (Chinese)
5769
5770 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5771 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5772 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5773 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5774
5775 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5776 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5777
5778 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5779 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5780 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5781 Rmail files themselves.
5782
5783 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5784 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5785
5786 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5787 for sending mail:
5788
5789 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5790 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5791 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5792 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5793 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5794
5795 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5796 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5797 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
5798 translations.
5799
5800 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
5801 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
5802 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
5803 without any conversion.
5804
5805 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
5806 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
5807 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
5808 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
5809
5810 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
5811 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
5812
5813 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
5814 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
5815
5816 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
5817 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
5818
5819 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
5820 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
5821 in the buffer before point.
5822
5823 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
5824 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
5825 you are using.
5826
5827 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
5828 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
5829
5830 ** File locking works with NFS now.
5831
5832 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
5833 in the same directory as FILENAME.
5834
5835 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
5836 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
5837 can become a bottleneck.
5838
5839 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
5840 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
5841 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
5842 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
5843 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
5844 so useful that the change is worth while.
5845
5846 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
5847 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
5848 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
5849 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
5850
5851 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
5852 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
5853 show-paren-mode.
5854
5855 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
5856 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
5857 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
5858
5859 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
5860 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
5861 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
5862
5863 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
5864 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
5865 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
5866
5867 ** Changes in View mode.
5868
5869 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
5870 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
5871
5872 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
5873 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
5874
5875 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
5876 previous state.
5877
5878 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
5879 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
5880
5881 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
5882 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
5883 not just the selected window.
5884
5885 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
5886 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
5887 turns View mode on or off.
5888
5889 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
5890 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
5891 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
5892
5893 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
5894 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
5895
5896 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
5897 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
5898 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
5899 which version to compare with.
5900
5901 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
5902 blocks if a match is inside the block.
5903
5904 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
5905 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
5906 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
5907 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
5908
5909 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
5910 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
5911 blocks, all of them or none.
5912
5913 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
5914 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
5915 confirmation first.
5916
5917 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5918 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5919 However, the mode will not be changed if
5920 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5921 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5922 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5923 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5924
5925 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5926
5927 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5928 these commands do not change the major mode.
5929
5930 ** M-x occur changes.
5931
5932 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5933 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5934
5935 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5936 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5937 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5938
5939 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5940 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5941 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5942 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5943 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5944
5945 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5946 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5947 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5948 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5949
5950 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5951 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5952 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5953
5954 ** Outline mode changes.
5955
5956 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5957
5958 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5959
5960 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5961 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5962 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5963 was already active.
5964
5965 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5966 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5967 get confused by it.
5968
5969 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5970 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5971
5972 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5973
5974 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5975 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
5976 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
5977 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
5978
5979 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
5980 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
5981 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
5982
5983 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
5984 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
5985 values.
5986
5987 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
5988 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
5989 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
5990 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
5991
5992 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
5993 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
5994 can be. The default value is 30.
5995
5996 ** Changes in Mail mode.
5997
5998 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
5999 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
6000 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
6001 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
6002 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
6003 behavior.
6004
6005 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
6006 compose-mail-other-frame.
6007
6008 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
6009 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
6010 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
6011 buffer that shows the original message.
6012
6013 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
6014 with separator lines around the contents.
6015
6016 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
6017 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
6018 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
6019 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
6020
6021 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
6022
6023 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
6024 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
6025 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
6026 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
6027
6028 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
6029 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
6030 /etc/passwd.
6031
6032 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
6033 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
6034 /etc/passwd.
6035
6036 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
6037 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
6038 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
6039 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
6040
6041 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
6042 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
6043 be taken to be magic.
6044
6045 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
6046 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
6047 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
6048
6049 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
6050 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
6051
6052 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
6053 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
6054
6055 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
6056
6057 new key dired.el binding old key
6058 ------- ---------------- -------
6059 * c dired-change-marks c
6060 * m dired-mark m
6061 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
6062 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
6063 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
6064 * u dired-unmark u
6065 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
6066 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
6067 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
6068 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
6069 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
6070 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
6071
6072 ** Rmail changes.
6073
6074 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
6075 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
6076 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
6077 each time you run it.
6078
6079 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
6080 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
6081
6082 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
6083 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
6084 means to move in the opposite direction.
6085
6086 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
6087 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
6088
6089 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
6090 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
6091 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
6092 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
6093 for output.
6094
6095 ** Gnus changes.
6096
6097 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
6098
6099 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
6100 Gnus.
6101
6102 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
6103 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
6104
6105 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
6106 article mode line.
6107
6108 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
6109
6110 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
6111
6112 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
6113
6114 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
6115 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
6116 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
6117
6118 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
6119
6120 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
6121
6122 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
6123 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
6124
6125 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
6126 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
6127 used to pick articles.
6128
6129 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
6130 another have been added.
6131
6132 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6133
6134 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6135 generating lines in buffers.
6136
6137 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6138 `M-C-_'.
6139
6140 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6141
6142 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6143
6144 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6145
6146 *** Scores can be decayed.
6147
6148 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6149
6150 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6151 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6152
6153 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6154 the native server.
6155
6156 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6157
6158 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6159 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6160
6161 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6162
6163 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6164 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6165
6166 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6167 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6168
6169 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6170 a group.
6171
6172 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6173 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6174
6175 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6176
6177 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6178
6179 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6180
6181 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6182
6183 Use the `Y c' command.
6184
6185 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6186
6187 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6188
6189 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6190
6191 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6192 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6193
6194 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6195
6196 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6197
6198 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6199 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6200
6201 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6202
6203 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6204 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6205 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6206 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6207 this issue.)
6208
6209 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6210 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6211 particular news group. This can be done by:
6212
6213 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6214
6215 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6216 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6217 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6218 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6219 for reading and posting).
6220
6221 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6222 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6223 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6224 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6225 there.
6226
6227 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6228 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6229
6230 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6231 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6232 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6233 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6234 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6235
6236 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6237 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6238
6239 ** CC mode changes.
6240
6241 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6242 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6243 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6244 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6245 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6246 loaded.
6247
6248 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6249 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6250 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6251 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6252 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6253 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6254
6255 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6256 of the current buffer.
6257
6258 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6259 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6260 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6261
6262 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6263 style that the Python developers like.
6264
6265 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6266 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6267 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6268
6269 ** VC Changes [new]
6270
6271 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6272 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6273 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6274
6275 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6276 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6277 developers.
6278
6279 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6280 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6281
6282 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6283 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6284 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6285 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6286
6287 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6288 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6289
6290 ** Calendar changes.
6291
6292 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6293 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6294 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6295
6296 ** ps-print changes
6297
6298 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6299
6300 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6301
6302 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6303 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6304 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6305 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6306 It defaults to `letter'.
6307 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6308
6309 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6310 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6311 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6312
6313 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6314 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6315 It defaults to 1.
6316
6317 *** Horizontal layout
6318
6319 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6320 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6321 All are measured in points.
6322
6323 *** Vertical layout
6324
6325 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6326 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6327 All are measured in points.
6328
6329 *** Headers
6330
6331 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6332 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6333 margin above the text.
6334
6335 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6336 framing box is printed around the header.
6337
6338 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6339 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6340
6341 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6342 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6343 `ps-header-font-size'.
6344
6345 *** Font managing
6346
6347 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6348 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6349 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6350 elements to this alist.
6351
6352 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6353 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6354
6355 ** hideshow changes.
6356
6357 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6358 C++, ; for lisp).
6359
6360 *** Support for java-mode added.
6361
6362 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6363 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6364
6365 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6366 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6367 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6368
6369 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6370 robust and a lot faster.
6371
6372 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6373
6374 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6375 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6376 documentation for more details.
6377
6378 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6379
6380 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6381 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6382 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6383 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6384 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6385
6386 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6387 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6388 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6389 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6390
6391 ** Font Lock mode
6392
6393 *** Custom support
6394
6395 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6396 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6397 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6398 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6399 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6400 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6401
6402 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6403
6404 *** Maximum decoration
6405
6406 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6407 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6408 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6409 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6410 to get the old behavior.
6411
6412 *** New support
6413
6414 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6415
6416 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6417 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6418
6419 *** Configurable support
6420
6421 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6422 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6423 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6424 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6425 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6426 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6427 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6428
6429 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6430 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6431 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6432
6433 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6434
6435 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6436 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6437 for any mode.
6438
6439 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6440
6441 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6442
6443 in your ~/.emacs.
6444
6445 *** New faces
6446
6447 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6448 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6449 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6450 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6451
6452 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6453
6454 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6455 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6456 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6457
6458 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6459
6460 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6461 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6462 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6463 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6464 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6465 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6466 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6467
6468 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6469 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6470 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6471 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6472 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6473 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6474
6475 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6476
6477 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6478 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6479 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6480 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6481
6482 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6483 settings.
6484
6485 ** Ada mode changes.
6486
6487 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6488 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6489 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6490 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6491 stubs.
6492
6493 *** There are two new commands:
6494 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6495 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6496
6497 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6498 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6499 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6500
6501 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6502 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6503 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6504
6505 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6506 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6507 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6508 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6509
6510 ** Scheme mode changes.
6511
6512 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6513 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6514 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6515 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6516 have any effect.
6517
6518 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6519 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6520 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6521 variables as buffer-local variables.
6522
6523 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6524 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
6525
6526 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6527
6528 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6529 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6530 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6531 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6532
6533 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6534 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6535 buffer in Emacs.
6536
6537 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6538 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6539 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6540 option takes precedence.
6541
6542 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6543 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6544 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6545
6546 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6547 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6548 the current defun.
6549
6550 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6551 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6552
6553 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6554 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6555 necessary).
6556
6557 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6558 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6559 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6560 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6561 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6562 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6563
6564 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6565 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6566 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6567 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6568
6569 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6570 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6571 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6572 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6573 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6574
6575 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6576 since it applies only to the current frame.
6577
6578 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6579 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6580 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6581
6582 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6583 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6584 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6585 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6586 instead of just the file you are editing.
6587
6588 ** RefTeX mode
6589
6590 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6591 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6592 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6593 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6594 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6595
6596 C-c ( reftex-label
6597 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6598 knows which kind of label is needed.
6599
6600 C-c ) reftex-reference
6601 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6602 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6603
6604 C-c [ reftex-citation
6605 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6606 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6607
6608 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6609 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6610
6611 C-c = reftex-toc
6612 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6613 can quickly jump to every section.
6614
6615 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6616 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6617 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6618 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6619 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6620
6621 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6622
6623 *** Info documentation is now available.
6624
6625 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6626 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6627
6628 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6629 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6630
6631 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6632 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6633
6634 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6635 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6636 appropriate functions.
6637
6638 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6639 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6640
6641 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6642 been cleaned.
6643
6644 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6645 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6646
6647 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6648 shall be delimited.
6649
6650 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6651 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6652 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6653
6654 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6655 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6656 prefixed with `ALT'.
6657
6658 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6659 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6660 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6661 documentation).
6662
6663 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6664 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6665 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6666
6667 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6668 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6669
6670 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6671 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6672 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6673
6674 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6675
6676 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6677
6678 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6679 from alien sources.
6680
6681 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6682 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6683 crossref entries.
6684
6685 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6686 region.
6687
6688 *** Added support for imenu.
6689
6690 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6691 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6692 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6693 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6694
6695 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6696 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6697
6698 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6699
6700 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6701
6702 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6703 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6704 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6705 as an argument.
6706
6707 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6708 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6709
6710 ** browse-url changes
6711
6712 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6713 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6714 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6715 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6716 customization variables.
6717
6718 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6719
6720 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6721 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6722 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6723
6724 ** Changes in Ediff
6725
6726 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6727 pops up the Info file for this command.
6728
6729 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6730 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6731 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6732 directories).
6733
6734 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6735 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6736 files in the same directory.
6737
6738 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6739 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6740 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6741
6742 ** Changes in Viper
6743
6744 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6745 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6746 instead of vip-.
6747 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6748 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6749 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6750 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6751 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6752 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6753 color when Viper is in insert state.
6754 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6755 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6756 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6757
6758 ** Etags changes.
6759
6760 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6761 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6762 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6763 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6764 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6765
6766 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6767
6768 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6769 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6770
6771 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6772 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6773 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6774
6775 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6776 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6777 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6778 methods and protocols.
6779
6780 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6781 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6782 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6783 paragraph name.
6784
6785 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6786 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6787 at least M times and as many as N times.
6788
6789 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6790 in files has changed slightly.
6791
6792 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6793 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6794 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6795 with old time-stamp-format values.
6796
6797 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
6798 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
6799 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
6800 reasons.
6801
6802 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
6803 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
6804 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
6805 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
6806 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
6807 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
6808
6809 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
6810 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
6811 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
6812
6813 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
6814 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
6815 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
6816 recommended now will continue to work then.
6817
6818 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
6819 details.
6820
6821 ** There are some additional major modes:
6822
6823 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
6824 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
6825 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
6826
6827 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
6828 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
6829 into Emacs.
6830
6831 ** New Lisp packages include:
6832
6833 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
6834
6835 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
6836 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
6837
6838 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
6839
6840 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
6841 in shell buffers.
6842
6843 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
6844 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
6845 and `elint-defun'.
6846
6847 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
6848 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
6849 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
6850 strings or comments.
6851
6852 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
6853 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
6854 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
6855 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
6856 at these points.
6857
6858 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
6859 can visit them by short forms of their names.
6860
6861 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
6862 Emacs Lisp function at point.
6863
6864 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
6865
6866 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
6867 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
6868
6869 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
6870
6871 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
6872
6873 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
6874
6875 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
6876 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
6877
6878 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
6879 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
6880 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
6881 original place after inserting the copy.
6882
6883 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
6884 on the buffer.
6885
6886 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
6887 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
6888 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
6889
6890 Enable mouse-drag with:
6891 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
6892 -or-
6893 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
6894
6895 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
6896 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
6897
6898 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
6899 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
6900
6901 *** ogonek
6902
6903 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
6904 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
6905 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
6906 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
6907 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
6908 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
6909 instance) and vice versa.
6910
6911 To use this package load it using
6912 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
6913 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
6914 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
6915 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
6916 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
6917 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6918
6919 *** Interface to ph.
6920
6921 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6922
6923 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6924 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6925 these servers.
6926
6927 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6928
6929 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6930 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6931 while the real cursor does not move.
6932
6933 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6934 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6935
6936 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6937 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6938
6939 ** movemail change
6940
6941 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6942 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6943 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6944 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6945
6946 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6947 \f
6948 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6949
6950 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6951
6952 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6953 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6954 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6955 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6956 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6957
6958 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6959 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6960 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6961 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6962 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6963 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6964 \f
6965 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6966
6967 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6968 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6969 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6970 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6971
6972 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6973 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6974
6975 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
6976 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
6977 "win".
6978
6979 ** Basic Lisp changes
6980
6981 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
6982 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
6983
6984 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
6985 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
6986 or by the user.
6987
6988 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
6989
6990 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
6991
6992 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
6993 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
6994
6995 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
6996 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
6997 its argument.
6998
6999 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
7000
7001 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
7002
7003 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
7004
7005 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
7006 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
7007 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
7008 `format' function.
7009
7010 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
7011 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
7012 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
7013
7014 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
7015 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
7016 adding one of these suffixes.
7017
7018 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
7019 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
7020 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
7021
7022 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
7023 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
7024
7025 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
7026
7027 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
7028 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
7029
7030 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
7031 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
7032
7033 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
7034
7035 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
7036 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
7037
7038 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
7039 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
7040 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
7041 works using `save-current-buffer'.
7042
7043 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
7044 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
7045 of the last form.
7046
7047 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
7048 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
7049 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
7050 as the last form.
7051
7052 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
7053 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
7054 matches.
7055
7056 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
7057
7058 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
7059 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
7060 Then it returns that string.
7061
7062 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
7063
7064 (with-output-to-string
7065 (princ "The buffer is ")
7066 (princ (buffer-name)))
7067
7068 returns "The buffer is foo".
7069
7070 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
7071 is non-nil.
7072
7073 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
7074 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
7075 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
7076
7077 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
7078 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
7079
7080 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
7081 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
7082 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
7083 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
7084 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
7085 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
7086
7087 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
7088 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
7089 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
7090 characters".
7091
7092 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
7093 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
7094 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
7095 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
7096 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
7097
7098 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
7099 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
7100 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
7101 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
7102
7103 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
7104 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
7105
7106 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
7107
7108 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
7109 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
7110 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
7111 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
7112 guaranteed.
7113
7114 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
7115 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
7116 character).
7117
7118 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
7119
7120 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
7121 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
7122 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
7123 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
7124 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
7125
7126 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
7127
7128 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
7129 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
7130 more than the number of characters.
7131
7132 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7133 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7134 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7135 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7136 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7137 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7138
7139 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7140 and returns a string containing those characters.
7141
7142 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7143 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7144 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7145 character, sref signals an error.
7146
7147 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7148 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7149 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7150
7151 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7152 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7153 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7154
7155 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7156 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7157 to a vector of the characters in it.
7158
7159 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7160 of a string. You call it as follows:
7161
7162 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7163
7164 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7165 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7166 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7167 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7168 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7169
7170 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7171 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7172
7173 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7174 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7175
7176 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7177 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7178 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7179 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7180
7181 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7182
7183 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7184
7185 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7186 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7187 are not included in the resulting value.
7188
7189 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7190 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7191 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7192 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7193
7194 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7195 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7196 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7197 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7198 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7199 column START-COLUMN.
7200
7201 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7202 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7203 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7204 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7205 changed text, before the change.
7206
7207 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7208 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7209 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7210
7211 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7212
7213 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7214
7215 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7216 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7217
7218 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7219 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7220 which identify the character within that character set.
7221
7222 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7223 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7224 opposite of split-char.
7225
7226 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7227 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7228
7229 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7230 of all the characters in a string.
7231
7232 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7233 and specifying coding systems.
7234
7235 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7236 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7237 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7238 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7239 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7240 as what to do about code conversion.)
7241
7242 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7243 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7244
7245 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7246 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7247 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7248
7249 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7250 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7251 to match against a file name.
7252
7253 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7254 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7255 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7256 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7257 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7258 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7259
7260 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7261 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7262
7263 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7264 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7265
7266 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7267 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7268 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7269 service names.
7270
7271 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7272 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7273 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7274 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7275 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7276 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7277
7278 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7279 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7280
7281 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7282 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7283 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7284 start the subprocess.
7285
7286 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7287 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7288 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7289 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7290 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7291
7292 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7293 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7294 subprocess.
7295
7296 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7297 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7298 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7299 connection permanently or until overridden.
7300
7301 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7302 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7303 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7304 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7305 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7306 system for one operation at a time.
7307
7308 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7309 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7310
7311 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7312 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7313 The value is a cons cell,
7314 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7315 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7316 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7317 input to the subprocess.
7318
7319 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7320 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7321
7322 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7323 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7324 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7325
7326 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7327 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7328 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7329 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7330 customization.
7331
7332 Thus, instead of writing
7333
7334 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7335 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7336
7337 you would now write this:
7338
7339 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7340 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7341 :type 'boolean
7342 :group foo)
7343
7344 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7345 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7346 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7347 for a description of them.
7348
7349 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7350 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7351
7352 (defgroup ispell nil
7353 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7354 :group 'processes)
7355
7356 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7357 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7358 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7359 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7360 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7361
7362 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7363 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7364 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7365 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7366 first-level subgroups.
7367
7368 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7369
7370 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7371 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7372
7373 ** easy-mmode
7374
7375 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7376 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7377 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7378 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7379 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7380 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7381
7382 ** Text property changes
7383
7384 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7385 text property.
7386
7387 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7388 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7389 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7390 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7391 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7392
7393 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7394 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7395 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7396 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7397
7398 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7399 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7400 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7401
7402 ** Changes in invisibility features
7403
7404 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7405 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7406 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7407 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7408 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7409 make the overlay visible.
7410
7411 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7412 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7413 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7414 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7415 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7416 t when it should hide it.
7417
7418 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7419
7420 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7421 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7422 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7423 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7424 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7425 Here is an example of how to do this:
7426
7427 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7428 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7429 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7430 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7431
7432 ...
7433 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7434
7435 ...
7436 ;; When done with the overlays:
7437 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7438 ;; Or respectively:
7439 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7440
7441 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7442
7443 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7444 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7445 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7446 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7447
7448 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7449 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7450 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7451
7452 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7453 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7454
7455 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7456 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7457
7458 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7459 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7460 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7461
7462 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7463 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7464 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7465 determine the syntax type of the character.
7466
7467 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7468 of the current buffer.
7469
7470 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7471 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7472 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7473
7474 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7475 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7476 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7477 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7478 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7479
7480 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7481 text property.
7482
7483 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7484 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7485 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7486
7487 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7488 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7489 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7490 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7491 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7492
7493 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7494 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7495 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7496
7497 ** Changes in face features
7498
7499 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7500 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7501
7502 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7503 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7504
7505 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7506 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7507
7508 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7509 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7510
7511 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7512 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7513 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7514 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7515 overlay property).
7516
7517 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7518 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7519
7520 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7521
7522 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7523 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7524 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7525 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7526
7527 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7528 begins with ~.
7529
7530 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7531 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7532
7533 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7534 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7535
7536 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7537 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7538
7539 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7540 character code conversion as well as other things.
7541
7542 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7543 (formerly it did not).
7544
7545 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7546 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7547
7548 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7549 instead of constant strings.
7550
7551 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7552 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7553 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7554
7555 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7556 in the same way as before.
7557
7558 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7559 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7560 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7561
7562 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7563 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7564 else, and returns nil.
7565
7566 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7567 directory cannot be listed.
7568
7569 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7570
7571 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7572 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7573 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7574 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7575 ways:
7576
7577 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7578 It is available through the history command M-n.
7579
7580 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7581 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7582 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7583 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7584 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7585
7586 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7587 argument in this way.
7588
7589 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7590 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7591 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7592
7593 ** Echo area features
7594
7595 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7596 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7597 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7598 after the echo area is cleared.
7599
7600 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7601 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7602
7603 ** Keyboard input features
7604
7605 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7606 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7607
7608 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7609 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7610 by keyboard macros.
7611
7612 ** Frame-related changes
7613
7614 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7615 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7616 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7617
7618 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7619 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7620 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7621
7622 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7623 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7624 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7625 in the selected frame.
7626
7627 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7628 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7629 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7630
7631 ** X Windows features
7632
7633 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7634 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7635 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7636
7637 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7638 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7639
7640 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7641 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7642 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7643
7644 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7645 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7646
7647 ** Subprocess features
7648
7649 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7650 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7651 automatically.
7652
7653 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7654 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7655
7656 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7657 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7658
7659 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7660 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7661
7662 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7663 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7664 goes after the other menu items.
7665
7666 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7667 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7668 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7669 are in use.
7670
7671 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7672 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7673
7674 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7675 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7676 form.
7677
7678 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7679 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7680 but its hook is still run.
7681
7682 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7683 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7684
7685 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7686 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7687 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7688
7689 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7690 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7691 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7692 warned.
7693
7694 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7695 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7696
7697 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7698 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7699 functions like display-time.
7700
7701 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7702 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7703
7704 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7705 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7706 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7707
7708 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7709 if there is an error in compilation.
7710
7711 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7712 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7713 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7714 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7715
7716 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7717 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7718 the *scratch* buffer.
7719
7720 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7721 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7722 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7723 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7724
7725 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7726 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7727 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7728
7729 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7730 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7731 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7732 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7733
7734 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7735 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7736 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7737
7738 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7739 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7740 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7741 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7742 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7743 files at all.
7744
7745 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7746 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7747 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7748 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7749
7750 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7751 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7752 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7753 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7754
7755 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7756
7757 ** imenu.el changes.
7758
7759 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7760 item from menu created by imenu.
7761
7762 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7763 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7764 select one of those items.
7765 \f
7766 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7767 \f
7768 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7769
7770 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7771 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7772
7773 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7774 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7775 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7776 \f
7777 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7778
7779 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7780 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7781
7782 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7783 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7784 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7785 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7786 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7787 all caps.
7788
7789 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7790 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7791
7792 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7793 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7794 as in previous Emacs versions.
7795
7796 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7797 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
7798 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
7799 frames.
7800
7801 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
7802 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
7803 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
7804 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
7805 accident.
7806
7807 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
7808 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
7809 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
7810 line and then executing the macro.
7811
7812 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
7813
7814 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
7815 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
7816 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
7817 characters.
7818
7819 ** Font Lock mode
7820
7821 *** Font Lock support modes
7822
7823 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
7824 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
7825 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
7826 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
7827 Font Lock mode is enabled.
7828
7829 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
7830
7831 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
7832
7833 in your ~/.emacs.
7834
7835 *** lazy-lock
7836
7837 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
7838 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
7839 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
7840 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
7841 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
7842 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
7843 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
7844
7845 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
7846
7847 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
7848
7849 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
7850
7851 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7852
7853 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
7854 paren and key.
7855
7856 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
7857 supported.
7858
7859 ** Gnus changes.
7860
7861 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
7862 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
7863 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
7864 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
7865
7866 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
7867 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
7868
7869 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
7870 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
7871 obsolete.
7872
7873 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
7874 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
7875
7876 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
7877
7878 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
7879
7880 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
7881
7882 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
7883 referred.
7884
7885 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
7886
7887 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
7888
7889 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
7890
7891 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
7892
7893 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
7894 buffers.
7895
7896 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
7897
7898 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
7899
7900 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
7901
7902 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
7903
7904 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
7905
7906 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
7907
7908 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
7909
7910 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
7911 is possible.
7912
7913 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
7914
7915 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
7916 groups of groups.
7917
7918 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7919
7920 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7921 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7922
7923 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7924
7925 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7926
7927 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7928
7929 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7930
7931 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7932 expiration times.
7933
7934 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7935
7936 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7937 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7938
7939 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7940 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7941 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7942
7943 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7944 articles with the `*' command.
7945
7946 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7947
7948 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7949
7950 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7951
7952 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7953
7954 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7955 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7956
7957 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7958 buffer.
7959
7960 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7961
7962 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7963
7964 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7965
7966 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7967
7968 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7969
7970 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7971
7972 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7973
7974 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7975
7976 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
7977
7978 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
7979 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
7980
7981 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
7982 refetching.
7983
7984 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
7985
7986 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
7987 buffer to allow easier treatment.
7988
7989 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
7990
7991 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
7992
7993 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
7994
7995 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
7996 articles.
7997
7998 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
7999
8000 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
8001
8002 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
8003 cited text to hide is now customizable.
8004
8005 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
8006
8007 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
8008
8009 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
8010
8011 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
8012
8013 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
8014
8015 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
8016 in greater detail.
8017 \f
8018 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
8019
8020 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
8021 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
8022 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
8023 exists.
8024
8025 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
8026 as well as lists.
8027
8028 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
8029 of a given keymap.
8030
8031 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
8032 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
8033 keymap or nil.
8034
8035 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
8036 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
8037 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
8038 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
8039 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
8040 alias.
8041 \f
8042 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
8043
8044 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
8045
8046 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
8047 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
8048 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
8049 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
8050 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
8051
8052 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
8053 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
8054 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
8055
8056 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
8057
8058 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
8059 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
8060 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
8061 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
8062 chapter of the manual for details.
8063
8064 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
8065 customization variables take effect.
8066
8067 ** Marking with the mouse.
8068
8069 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
8070 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
8071 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
8072
8073 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
8074
8075 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
8076
8077 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
8078 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
8079
8080 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
8081 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
8082 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
8083 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
8084 applications, these problems are significant.
8085
8086 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
8087 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
8088 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
8089 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
8090 other DOS application as a subprocess.
8091
8092 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
8093 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
8094
8095 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
8096 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
8097 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
8098 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
8099 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
8100 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
8101
8102 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
8103
8104 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
8105 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
8106 minibuffer contains.
8107
8108 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
8109
8110 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
8111 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
8112 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
8113 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
8114
8115 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
8116 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
8117 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
8118 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
8119
8120 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
8121 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
8122
8123 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
8124 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
8125 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
8126
8127 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
8128 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
8129 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
8130 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8131
8132 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8133
8134 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8135 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8136
8137 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8138
8139 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8140 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8141 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8142 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8143 immediately after the selected one.
8144
8145 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8146 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8147
8148 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8149
8150 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8151 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8152 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8153 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8154 recover-session.
8155
8156 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8157 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8158 will not work.
8159
8160 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8161 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8162 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8163 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8164 now that the bug is fixed.
8165
8166 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8167
8168 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8169 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8170 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8171 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8172
8173 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8174 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8175 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8176 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8177
8178 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8179 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8180 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8181
8182 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8183 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8184 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8185 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8186 remain normal.
8187
8188 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8189 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8190
8191 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8192 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8193 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8194 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8195
8196 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8197 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8198 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8199 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8200 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8201 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8202
8203 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8204 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8205 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8206 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8207
8208 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8209 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8210 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8211
8212 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8213 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8214 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8215 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8216 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8217 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8218 to a limitation in font-lock).
8219
8220 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8221
8222 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8223 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8224 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8225 this example:
8226
8227 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8228 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8229
8230 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8231
8232 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8233
8234 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8235
8236 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8237
8238 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8239 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8240 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8241 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8242 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8243 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8244
8245 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8246 does the same job.
8247
8248 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8249 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8250
8251 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8252 text.
8253
8254 ** Font Lock mode
8255
8256 *** Global Font Lock mode
8257
8258 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8259 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8260 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8261 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8262 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8263
8264 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8265
8266 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8267
8268 in your ~/.emacs.
8269
8270 *** Local Refontification
8271
8272 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8273 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8274 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8275 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8276
8277 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8278 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8279 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8280 above and below point.
8281
8282 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8283
8284 ** Follow mode
8285
8286 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8287 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8288 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8289 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8290 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8291 follow-mode.
8292
8293 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8294
8295 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8296 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8297
8298 ** hide-show changes.
8299
8300 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8301 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8302 normal hooks.
8303
8304 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8305 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8306
8307 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8308 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8309 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8310
8311 ** MSDOS Changes
8312
8313 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8314 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8315
8316 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8317 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8318
8319 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8320
8321 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8322 pressing both mouse buttons.
8323
8324 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8325 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8326 are:
8327
8328 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8329 now works.
8330
8331 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8332
8333 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8334 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8335
8336 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8337
8338 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8339
8340 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8341
8342 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8343
8344 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8345 \f
8346 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8347
8348 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8349 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8350 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8351 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8352 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8353
8354 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8355
8356 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8357 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8358 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8359 be different.
8360
8361 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8362 than `system-type'.
8363
8364 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8365
8366 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8367 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8368
8369 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8370 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8371
8372 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8373 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8374 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8375
8376 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8377 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8378 like this:
8379
8380 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8381
8382 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8383 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8384 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8385
8386 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8387 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8388 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8389
8390 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8391 up if too much time passes.
8392
8393 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8394
8395 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8396 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8397 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8398 form in BODY.
8399
8400 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8401 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8402 call looks like this:
8403
8404 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8405
8406 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8407 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8408 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8409 ARGS.
8410
8411 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8412 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8413 command.
8414
8415 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8416 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8417 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8418 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8419
8420 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8421 idle for SECS seconds.
8422
8423 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8424 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8425 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8426 instead.
8427
8428 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8429 there is no answer within a certain time.
8430
8431 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8432
8433 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8434 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8435 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8436
8437 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8438 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8439 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8440 arguments in between are ignored.
8441
8442 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8443 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8444
8445 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8446 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8447 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8448 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8449 version.
8450
8451 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8452 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8453 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8454 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8455 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8456 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8457
8458 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8459 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8460 systems with limited file name syntax.
8461
8462 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8463 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8464 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8465 completions.el:
8466
8467 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8468 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8469 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8470
8471 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8472 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8473 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8474 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8475 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8476
8477 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8478 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8479 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8480
8481 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8482 marker from its buffer position.
8483
8484 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8485 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8486 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8487
8488 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8489 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8490 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8491 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8492 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8493 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8494
8495 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8496 errors that happen often during editing.
8497
8498 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8499 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8500 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8501
8502 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8503 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8504
8505 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8506 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8507 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8508 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8509 and not get-buffer-window.
8510
8511 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8512 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8513 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8514
8515 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8516 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8517 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8518 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8519 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8520 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8521 over and over for the same text.
8522
8523 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8524
8525 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8526 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8527
8528 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8529 ;; $HEADER: text $
8530
8531 in addition to the normal
8532
8533 ;; HEADER: text
8534
8535 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8536 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8537 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8538
8539
8540 \f
8541 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
8542
8543 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8544 Copyright information:
8545
8546 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8547
8548 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8549 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8550 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8551 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8552
8553 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8554 of this document, or of portions of it,
8555 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8556 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8557 \f
8558 Local variables:
8559 mode: outline
8560 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
8561 end: